Rachel Hettinga

Designer - Developer

Profile

Profile - Rachel Hettinga

Driven by design and development that has purpose, is functional yet emotionally rich.

I thrive while spanning disciplines, bringing together teams or working independantly, aimed at making experiences that are clean, accessible, well thought out, and delightful.

Women creating wireframes

As a designer, developer, and strong communicator, I offer a unique skill set that allows me to seamlessly bridge the gap between these worlds and enables me to effectively engage with clients and proficiently manage large-scale projects.

Resume

Professional

2011 - Present

Freelance Graphic Designer + Web Developer
Spoke Studio • North America Wide

  • Provided comprehensive design and WordPress development services to small to medium-sized businesses then transitioned to long-term partnerships with corporations and design agencies
  • Crafted branding strategies, email and social campaigns, advertisements, custom websites, and created unique printed materials.
  • Collaborated effectively with clients, subcontractors, and fellow freelancers on diverse projects, fostering an environment of innovation and creativity.
  • Managed multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring timely and high-quality deliverables.
  • Implemented targeted email marketing campaigns and optimized social media profiles for clients, with a focus on performance tracking and reporting.
  • Cultivated a strong professional network within the region, contributing to the rapid expansion of client base and fostering enduring professional relationships.

2021 - 2023

Web Designer / Developer
Tétro Design • Winnipeg, MB – remote based

  • Developed custom websites utilizing WordPress as the core platform, leveraging Divi and integrating custom sections and functionalities tailored to client requirements.
  • Executed large-scale projects, communicating closely with clients throughout the project lifecycle. Facilitated collaborative discussions, presented project updates, and provided strategic insights to enhance site navigations, wireframes, and designs.
  • Focused heavily on the UX/UI of website and tested the designs with targeted user groups, incorporating feedback to refine user experiences and optimize site performance.
  • Addressed client needs by walking through their site with them, and creating custom training videos for each project, empowering clients to effectively manage and maintain their websites post-launch.

2019 - 2023

Graphic Designer
Thinkshift is a top Design Agency in Canada that focuses on the agricultural industry. Remote Based

  • Collaborated closely with a Creative Director to execute multiple client projects, ensuring strict adherence to brand guidelines and delivering high-quality design solutions
  • Created a diverse range of visual assets including display ads, social media ads, infographics, packaging labels, website landing pages, PPT presentations, and animated banners, effectively communicating client messages and enhancing brand visibility.
  • Operated as a hybrid designer, transitioning between in-office and remote work environments, demonstrating adaptability and maintaining consistent productivity levels irrespective of location.

2020 - Present

Founder + Lead Designer
Palm to Pine Apparel • West Coast based from Canada to Mexico

  • Founded and cultivated Palm to Pine, an apparel company catering to individuals traversing from coastal palms to mountainous pines, chasing the wind, water or waves.
  • Conducted extensive supplier research to procure high-quality, eco-friendly materials for product lines, prioritizing comfort and sustainability.
  • Established partnerships with screen printers and embroiderers across Canada, USA, and Mexico to ensure quality and diversity in product customization.
  • Developed an intuitive eCommerce platform using WordPress and WooCommerce, seamlessly integrated with multiple Print on Demand suppliers to streamline operations and expand product offerings.
  • Utilized Procreate, Adobe Fresco, and Illustrator to illustrate captivating designs for print, reflecting the brand’s ethos of adventure and exploration.

2018-2020

Graphic + Web Designer
Calm Air is a commercial airline based in Winnipeg that services Northern Manitoba and Nunavut into the Arctic.

  • Collaborated with the Marketing Director to develop comprehensive advertising strategies encompassing print and online mediums, effectively promoting Calm Air’s services in Northern Manitoba and Nunavut, extending into the Arctic.
  • Designed engaging weekly emails and campaigns tailored to target both existing and potential customers, driving brand engagement and fostering customer loyalty.
  • Spearheaded the creation of internal branding materials for reward points and weekly promotions, ensuring consistency and alignment with Calm Air’s brand identity across all touchpoints.
  • Embarked on journeys to Northern regions, producing compelling videos that garnered significant social media traction, reaching an audience of nearly 20,000 individuals within a single week.
  • Designed custom products for airport use, including baggage carriers and signage, enhancing the overall airport experience and reinforcing Calm Air’s brand presence.

2015-2017

WordPress Instructor
Skillcrush • Online
Skillcrush is a NYC based online school with a focus on empowering women looking to get into the tech world.

  • Developed comprehensive lesson plans and conducted webinars adhering to Skillcrush’s brand standards, facilitating effective learning experiences for students
  • Engaged in remote communication with the Skillcrush team and students through various online platforms, ensuring seamless interaction and support throughout the learning process.
  • Collaborated actively with the curriculum development team, contributing insights and expertise to shape responsive, mobile-first web development courses, aligning with industry best practices and emerging trends.
  • Acquired extensive proficiency in WordPress theme development, GIT Version Control, and WPEngine, enriching the instructional content and ensuring students receive up-to-date and relevant training.

2011 - 2015

Graphic + Web Designer – Creative Lead
FB Hospitality Group is a service provider for over 10 different stand alone restaurants in Winnipeg.

  • Spearheaded creative direction for over 10 stand-alone restaurants, from inception to establishment, serving as the primary creative lead throughout.
  • Conceptualized and executed comprehensive branding initiatives, encompassing menu design, advertising campaigns, social media content, email marketing, website development, and signage, ensuring a cohesive brand identity for each establishment.
  • Collaborated closely with local printing companies to source high-quality materials and produce custom designs, enhancing the visual appeal and durability of marketing collateral.
  • Facilitated seamless communication with managers and head chefs to ensure menu accuracy and effectively promote specials and events, aligning with each restaurant’s unique identity and target audience.
  • Crafted compelling copy for menus, advertising materials, and social media platforms, tailoring messaging to resonate with diverse target audiences and maintaining consistency in brand voice.
  • Established and led a creative team, overseeing contractors for photography, videography, and SEO optimization, fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment.

Education

2008-2011

Advanced Diploma In Multimedia Productions
Confederation College •  Thunder Bay, ON

Multimedia Productions was a three year course that allowed the students to build a strong foundation in all aspects of the industry. I studied animation (2D & 3D), sound production, film production, photography, business, web design, WordPress, front and back end development, and graphic design.

Our third year allowed us to focus on what we were passionate about and included a 4 month internship, which I completed at one of the top agencies in Winnipeg. Graduating, with honors, the course prepared me to be fully aware of all different aspects of the industry with a specialization in graphic design, web design and front-end development.

Involvement

2015-Present

Ladies Learning Code • Canada Learning Code

This wonderful organization, now Canada Learning Code, runs programs focusing on empowering women to get into the tech world. I have instructed full day WordPress course, and have mentored at multiple events, helping women of all ages learn new skills.

2015-Present

WordCamp

I Try To Attend As Many WordCamps As Possible. I Have Spoke At 2 WordCamps In Winnipeg, And You Can See My Talk I Did At The Winnipeg Event Here.

The Offline Version

Portfolio

THL

Alice Ford

Palm to Pine

SubZero North

Marymound

Futures Forward

SurReal Ponchos

APTN Lumi

YES Manitoba

Baja CaraVana

South Beach Casino

Elevation Kiteboarding

Calm Air

Trading Post Eatery

Herzing College

Red Lake Adventure Guide

The Middle Finger Project

Prairie 360

Body Mind + Soul

Barley Brothers

Brick + Beam

Tom Veert Contracting

Insight Financial

THL

Description

THL, Tourism Holding Group, is a global RV Company that owns some of the biggest Motorhome companies across the globe. They rent, sell and build custom motorhomes. I initually started within the company doing graphic design and building design assets for RV Super Centre, a nationwide RV Sales comapny in New Zealand, and then moved to helping with rentals and doing design assets for Apollo, Britz, Maui, and all their NZ/Australia rental brands.

Each project would start with a brief, then I would design multiple design concepts. Once a design was chosen, we would build out both static and animated digital assets for the website, social media, email newsletters, GDN and what ever else was needed.

Details

Graphic Design

 

Alice Ford

Description

Alice Ford is a stunt woman, and also incredible adventurer who shares her travels with the world. She was looking for some new designs for some merch that featured her Jeep, her travels and some of her favourite phrases. After the initial chat with Alice, I knew this would be a fun project and illustrated these custom graphics for her to sell to her community.

Details

Illustration design

Procreate

Palm to Pine

Description

Palm to Pine is an apparel company that is based on the Pacific coast of North America. It focuses on the people that chase the wind, the water and the waves, and brings high quality clothing and hats.

I created the brand as a passion project to combine my love for graphic design and water sports and the natural migration, following the sun and wind, from Canada to Mexico was the inspiration.

The online shop is ran through WooCommerce on WordPress and is directly linked to print on demand products that link the consumer directly to the printer. The shirts are printed then can be shipped globally.

Using the same high quality shirts, I also have stock in Mexico, where I work with local printers and sell at markets and in stores. This was an incredible way to fully understand the different print processes and to work with print samples, colours, threads, embroidery tools and textiles.

Details

Custom WordPress website using Divi and WooCommerce and linked to Print on Demand products.

SubZero North

Description

SubZero North offers testing facilities in the freezing North of Canada and were looking for a full rebrand and refresh of their company. Working with Tetro Design, I was able to design and develop a clean, responsive and dynamic website that was able to showcase their new brand and company! The website is built on WordPress, and displays their current temperature, custom icons, and side navigation on the inner pages.

Marymound

Description

Marymound is an incredible organization that needed a new look. Along side Tétro Design we created an organized site map, with secondary page navigation, and custom sections/blocks, that were designed to be used universally throughout the site. Added Job listing functionalities and custom sections. Accessibility was a very important to Marymound, and we had rigorous testing before launching.

Details

Custom WordPress Theme, PHP

Futures Forward

Description

Futures Forward is an amazing organization that helps youth that are transitioning out of support to into adulthood. Along side Tetro Design, we were able to create a website that houses a huge amount of content and breaks it down into organized categories. We worked with targeted user groups to give feedback the design and initial layouts so that it would engage and not intimate. We ensured that the website was mobile first and that social media was highlighted. We broke down the content into smaller categories then added dynamic sidebars to the internal pages to ensure all topics were easy to find.

Because we wanted the user to be able to find what they were looking for fast, we integrated the search bar into the header, global sections found throughout the site and in the footer.

The entire website was built on WordPress with the Divi builder and custom coded sections that are easy to update by the user. We trained the staff on how to regularly update the site and created tutorial resources so they could use them as reference down the road.

Details

Custom WordPress website with the Divi builder

SurReal Ponchos

Description

SurReal Ponchos is a fun poncho brand based in La Ventana Mexico. Starting off as a local product, the owner wanted to expand and offer her ponchos online! As there are many colours, we choose some of the most popular combinations, then set a photoshoot with a setting that could be replicated easily in the future if more colours are introduced, and found fun ways to name the combinations! Then came the online work, we built the site on Shopify and linked it to her current inventory. We wanted to keep the design fun and neutral and to let the photos be the dominate feature.

It was incredible to watch the brand grow, and now the brand is available throughout the US in retail shops, online and also in Mexico!

Details

Shopify eCommerce.

APTN Lumi

Description

I was so excited to work with this project. I was asked by an incredible agency, Think Shift to help launch this campaign to promote APTN’s new streaming service. We created a concept, then went into production for online ads, physical ads, and video. It was awesome to work with the agency and see the design driving throughout the city only weeks later!

YES Manitoba

Description

YES Manitoba is a wonderful organization for youth looking for employment coming out of high school. I worked along side Tétro Design, an amazing agency in Winnipeg, and developed a custom site for YES. We wanted it to be easy to navigate, and after doing target group testing we were able to come up with a design that not only looked good, but was made for the next generation.

Baja CaraVana

Description

Baja Caravana is a fun rental company based in Baja Mexico! They rent 3 wheeled Tuk Tuks to travellers in a small and windy beach town called La Ventana. We wanted the branding to be fun and playful just like the company, so we used a bright colour pallet inspired by colours used in Mexican art, and added movement and flow like the rentals.

 

Details

Branding, Web Design, Illustrations, Icon Design, Graphic Design

South Beach Casino

Description

South Beach Casino approached me to help them design a mailer that went to over 10,000 homes. We wanted to make it fun and inviting, and give the potential customer something to entice them and invite them to check out the casino. We brought in thousands of new customers and had outstanding results based on the design, concept and targeted audience. It was a fun project, and elements of this design have now been incorporated into their brand throughout different forms of media.

Details

Graphic Design, Custom printed mailers linked to a spreadsheet of thousands of addresses.

Elevation Kiteboarding

Description

Elevation Kiteboarding is one of my favourite companies to work with! We completely overhauled their website to create an up to date responsive design and an online shop powered by Shopify. Over Covid, lessons were not an option in Canada, so we brought their beach shop to the online world and boosted sales incredibly. We paired that with regular emails and social media campaigns that reached a larger audience and created more brand awareness.

Details

This website is built on the Shoplify platform, and email campaigns are done through Mailchimp.

Calm Air

Description

I was fortunate enough to work with Calm Air for close to 2 years, and in that time we dramatically revamped their brand and marketing materials. We launched many inhouse campaigns, produced festivals and signage throughout all of Manitoba and Nunavut. This was a passion project for me as I fell in love with the North and the places that Calm Air reached.

Throughout this project we restructured the existing WordPress site, created signage for airports, and designed ads for magazines and social media. I was not just a designer, I was helping with marketing campaigns and even had the chance to travel North and help record a small marketing video which received over 30,000 organic views on Facebook alone.

Trading Post Eatery

Description

Trading Post Eatery is a fun restaurant in Mexico that wanted a new brand and menu design. I wanted to add in the skeleton as it represents Mexico, but then add a fun and playful twist with the bottle and the sandwich. I was very well received, and the owner even had it tattooed! I created weekly menus, wrote fun and playful copy, and updated their website with their specials.

Herzing College

Description

In collaboration with Honest Agency, based out of Winnipeg, we developed a custom and very dynamic theme for Herzing College. The design was provided by the agency, and I developed the theme so that every aspect was customizable throughout the site.

The site is very content heavy, but as there are blocks and sections throughout that are repeated, we established “global blocks” that could be modified and added and removed from each page. The course finder located on the home page is dynamically generated and allows the client to have full control over the content being shown.

Every part of this site has been built with clean and reliable code (very little use of plugins) and is built to have strong SEO and is mobile friendly.

Red Lake Adventure Guide

Description

Red Lake Publicity Board approached me to redesign their Adventure Guide. We did a total revamp of the current document in a month, including a large pull out map. There were 10,000 copies printed and distributed.

You can view the guide here.

The Middle Finger Project

Description

Working with Ash for over two years, she was truly a client that I loved working with! She has since moved on to different platforms and is focused more on her emails, but while I was working with her we went through multiple refreshes and built out many lead generating landing pages.  Ash already had a great site powered by WordPress when I met her, but she needed new features and updates. The website was quite slow and was not responsive, so I pulled the site apart and rebuilt the theme with a mobile first approach and to establish better SEO.

The website is powered by custom fields, and every part of the content is customizable in the backend. This was very important to Ash, as she was rapidly growing and wanted to control her content. We recreated the site the site with a builder that complemented the custom areas.

After publishing a book with Penguin Random House, we created many landing pages, and email campaigns to build up the stoke around the book. We also moved her online courses from Kajabi to Thinktific and I was able to code custom parts into the Thinktific platform for her users.

Prairie 360

Description

Prairie 360 is a high end revolving restaurant in downtown Winnipeg. Starting with the logo I really wanted to portray the skyline you see while dining, and give it a prairie feel. Once the logo was established we moved onto the web design, menu design and advertising. Overall we wanted a high end but still local feel.

Body Mind + Soul

Description

Body Mind and Soul rebrand was done in collaboration with BrandHabit, an amazing studio focused on wellness websites and brands. I was approached to create a clean logo, utilizing the current design, but updating the style. We worked to build the logo, brand standards and then redesigned the website.

Barley Brothers

Description

Barley Brothers is a Winnipeg based craft beer restaurant that now carries the most taps in Canada! They wanted a local and professional feel to their branding and advertisements. Starting with the logo, I wanted to have grain incorporated, and the owners really wanted to see the maple leaf incorporated. They wanted a bright yellow to represent beer and to attract attention. After the logo was established we moved onto menu design and web design, then advertising.

Details

Company: Barley Brothers

Skills: Branding, Web Design, WordPress, Graphic Design

Brick + Beam

Description

Brick and Beam is a luxury loft rental company in Winnipeg. Their name is representative of their spaces, which are the classic industrial style. I created a custom WordPress theme that allows them to easily update the content and have control over all the aspects of their site. They have amazing spaces, so I wanted the website to showcase their photos and display their content cleanly.

Details

Company:

Brick and Beam

Skills:

Branding • Web Design • WordPress Custom Theme • Graphic Design

Tom Veert Contracting

Description

I am always excited when I can work for companies in the small town that I grew up in. Tom Veert has been growing through the years and needed a new clean and professional website to reflect that. I put together this custom WordPress theme and trained the staff how to update and change all the content.

Insight Financial

Description

Insight Financial is a group of financial advisors in Winnipeg. They wanted to have a logo for their company that represented security and comfort. I created the grain to represent Manitoba but wanted it to also resemble a hugging person. We went with a gold colour scheme for it’s natural theme and to represent the financial industry.

Contact

I would love to hear from you! Please send me an email at rmhettinga@gmail.com or give me a call at +1 (807) 806-1087. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask! Cheers!