Big ideas.
Beautifully executed.
Caitlyn McDonald is a graphic designer and illustrator with over fourteen years building brand identities, packaging, campaigns and visual systems for businesses that want to look credible, memorable and impossible to overlook.
See the workA designer for brands that want to be remembered.
Good design isn’t decoration. It’s the reason a customer picks you off the shelf, remembers your name a week later, and trusts you with the next order.
I work with hospitality, food and drink, sport and consumer brands, and with technical businesses like oilfield services that need to communicate more clearly. Every project balances strategic thinking with expressive typography, hand-drawn illustration and craft.
Whether it’s a full brand identity, a launch campaign, a piece of packaging or a technical specification sheet, the goal is the same — make the work feel considered, useful, and unmistakably yours.
The work. 119 pieces, six disciplines.
Brand Identity
Logos, marks and full visual systems — from a 150-year-old Portrush bar to an ADDY-winning mortgage brokerage.
Packaging & Product
Shelf-ready design where illustration, lettering and structure do the selling — bath bombs to bourbon.
Apparel & Merchandise
Wearable brand — commemorative crests, team kit and the kind of tee people actually keep.
Illustration & Lettering
Hand-drawn characters, watercolour, line work and bespoke lettering — the ownable layer most brands are missing.
Advertising & Campaigns
Concept-led campaign work across print, out-of-home, digital and photography — including two ADDY-winning campaigns.
Print, Editorial & Layout
Disciplined typography for complex information — technical spec sheets, brand guidelines and film set graphics.
About Caitlyn.
Caitlyn is a freelance graphic designer, illustrator and print and interactive designer with a background in advertising.
A Canadian-born designer now based in Northern Ireland, she holds a BFA in Graphic Design with an Advertising Design concentration and has spent over fourteen years working across agency, in-house and freelance roles — including lead designer at a Calgary marketing agency, in-house designer for a golf resort and a laboratory services company, and graphics for FX’s Fargo, Season 3.
Her student and early professional work earned three ADDY Awards in a single year — for the Butterfly World rebrand, the Trilogy Mortgage Corporation identity and the Kokanee Beer campaign.
Before design, she was a sponsored barefoot water-skier on the Canadian national team. She still thinks competition is a good thing, especially when it comes to the work.
Available for freelance projects, agency partnerships and longer-term contract engagements. Remote-first, working with clients in the UK, Ireland and North America.
Services.
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iBrand IdentityA recognisable, coherent visual system built to support growth — from logo through to guidelines.
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iiPackaging & ProductShelf-ready, considered design that gives products more presence and personality.
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iiiAdvertising & CampaignsStrong creative concepts that make messaging feel more memorable across every touchpoint.
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ivIllustration & LetteringBespoke creative elements that make a brand feel genuinely ownable — not off the shelf.
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vPrint & EditorialMagazines, catalogues, lookbooks and books — long-form storytelling built on disciplined typography.
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viInformation & PresentationComplex information made clear, credible and beautifully structured — spec sheets, decks and sales collateral.
A calm, practical process.
Discover
Understand the business, audience, ambitions and practical constraints — before a single mark is made.
Define
Establish visual territory, priorities and creative direction, and agree what success looks like.
Develop
Build ideas into identity systems, campaign routes or design concepts — with room to refine.
Design
Sweat the details: typography, colour, imagery, layout and production, spread by spread.
Deliver
Prepare organised, practical assets for print, digital and launch — nothing lost in translation.
Support
Stay involved as the work goes live, grows, and needs a steady hand across new touchpoints.