How I Got Here: Untitled Group’s Senior Designer on the power of collaborative work
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Tom TRAMONTE
WORDS BY CAIT EMMA BURKE AND IZZY WIGHT
“Seeing the joy of thousands of people coming together to share music and knowing you were a part of creating that space is a remarkable feeling.”
Have you ever stalked someone on LinkedIn and wondered how on earth they managed to land that wildly impressive job? While the internet and social media might have us believe that our ideal job is a mere pipe dream, the individuals who have these jobs were, believe it or not, in the same position once, fantasising over someone else’s seemingly unattainable job.
But behind the awe-inspiring titles and the fancy work events lies a heck of a lot of hard work. So what lessons have been learnt and what skills have proved invaluable in getting them from daydreaming about success to actually being at the top of their industry?
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Welcome to How I Got Here, where we talk to women who are killing it in their respective fields about how they landed their awe-inspiring jobs, exploring the peaks and pits, the failures and the wins, and most importantly the knowledge, advice, and practical tips they’ve gleaned along the way.
This week we speak to Georgia Treloar, the Senior designer at Australia’s largest independently-owned music and events company, Untitled Group. Heading up a creative team, Georgia creates dynamic digital artwork while helping bring event concepts to life from the “initial creative direction phase through to a lot of the day-to-day output”.
After moving back to Australia following a stint in Berlin, Georgia realised her side hustle creating “tinkering with Adobe Illustrator” and designing logos for friends had the potential to become a full-time career. Landing her role at Untitled Group, the learning curve was “incredibly steep”, but the experience has been endlessly rewarding.
“Event day is always incredibly special,” she says. “I have so many moments at our events where I think to myself, ‘Wow, we made this happen’.” Read on to hear Georgia’s best career advice.
What do you do and what’s your official job title?
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I am the Senior Designer at Untitled Group, Australia’s largest independently-owned music and events company. I have led the creative team on some of Australia’s largest music festivals, including Pitch Music & Arts, Beyond The Valley, Sun Cycle and Wildlands Festival.
Take us back to when you were first starting out. Did you study to get into your chosen field, or did you start out with an internship/entry-level role and climb the ladder? Tell us the story.
You could say my first ‘commissioned’ design jobs came from my sister Sarah when I was 17. She was studying music management at TAFE and paid me $100 to create the EP and tour artworks for the bands she was managing.
I’d never considered the idea of pursuing graphic design as a career – I had long before put it in the ‘too competitive, not profitable’ basket. I finished a Bachelor of Design (Architecture) at The University of Western Australia in 2016, but decided architecture wasn’t a profession that I wanted to advance in – it didn’t quite scratch that creative itch.
I moved to Berlin in 2018 to study a Masters in Media Spaces (set/installation design), dropping out after six months. Around then, I was spending a lot of my spare time tinkering with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I was broke at this point, working in a cafe in Neukölln on an unlivable wage.
I started receiving cash jobs to create logos for friends here and there – these requests became more and more frequent. I became really busy and I realised this profession could be really fruitful for me if I dove in.
I moved back to Australia in 2020 and enrolled at RMIT to study graphic design formally. After a year of study, I felt I was mostly ticking a box for my CV. Around this time, my flyer artworks were circulating club scenes of Boorloo and Naarm. This is where I really found my niche, I loved working with a darker and more abstract aesthetic.
Some flyers that I designed for Loure and Cassettes For Kids caught the attention of Untitled Group Director, Fil Palermo. He contacted me directly saying he was a big fan of my work, and suggested that I apply for a graphic design role that was coming up at his company. I never thought I would get the role but went for it anyway. And here I am.
What challenges/hurdles have you faced getting to where you are now? Can you tell us about one in particular?
The learning curve was incredibly steep when I first started at Untitled Group, I had never worked in-house before. It was a big leap from bedroom freelancer to leading the creative on some of Australia’s largest music festivals. I wasn’t so privy to dealing with such extensive feedback and review processes.
As a freelancer, it was a more one-to-one workflow,] and so far I had never had a client not like my work. The first festival creative brief I received was for Ability Fest, which is a really amazing event that Untitled runs with the Dylan Alcott Foundation. My concept didn’t get over the line and was outsourced. It was my first project at Untitled and I was mortified.
What do you want people to know about your industry/your role?
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We don’t all have to be ‘unicorns’ in design or a one-stop shop. I believe so deeply in how powerful collaborative work is. Yes, It can be helpful to be ambidextrous in an array of design skills when going for roles in smaller agencies. But specialism and craftsmanship are equally as valuable, if not more.
What’s the best part about your role?
Event day is always incredibly special. I have so many moments at our events where I think to myself, ‘Wow, we made this happen’. Seeing the joy of thousands of people coming together to share music and knowing you were a part of creating that space is a remarkable feeling. Another highlight is having the opportunity to collaborate with artists that I have admired for years.
What would surprise people about your role?
I think people are often surprised by how much I touch personally across our festivals. I’m very involved from the initial creative direction phase through to a lot of the day-to-day output. Our design team is just two – myself and Sam Hayes (graphic and motion designer) and we work across six-plus festivals, Xe54 club, touring artists plus Untitled Group’s internal brand. It’s a lot and it’s crazy to think that between us two, we are playing a huge part in shaping the creative landscape of Australia’s event spaces.
What skills have served you well in your industry?
As a graphic designer, my illustration skills definitely serve me well. Not just in creating artwork, but also in using sketches to help communicate and materialise ideas in the early phases of a project. As an art director, having synergy between my vision and how I communicate this is so imperative.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a role like yours one day?
Build your portfolio around the work you really want to do. Never had a music festival client, but have some great ideas on what a festival identity could look like? Make it up! Literally just invent a festival and go for it, or pick your favourite and have a crack at what the next year could look like.
When I’m looking to hire designers, I focus less on how decorated your CV is, [and] more so about your intuition and demonstration of creating work that is connected to the culture of our industry. I personally care little if it’s a fabricated project – if it’s good, it’s good.
What about a practical tip?
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Your intuition is your most valuable asset as a designer. Most technical design skills anyone could learn with time. It’s your creative intuition that cannot be taught, only honed and trusted with time. You have to nurture it with practice, failure, curiosity… [and you need to] experiment. If you ever reach a point where you lose that trust in yourself – you’re likely working with the wrong client.
Read the rest of the How I Got Here series here.
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