Graphic Designer

& Photographer

 

My name is Jake Dempsey, an enthusiastic surfer, artist and environmentalist, who loves to create art, have fun and meet new people.

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I was lucky enough to grow up in Gerringong on the South Coast of Australia, watching dolphins and whales play from the rolling emerald hills that we called home. Every afternoon a new swirl of colour filled the afternoon sky before the first lucky star and the last wave to go in.

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I have over 10 years of experience working and studying within the Creative Arts realm, including but not limited to winning an internship with the St George Illawarra Dragons (based on the quality of artwork submitted for a theoretical design brief). After my last Tafe class, and during my first year at University, I had the honour of creating motion graphics and marketing material for the Official St George Illawarra Dragons NRL Team. My role involved coordinating graphics and photography for the official website, including web banners, e-Spots, professional photographs for social media, Facebook cover graphics, game day informational graphics for game day event co-ordination and motion graphics for the '2015 World Club Championships' as well as the 'In The Sheds' motion graphics for post match interviews hosted by Wendall Sailor.

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In my last year of University I threw myself into work experience and volunteer work for Green Connect, the now NSW Premier Award winning social enterprise in sustainability and environmental leadership. As a triple sustainability success story, Green Connect achieves strong environmental, social and economic outcomes to help a diverse, regional community prosper in the 21st century. My photographs are still used on their website and shown on the night Green Connect won the number one prize at the NSW Government’s Green Globe Awards, the Premier's Award for Environmental Excellence, the leading environmental awards in NSW. Here I co-founded 'Bakenga's Empathy' with Emmanuel Bakenga, former Congolese refugee, a charity supporting local former refugees and programs in the Congo and East Africa. In 2018 we sent our first recipient, Rita, to school. Rita said one day she will become a doctor. I made Emmanuel and Green Connect a Holographic for my last Wollongong University assignment, which was later exhibited on the Wollongong University's Creative Arts Open Day and again in the Project Contemporary Artspace DigiTart Festival. The exhibition went on to be the catalyst for Emmanuel to be presented by Wollongong City Council an Australia Day award for his outstanding contribution to the Wollongong community. To me, being able to create a holographic was the pinnacle in graphic design. I wanted to not only prove to myself and my peers the level of my skills that I had evolved throughout my studies of Creative Arts, but to invite the audience to realise that the future is now, the time for learning from past wars is now, past mistakes in pollution and greed; to understand that the future is not for a better tomorrow, but for a better today.

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Before the end of my last semester at University, I was offered a full time role as Graphic Designer and Content Coordinator with Office Brands, Australia's largest independent distributor of office supplies. Consistency was key in designing for three brands across 170 individual stores around Australia. Designing for three brands meant I needed to follow three different colour palettes, three different sets of fonts and follow three  separate brand guidelines on a daily basis. I designed and coordinated the content for 170 stores Australia wide, each with individual websites and Facebook pages, multiple Instagram accounts, multiple Youtube and Pinterest accounts, personalised point of sale print promotion including flyers, catalogues and posters, sending over 100,000 eDM's a week, close to 5 million eDM's a year and keeping over a million views on our webpages a month. I had my artwork and photographs published within thousands of copies of reputable Australian business catalogues, dispatched across the country, which gave me invaluable experience and confidence with strict deadlines, preparing artwork for high quality print and a keen eye for proofing digital and printed marketing material for various brands across multiple marketing platforms.

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I have always had a keen eye for art and love that I can blend what I do as a career with what I love to do for fun. I can't wait for my next adventure and will always be open to chat about potential future projects together.

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