If you’re interested in the graphic design and visual identity space, you might be familiar with Kristy Campbell. The Auckland designer runs a bold, buzzy branding agency, Pink Pony Creative, which she started after taking part in an eye-opening 100-day design challenge on Instagram. We caught up with Kristy during our recent trip to Miami for Adobe MAX 2024, where she shared all of her expertise on managing a team and using authenticity to attract clients.  

What was the branding and design scene like when you were growing up in New Zealand? I imagine that, like Australia, branding probably wasn’t really spoken about while you were at school. Yeah, even at university, when it came to branding and visual identity design, no one really spoke about it. It was kind of an industry that you didn't even know was there. I graduated in 2014, so it was heavily print-focused at that time, and there wasn't a whole lot about visual identity and branding itself.

For me, design and visual identity design started having more of an impact when I joined Instagram as a designer – I built a page for design, and I started following designers. That's when I started immersing myself more in the creative industry. Before that, I was just working for others and doing what everyone else told me to do, so I wasn't really immersed in the industry.

How did you end up moving into the branding space? It was all with social media. I actually started my Instagram account in 2019 as a 100-day design challenge, because at my previous job, I was feeling really creatively drained. I was working for a one-brand business, designing the same colours and fonts for two years in a row, and I was ready to learn new skills and do something else. That's when I decided to take action. I built an Instagram page to post my work for 100 days for that challenge, and then I started to get some leads coming in and inquiries. That’s when I was like, “Oh, this could actually be something instead of just a fun page.” I registered the company name in 2020 and just gave it a go. When I started to build my personal design style, people started recognising me for things. That's when the agency started going really well and I started building my team.

Where did the name Pink Pony Creative come from? I mean, it was literally as simple as: I loved pink and I loved ponies when I was younger – although in my personal life, I never wear pink. I'm a black-outfit girl through and through.

But when it came to naming my Instagram page, I was like, “That's fun. It feels personal to me.” And I just kept coming back to it. My gut was telling me that was the right name. And then when I registered the company name, I was like, “Is this a good idea?” Because it felt really playful and youthful – too much so – and I was worried that it would deter clients. But actually, it has done the opposite. And the brand itself now is so bold and out there and visual and daring that I get those clients coming to me for the same kind of work, so it's actually really paid off in the long term.

Have you always taken that strategy of trying to be a little tongue-in-cheek with things or has it evolved over time? I think it's evolved because I built my career for seven years before I had my own business. Then when I started my own business, I was really scared and just wanted to fit in and be like everyone else and do work like everyone else – you don't want to be too ‘out there’ or too ‘weird’. And then I realised that it was actually the thing that was setting me apart: my personality. In my personal life, I'm very playful and witty and I joke around – I don't take things too seriously – so I started pulling that into my work and the way that I write – even in my captions and my posts – so that has allowed me to continue to grow. It's taken a while to build that confidence to know that being myself is OK and that it's what people actually come to me for.

You started as a one-woman show. Have you brought on a team over the years? Yeah, I’ve brought on a small team. I've got four full-time designers and an accounts manager who works part-time and does admin enquiries and things. She's actually my sister, which is great. When I started the Instagram page and registered the company name, I never set out to have a team. I'm really bad at confrontation and I'd never managed people in my life, so when I started to get busy, it felt like a natural progression.

It obviously comes with its challenges, but now I've found my groove a bit more, and I've started to build the confidence in being a bit more confrontational when I need to be. And growing a team is awesome, because obviously I wouldn't have done it without them – they do about 90 per cent of the work and I'm pretty much creatively directing them.

What was the moment that you thought, “OK, I need to hire someone now. This is getting too big for me to manage on my own.”? When you start building your portfolio and putting yourself out there more on social media, you start to get more attention and more leads. I had shared a video on TikTok and it went viral … I had like 40 inquiries in one day. And that's when I was like, “Holy… I need to do something about this. I think now's the time to bring on someone a few hours a week,” which I did, just contracting really casually. I just walked my way slowly into it, and then that contractor started to get busy. I think it was at a point where she might have been doing, say, 10 or 15 hours a week, and I thought, “This is where I need to make a decision whether to hire someone full-time or not.” And I just decided to go for it. It was really scary because I'd never dealt with contracts for employees before, but it all paid off.

We interview a lot of business owners, and one thing that keeps coming up in our conversations is that moment when a small-business owner needs to decide, “OK, I either need to hire more people and potentially move to a bigger place, or stay small and be comfortable just making enough money to support myself.” It’s a fine line because once you commit to hiring more people, then you've got to be able to pay them. What influenced your decision to pursue growing the business rather than just taking on the work that you could do on your own and nothing else? I was working massive hours. And the client work, the load of that, was stressing me out. I was at a point where I was speaking to a friend who also owned a business and had a few employees at the time, and I was saying, “I'm really stressed out. I feel like I need to hire someone.” And she said to me, “If you're feeling like you need to hire someone, then you're beyond needing to hire someone.” And I just took that advice and ran with it, and it has worked ever since then.

But it's so scary because you're basically funding someone else's lifestyle, so that felt really intimidating and overpowering at the time. My dad, who's basically my mentor, he's very business savvy and he's done a lot in his life with business, so he's helped me along the way so much. When I was making that decision about hiring someone full-time, he said, “You know, it doesn't have to be linear like you think it does. You don't have to hire someone for 40 hours a week. You can ease into it and put an ad out saying ‘Hey, this is going to be a 30-hours-a-week position with the intention to grow.’” And I did that, and the employee that I got for 30 hours a week eventually did 40 hours within two weeks, and I was like, “Wow, I do have the work for her.” It just frees up your time to be able to do more in your own business, which is amazing.

At the moment, what does your day-to-day look like? Oh, it's definitely not as creative as I'd like it to be. Predominantly, the hat that I wear the most is marketing and sales, because the work funnels through me because of my personal brand on LinkedIn and TikTok and Instagram. I spend a lot of time creating content. It’s a weird feeling because I'll be sitting there on a Friday, which is my ‘content day’, filming videos, and I feel kind of ridiculous because I'm filming these somewhat silly videos for my social media, but then that literally fuels the whole business. So it has to be done.

But I'm actually five months’ pregnant, so I’m trying to build my team up so I can remove myself a little bit while I go on maternity leave and enjoy the first few years or stages of motherhood. It's going to change a lot in the next year, but I'm excited.

Do you think it'll be hard for you to let go? Definitely. It is always so hard, and I've struggled with it, to be honest, ever since I started hiring people. I've gotten better at it, but it's just like a muscle. I guess the more you let go, the better that gets. And, especially with a team, you've got to give them room to grow as well. If you don't give them the opportunity, they're not going to build up to that opportunity and do well. Every time I've given them more room to grow, they've just proven how good they can be, which is awesome.

Other than motherhood, what's next for you? Our client work at the moment is the one thing that I'm really proud of, and there are a lot of projects coming up that are awesome. We’ve started working with a theme park enterprise in America, which is something I never thought I'd get a chance to do.

Adobe MAX is definitely the last big speaking session I'll probably do, but I honestly hope to be back in no time, and there are other things coming in the background as well, or just big dreams that I've got. I mean, one day I'd love to do a TEDx talk, which is a big goal, and write a book and all those cool things. So hopefully if I keep working hard, even though I’ll have a baby, hopefully it'll all come true.

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