AUCKLAND, Today: “Dear Ed,” writes Loren Tomlinson of digital marketing consultancy The Social Collective. “You must hear about my client Kristy Campbell, chief graphic designer at Pink Pony Creative. She has an incredible success story and I know your readers would love to hear it!
“After completing a hugely successful 100-day design challenge in late 2019, Kristy turned her passion-project Instagram page into a six-figure business. Her success has recently culminated in an invitation to speak on a world stage at Adobe Max, where she shared her inspiring journey.
“Her growing social media following of 160k on Instagram is also a testament to the impact she’s made in the design world on a global scale.
“In late 2019, after eight years in the graphic design industry working for several companies, Kristy set out to complete a 100-day design challenge where she would create an original design every day for 100 days and post each online to keep herself accountable.
“Not thinking twice about the silliness of the name, she called the Instagram page Pink Pony Creative and began her challenge in 2020.
“With inspiration from her life around her, she created logos, business card and flyer designs, packaging, website templates, and so much more.
“Within three short years, Kristy and her team have worked with businesses and people worldwide and embraced what she likes to call ‘an anything by boring’ aesthetic in design and business.
“Pink Pony creates daring designs, pushing the boundaries of branding through the combination of loud colour, quirky illustrations and stylised logos.”
“With a name like Pink Pony, you know she works a little differently! Pink Pony focuses on creating daring, vibrant and exciting designs, pushing the boundaries of branding through the combination of loud colour, quirky illustrations and stylised logos.
“Kristy continued to show up regularly on Instagram and TikTok, growing her online audience to over 404,000 across both platforms. Through snappy, educational videos, she displayed her work, ideas, journey, and understanding, which caught the eye of industry giant Adobe.
“After working on some collaborations with Adobe in early 2022, they invited Kristy to speak on a world stage at Adobe Max: The Creativity Conference (Los Angeles) in mid-October with headliners like DJ Steve Aoki, New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel and artist Kadir Nelson.
“After being selected for two sessions, Kristy spoke about her experience building an international brand, turbocharging a graphic design business and how Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign were used to take her business to the next level. From a 100-day design challenge to speaking on the global stage at Adobe Max, Kristy credits her consistency and efforts through social media, saying her profiles played a considerable role in securing her spot at the event.
‘Without social media, my business wouldn’t look the way it does today. It would be far less exciting. With the Internet, we can become location neutral so we can be everywhere and nowhere at the same time,’ she said.
She also credits her success to four strategies in which she grew her audience and gained the attention of companies like Adobe; embracing your vulnerability, keeping it consistent, creating share-worthy content, and focusing on the community. Using these core strategies, Pink Pony Creative secured their first major client in Saudi Arabia.
“Any business or personal brand can grow an audience; you need to find out what your audience likes and doesn’t like.
Once you’ve hit that sweet spot – you’ll create magic, and you never know the opportunities that will come out of it.”
“Kristy is developing a design course that will be available to purchase soon.”
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