Our prized Members of Family each come with their own award-winning set of creative and writing skills, industry knowledge and international experience.

Together, we are a powerful bunch that not only bring a raft of ideas to the table, we all ensure your project is handled with the best of care from beginning to end.

The Family studio is always full of energy and our backgrounds enable us to provide clients with a fully integrated service that is unlike anywhere else.

Beyond work, the commonalities we share are spending time with family and friends, music, art, fashion, surfing, wellbeing, eating, drinking and enjoying life in the Bay of Plenty.

Karl Patterson

Karl Patterson

Senior Designer

Karl has recently moved to the Bay after spending three years abroad working for Leo Burnett in Sydney. During his time there he worked on award winning brands such as WWF, Earth Hour, Canon, McDonalds, eBay, Bundaberg Rum, Subaru, Lifebouy and many more. Growing up in Auckland, Karl spent his early years in design working in the family business with his father. He loves the challenge of coming up with great ideas and enjoys seeing all of the creative elements come together. Karl joins Family as a Senior Designer who believes that culture and creative flair come hand in hand when producing great work. He looks forward to working in the Family studio across a range of projects and advancing his skill base within the advertising world. Karl has an exciting year ahead settling into a new home with his wife Jess and first baby on the way (Mini GP). In his downtime you'll find Karl spending time with his family (a twin and one of 5 boys) in the kitchen, on the basketball court or golf course, at the beach or relaxing with a cold beer in hand.

Michelle Harper

Michelle Harper

Graphic Designer

Michelle, a true mount local, has lived and designed in the bay for 6 years bringing her experience in print design, branding and advertising to the Family. She is passionate about the Bay of Plenty and loves being a part of the ever-changing creative community here. Over the years Michelle has had the opportunity to work with a variety of large corporate clients to small business owners and loves to be involved in every part of the design process and journey. Michelle began her career in a local Tauranga advertising agency learning the tricks of the trade from an early age. There she grew from junior designer to looking after major key accounts and clients. Moving on to an in-house designing role, Michelle learnt how to manage projects on her own growing her creativity and knowledge across all design aspects. Michelle now loves being back in a design studio where she can input and soak up all the creative juices the Family team has to offer. Taking pride in having an eye for detail and getting things right – she loves to make sure clients get what they need, when they need it. You'll usually find Michelle with coffee in hand and her eye on a new pair of shoes (that she doesn't need) or cheering on the mighty Vodafone Warriors with her sports crazy husband.

Ellie Hemmings

Ellie Hemmings

Graphic Designer

Ellie has recently graduated with a bachelor of media arts majoring in Graphic Design where she finished at the top of her class and received an award for excellence in packaging. In the past year after graduating Ellie has spent her time doing freelance work for various companies and also for a Waikato based magazine designing the layouts and advertisements. She has recently returned from Queenstown where she worked at a local Graphic Design agency on a short term contract. This gave her experience in dealing with a diverse range of clients interpreting what they want as well as using her design skills and creativity, to produce a final product they are happy with. Ellie is now very excited to be living in the beautiful Bay of Plenty, working with the awesome team at Family Design Co and adding her quirky design to various projects. Ellie has a love and passion for all things design. In her spare time she enjoys nothing more than researching many aspects of design and designers with a focus on contemporary design and art. She also loves illustrating, painting and photography using both darkroom and digital. Outside of the design world Ellie enjoys going out and socialising with family and friends, soaking up the sun at the beach, hunting through the op shops looking for that thing she just has to buy, and of course drinking good coffee and wine.