Designer takes life in her own hands

POSTER CHILD: Nikki King, with the poster for Pokey LaFarge which helped launch her design career - after 10 years out of the workforce.

After a decade of not working and tired of rejection letters, Carterton's Nikki King decided to go it alone - and is now doing designs for some of the rising stars in the music industry.

Mrs King is the founder and manager of Fuzzbox Designs, a graphic design home business specialising in posters, flyers, web pages and logos.

Since starting the company in September she has designed gig posters for such artists as Pokey LaFarge and Passenger, has done web banners for overseas metal bands, and logos for Wairarapa and Wellington businesses.

It's a far cry from a couple of years back, when she could barely land a job interview.

A former recruitment consultant, she struggled to find work after being out of the workforce for 10 years as a stay-at-home mum of three.

"I didn't have any current work experience on my CV - so, I wasn't even getting interviews," said Mrs King, originally from Lancashire in the UK.

"You always hope someone will look beyond what's on the paper, but nothing was happening. I thought I could either start all over again and work at a supermarket, or set up my own business."

Mrs King first dabbled in designing and making posters as a hobby in 2009, after teaching herself graphic design.

"You can teach yourself anything on the internet," she said.

Last year she was approached by Wairarapa music promotions company Up With People, which asked her to make gig posters for touring musicians and King Street Live Events.

However, her career took off after she designed a poster for US blues musician Pokey LaFarge's Wellington, Masterton and Hawke's Bay gigs - which caught the attention of Wellington promotions company Mystery Girl.

Since then Mrs King has designed gig posters for US punk rockers The Meat Puppets, Australian dance act Rufus, folk group Boy and Bear, and UK acoustic artist Passenger - whose single Let Her Go topped the charts worldwide.

"I was like, 'oh my God, it's Passenger - [he's] really big'," said Mrs King, who designed the Pokey LaFarge poster based on an image of The Big Bopper from the 1950s.

"I'd previously only done A3 posters in Wairarapa, but these were going to be A0 and plastered all over Wellington.

"So I had to teach myself Adobe Illustrator to scale everything properly."

Mrs King has also designed posters for Iberia, logos for the Palmerston North Brass Band, Wellington company Happy Belly Foods and various local musicians, web banners for US drone metal band Earth, and flyers for Mana's Te Hamua Nikora.

"After Pokey, everything snowballed," she said.

"That poster did me a lot of favours."

She said running a business has its challenges - but she finds being back in work after a long break "really empowering".

"It can be tough being a woman in IT - people always expect a man, so you have to do everything that much better," she said.

"After 10 years off, I have to prove myself and always put out a quality product. You do get the wobbles - but nothing beats that good feeling when you land a new client."

She said her biggest supporters are her husband Pete and sons Sam, 11, William, 8, and Eddie, 7.

For more information on Fuzzbox Designs, contact Nikki King on 06 379 5405 or 021 193 5455, via email at nikki@fuzzbox.co.nz, or visit www.fuzzbox.co.nz.