Niamh Byron

After graduating from the University of Huddersfield in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, I was ready to discover what kind of designer I wanted to be – that’s when I joined Fishtank Agency as a Junior Graphic Designer- fresh out of university in May 2021.

From the moment I joined Fishtank, I was diving straight into team projects and working with big brands such as Britvic, Berry Global and one of our smaller international clients Artis Flooring in Australia. Having worked at Fishtank for over a year now, it’s fair to say I have gained invaluable skills when it comes to working as a multimedia designer and have experienced many aspects of working in a digital agency that I didn’t learn at university, like meeting clients’ needs and expectations.

I think keeping your reference material fresh and updated is the best way to grow as a designer.

I have skills in many visual aspects from branding to 3D visuals, but my specialities fall within editorial and compositional design. Before joining the Fishtank team, I worked freelance alongside my university education which gave me a good example of the pacing and different areas that a designer works in. I enjoy working with both 2D and 3D graphics and Fishtank is the place where I want to showcase and grow these skills even further.

I believe that inspiration comes from anywhere. You can always find me scrolling on Behance or Instagram checking out the latest design trends, or browsing various creative markets for fonts and colour schemes. I have a huge collection of textures, fonts, swatches and materials which are scattered across my computer desktop and actual desktop.

One thing that I am notorious for in the office is a messy artboard. I have moved the mess from my desk and into the digital world. If the file is less than 250MB, I haven’t worked on it yet. I feel it is helpful to explore every possible visual route, and paste it all in a growing radius of images around the tiny artboard I work on. It’s important to get everything on the screen so you can have some headspace to work on what’s important.

Life Outside Fishtank

I love to animate! I have a collection of 5-15 second animations I have been working on in my personal time to develop my skills in After Effects. I love body rigging and face animations the most, starting with a base file in Illustrator and moving everything onto separate layers to bring the work to life with keyframes – Precomps are your best friend! I also love 3D design! I mostly used Cinema4D in university and have been experiencing the transition to Blender this year – just voxel remesh everything and add a subdivision surface and you’ll be good! I have also been experimenting with 3D sculpting faces and objects – a little more complex than modelling with shapes and edges but can produce some hilarious-looking sculptures! Everyone has to start somewhere…

Bucket List Best Bits

Everything on my bucket list revolves around animals in some way and one goal is to visit the Miyagi Zao Fox Village in Japan – a tourist attraction where visitors can feed and interact with hundreds of foxes.