Seachange’s Amanda Gaskin on finding a work-life balance, growing her team and learning to say no

Seachange is an Auckland-based design studio with a portfolio defined by conceptual simplicity, playful typography and an unapologetic embrace of colour. Founded in 2017 by Tim Donaldson and Amanda Gaskin, their small team work collaboratively with clients from all over the world; creating everything from identities and packaging to custom typefaces and advertising campaigns. EM: How did you guys come together to form Seachange? AG: Tim and I met at my first job as a junior designer, where, as he likes to recount, I seduced him, but really it was the other way around; we’ve been living and working together ever since. After a 10 year stint in London, we moved home to New Zealand and the decision to start our own thing was very natural – it was always something we’d talked about. I think we both naively thought that being our own bosses was going to be all about work-life balance and spending time with our kids. Ha, we couldn’t have been more wrong.