EPeeps Kate Reddington | Design Lead – Content

Tēnā koutou katoa
Nō Aerana me Kōtirana ōku tīpuna
I tipu ake au ki Ōtepoti
Kei te noho au ki Tamaki Makaurau ināianei
Kei te EP e mahi ana
Ko Kate tōku ingoa
Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa

I’m Kate! 

My background
My background is in psychology, design and education. 

Why do you love working at EP?
It’s been such a privilege to join the EP whānau. I love the energy, the passion and the generosity of spirit of every EPeep I have connected with. The willingness to grow, learn and contribute is super inspiring. I have loved every opportunity to meet new people and groups across the organisation.

Tell us a bit about yourself! (at work)
I sort of fell into teaching. After working in the creative industry for a few years, with a side-gig tutoring short courses in the Adobe suite – I was invited to teach digital design full time at Yoobee School of Design. I loved it more than I could have imagined. 

Sharing knowledge, learning from students, seeing their confidence grow and watching the amazing projects they produced was such a blast. 

While teaching design and digital media at Yoobee School of Design I studied adult teaching and learning and also expanded my digital media practice, performing live visuals, and continuing freelance projects. 

A slight sideways step into curriculum design for NCEA creative industries with Youth Guarantee led me to expand my interest in teaching and learning for younger learners, particularly those with learning differences. This led to specialising in embedding literacy and numeracy into a wide range of vocational courses alongside media design and production for learning. 

A move to Auckland had me switching gears to financial capability for an autonomous crown entity – working on coaching and behaviour change programmes and more recently as the Sorted Website Lead.  

While I loved working and learning in the fincap and government space, my heart was nudging me back to education. My new role at EP is a wonderful fit – combining strategy, collaboration and creativity in an education environment, it’s exactly where I want to be.

What do you look forward to most in your role?
My role here is Design Lead for content. We’re working on a clear direction for content design at EP learning. This means discovering what quality learning looks like right now, and building a vision for what we want EP learning to look like in the future, with a collective plan to get there. I’m pumped.

What are you most excited about? 
We’ll be revisiting and regenerating our pedagogical principles, our lesson design and our approach to creative media and interactivity. 

We’re listening to our audiences and looking at user patterns to help us choose the best areas of design to focus on. We’ll be learning and growing our skills to keep making cool learning experiences that educators and learners continue to love.

I’m looking forward to working with our teams to build a design vision that everyone feels connected to and excited about!

Why become an EPeep?
What I am enjoying most so far is the collaboration at EP. Everyone is so generous with their time and knowledge, and there is this beautiful atmosphere of openness. 

There is a freedom to share and build on ideas together, both within the wonderful Design & Quality team I’m part of, and across the wider content, leadership and product teams. 

Come work with us! 

Tell us a bit about yourself! (personal)
Outside of the energising and inspiring world of EP, I love to walk, dance, bike, see live music, go hiking, shoot hoops, learn about Te Ao Māori and Te Reo and visit friends and family throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. 

Sometimes I also really enjoy sitting and reading or streaming TV. It’s about balance, I think. 

What book/movie/music/podcast etc has been a big influence on you?
I am a huge reader, music and podcast listener so the answer to this could be its own article. Here are a couple of my recommendations:

Books (Find me on Goodreads, three isn’t enough)

  • A New Earth by Eckart Tolle
  • Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly
  • Pretty Ugly: Rebellion in design

Music (This too, is extremely challenging to narrow down. I’m into collaborative playlists on Spotify, hmu ????)

  • SAULT
  • Glass Vaults
  • Solange

Podcasts (This was harder – recommendations welcome!)

  • Invisibilia
  • The Happiness Lab with Dr Laurie Santos
  • Taringa

What advice would you pass on to a younger version of yourself?
“Ahakoa whati te manga, e takoto ana anō te kōhiwi
Although the branch is broken off, the trunk remains.
Misfortunes will not undermine an individual or group if the foundations are strong.”
(I learned this Whakataukī from the wonderful pukapuka Aroha by Dr Hinemoa Elder)

Ka kite anō au i a koutou