Story

We’re George Design, a Christchurch brand and design agency working at the intersection of business, brand and creativity. The space where exceptional ideas become competitive advantage, and where good brands become brilliant.

We have spent more than a decade helping New Zealand businesses define what makes them different, then turning that difference into brands people notice, remember and buy from.

A cosy corner of a GEORGE DESIGN design studio office with a pink table and chairs, a bouquet of colorful flowers in a white vase, and a few books on a wooden round table, with natural light coming in through the window with white curtains.

We combine sharp strategy with creative instinct to uncover the competitive edge your brand should be built around. Which means we look beyond the obvious brief.

At positioning. Audience. Customer psychology. Pricing. Perception. Competitors. Experience. The things customers value and the things you’ve become too close to see clearly. Then, we craft it. Meticulously, beautifully and with commercial intent, until the brand feels as strong as the business behind it.

Close-up of a woman wearing safety goggles, with her hair tied back, looking attentively at something, possibly a scientific experiment.

Our clients span many industries from professional services, medical, fashion, beauty, property, technology and plenty in between.

The common thread? They don’t want to look like everyone else.

That might mean bold and impossible to ignore. Or pared back, restrained and beautifully simple. Through Brand Strategy, Brand Identity, Website Design and Creative Marketing Systems, we shape how your business is seen, valued and chosen, both online and in the wild.

We think like marketers. Design like artists. Move like business owners. And we do it all with the energy of a triple-shot espresso.

work with us

The Team

Creative Director. Spicy marg and V8 enthusiast.

Client Director. Secret vocal powerhouse.

Georgia is the Founder and Creative Director of George Design. A commercially minded creative with a background in retail, brand, design and marketing. That mix gives her a sharp understanding of how people buy, what shapes perception and why the strongest creative work needs to do far more than look good.
She leads strategy and creative direction across the studio, connecting positioning, customer psychology, experience, communication and brand to the bigger commercial picture. Georgia is especially good at spotting the opportunity inside a messy problem, simplifying the direction and turning it into something sharper, stronger and easier for customers to understand — and choose.
Known as a shot of caffeine for a business stuck in neutral, she brings energy, instinct and very high standards to every project. Also firmly committed to spicy margaritas, V8s.
"Ideas are everywhere. Sharp, commercially smart ones? Those are rare. And priced accordingly."

Lori is our Client Director and big-picture brain — connecting clients, strategy and creative to make sure great ideas solve the right problems. She has a knack for zooming out, spotting opportunities and bringing clarity when there are approximately 47 moving parts.
Working closely across brand, web and campaigns, Lori helps shape strategy, challenge thinking and keep ambitious projects moving in the right direction. She’s commercially sharp, calm under pressure and very good at asking the question everyone else should have asked three meetings ago.
Add some South Island sensibility and a refreshingly low tolerance for unnecessary complexity, and you’ve got Lori. Cool head. Sharp eye. Always thinking three moves ahead.

Creative Designer. Photographer. Interior Design lover.

Content Lead. Resident project wrangler.

Creative Designer. Architectural soul.

Junior Designer. The queen of an aesthetic Instagram.

A smiling woman with long blonde hair wearing a brown sleeveless top and blue jeans, sitting on a pink chair in a minimalist room with a white wall, wooden floor, and a beige rug, illuminated by soft lighting from a white paper lantern.

Georgia van Zoelen with long blonde hair sitting on a black leather chair, wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, smiling and leaning back with her arms crossed, in a bright room with white walls and hardwood floor, and a white ceiling light.

A woman with dark brown hair, light skin, and blue eyes sitting in a pink chair with a blue cushion, wearing a sleeveless dark brown polka-dot top, smiling, in a room with white walls and a white lamp in the background.

A young woman with dark hair and gold earrings sitting in a pink modern chair, smiling at the camera in a room with a floor lamp and light-colored walls.

Kirstyn is our Content Lead, project powerhouse and one of the studio’s most brilliantly multidisciplinary thinkers. She leads content across our retainer clients while project managing brand and web projects — connecting strategy, creative and delivery so the thinking stays strong from first conversation to final execution.
The unfair advantage? She can jump on the tools too. Kirstyn is an accomplished illustrator with a sharp design eye and an increasingly strong strategic skillset, working alongside our designers on everything from brand strategy to creative development.
Highly organised, creatively switched on and fuelled by at least two coffees before 10am.

Emma is a Creative Designer with a brilliant eye for brand, campaigns and image-making. She works across identity design, campaign creative, websites and brand rollouts, bringing strong concepts to life with a level of detail and instinct that makes the work feel effortless.
She’s also our photographer, regularly behind the camera on studio shoots and client campaigns — which gives her a rare ability to think about a brand beyond the design itself. From visual identity through to art direction and photography, Emma understands how every touchpoint needs to work together to create the right feeling.
Versatile, thoughtful and creatively sharp, she’s just as comfortable shaping a brand system as she is pushing a campaign idea somewhere unexpected. She also has very strong opinions on playlists and makes a mojito capable of improving almost any creative review.

A young woman with long brown hair, blue eyes, and light skin smiling while sitting on a black leather couch in a brightly lit room. She is wearing a cream-colored sleeveless top and black pants, with a silver bracelet and a ring on her left hand. There is a white lampshade hanging from the ceiling, a white wall, and a wooden floor with a beige rug.

A young woman with long brown hair and light skin, wearing a black sleeveless top, sitting on a pink chair in front of a plain light-colored wall, smiling at the camera.

Lucy is our Junior Designer with a sharp eye for content and the details that make brands feel current. She works across campaign creative and brand rollouts, helping take identities from the original concept into websites, social content, digital touchpoints and everything the world throws at them.
With strong instincts for aesthetics, Lucy brings a fresh perspective to the studio without chasing trends for the sake of them. She understands how brands need to move across platforms while still feeling unmistakably themselves.
Raised on Frankie Magazine, fashion editorials and excellent Instagram feeds, she’s also our unofficial early-warning system for anything the rest of us are about to discover six months late.

Thalia is an exceptional brand designer and a seriously sharp visual thinker. With a background spanning interior architecture, visual communication and high-end property branding, she brings strategy and serious design rigour to the brands we create.
Her strength is building identities that feel distinctive and beautifully considered. She thinks beyond the logo, designing systems with enough depth to work everywhere a business needs to show up.
Her aesthetic leans editorial, contemporary and meticulously curated. Which also explains the iced Americanos, DJ decks and ability to make “organised chaos” look suspiciously chic.

Creative Contributors

For projects that call for deeper business, brand or growth strategy, we collaborate with Gareth O’Connor, founder of Something Different.
With more than 20 years’ experience advising leadership teams across New Zealand and internationally, Gareth helps businesses get to the root of complex challenges, make better strategic decisions and define a clear direction for growth.
His experience spans organisations including ANZ, Spark, 2degrees, Foodstuffs, Mercedes-Benz, Ballantynes, PGG Wrightson and Rangi Ruru, across brand positioning, growth strategy, customer insight and marketing planning.
We bring Gareth into projects when the challenge calls for senior strategic thinking at a business and leadership level.

For fast-moving content and ongoing brand storytelling, we work with Ben at B Creative.
Ben creates sharp photo and video content with an agile approach, ideal for social media, campaigns, and brands that need to stay consistent, visible and fresh.

For projects that call for specialist production, we work with Chris and the team at Motive Digital.
Specialising in branded content, video, motion graphics and CGI, Motive brings strong creative direction and technical craft to ambitious ideas from concept through to final delivery.