From Au Pair to Designer.

Career change can feel daunting. There is a particular bravery in stopping something that is working well enough, and choosing to step into something new instead. That moment where what you are doing feels fine, but also not quite enough, is often where change begins.

For Eugenia Ponce, that moment arrived while she was working as an au pair in the US. Graphic design did not enter her life as a long-held ambition or a carefully plotted pivot, but through something far more practical, a short course taken to fulfil visa requirements.

That distance between curiosity and permission is a familiar one. It is often where creative interest lingers quietly, present but untested. In Eugenia’s case, it became a starting point.

As part of her visa, Eugenia enrolled in a month-long graphic design course. The content was functional, more focused on rules and structure than expression.

“It wasn’t amazing,” she says. “There was a lot of grammar.”

Still, it introduced an idea that stayed with her. Design was not just decoration or instinct, but a discipline, something with its own logic and process.

“After that, I just thought, I need to do something about this.”

She bought an iPad, downloaded Procreate and began experimenting, making small pieces of work for family friends, logos and Instagram posts, informal and exploratory, but enough to feel momentum building.

Design still did not feel like a career at that point, but it had begun to feel possible.

When Eugenia started looking for ways to learn properly, she did what many people do, reading extensively, comparing routes and asking questions in places known for their honesty.

Including Reddit.

“There was a thread asking whether you should study graphic design at university or do a shorter course,” she says. “Someone asked what people knew about Shillington.”

The responses were measured and direct, clear about the workload and expectations involved.

“You can take advantage of it if you put in the work,” she says. “If you don’t, then you shouldn’t spend the money.”

That framing mattered. It did not promise transformation or guaranteed outcomes, but offered structure and responsibility.

Eugenia enrolled on Shillington’s part-time course, committing to nine months of study. The pace appealed, not because it was easier, but because it allowed time to absorb what was new.

“I had never opened Adobe in my life,” she says. “Opening Figma for the first time was like, wow. What is this?”

Time became an advantage, giving space for understanding to develop alongside confidence.

That shift from tools to thinking became most visible during Eugenia’s first major branding project on the course, Tadasana, a high-end wellness studio based in Rockhampton in Queensland.

The brief centred on creating an alternative to the conventional gym, a space without competition, designed for women seeking something calmer and more restorative.

From the outset, Eugenia was clear on how it needed to feel.

“I wanted it to feel like a sanctuary,” she says. “Somewhere simple and calm, where you can disconnect.”

The name itself offered direction. In yoga, Tadasana is mountain pose, grounded and steady. Eugenia connected that idea to Mount Archer, a local landmark, and began building a visual language around stability, presence and ease.

Minimal typography, organic imagery and a restrained colour palette followed naturally, forming a brand that holds attention gently rather than demanding it.

The line she wrote for it captures that intent succinctly. No pressure, just presence.

It did not come together straight away.

“The first poster just wasn’t working,” Eugenia says. “Nothing was clicking.”

Her teachers were clear in their feedback and rather than closing the door, that moment clarified the problem. Eugenia realised she was overloading the work, adding elements instead of letting it breathe.

“I knew how I wanted it to feel,” she says. “But I was trying to put too much in.”

The breakthrough came not from a new concept, but from restraint.

Originally, the brand leaned heavily into warm browns, earthy and grounded, but ultimately too heavy for the experience she was trying to create.

“It was just a lot of brown,” she says.

Brown, she realised, was not delivering the sense of clarity and reset the studio promised. Changing the palette meant changing everything else too, imagery, tone and direction.

“The first image I found after changing direction had water in it,” she says. “It felt fresh and clean, and I knew this was the way forward.”

From there, the system began to align.

The app design followed the same logic, using soft tones, intuitive navigation and subtle motion to reinforce calm. A gentle video on the home screen helped set the tone, while strength clips within class details added depth without disrupting the simplicity.

Across posters, social media and merchandise, the brand’s values remained consistent, growth, connection and escape.

What mattered most was the shift in perspective.

“This wasn’t about my taste,” Eugenia says. “It was about how the user would feel.”

Eugenia graduated in July. After a short break to travel, she returned with focus, updating her portfolio, re-engaging with her work and beginning the search.

Her first freelance project came through the Shilumni LinkedIn group, a packaging brief for a London-based protein dip brand, and her first paid packaging job.

Soon after, she lined up her first design interview, an internship with a start-up developing a menstrual cycle tracking app.

Not because she felt finished, but because she understood how to approach the work.

Looking back, Eugenia is clear about what mattered. It was not speed or talent, not even mastering the software, but learning how to listen, respond and iterate.

“You have to know how to take feedback,” she says. “It’s for your own good. You’re learning. You just have to listen.”

Her route into design was not linear, and it was not planned in advance. It unfolded gradually, curiosity turning into commitment, structure building confidence and momentum following quietly behind.

Design did not arrive as a sudden realisation. It emerged through doing the work, paying attention and trusting that clarity comes with time, not instantly, but deliberately.

After graduating, Eugenia didn’t see her learning as finished. With a solid grounding in graphic design behind her, she began looking for ways to expand her skillset, not by moving away from brand thinking, but by deepening it.

That led her to Shillington’s Motion for Graphic Designers course, where she began exploring how movement could sit alongside identity, tone and storytelling, rather than operating as a separate discipline.

One of the projects where this came to life was The Dairy Heist, a small-batch ice cream brand created for a New Zealand dairy farmer with a taste for natural, high-quality ingredients and unexpected flavour combinations.

Aimed at people looking for guilt-free indulgence with a sense of humour, the brand takes a playful turn, imagining a world where masked cows steal milk, hijack trucks and disappear into the night with the goods. What could have remained a purely visual idea gains energy through motion, with animation helping to build narrative, pace and character.

Rather than using movement for spectacle, Eugenia treated it as an extension of the brand’s personality. The motion supports the story, amplifying the humour and mischief while keeping the overall tone light and intentional.

For Eugenia, the project marked another shift, not just in skill, but in confidence. Motion wasn’t about starting again, but about building on what was already there, applying the same principles of clarity, restraint and audience awareness in a new medium.