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= Tessa Simpson = Tessa Simpson is a British graphic designer and creative director of design studio O Street in Glasgow. Simpson is part of the 17% of female creative directors that make up the industry, a contrast to 63% of women on graphic design courses. The creative industry welcomed Simpson to the male dominated O Street Studio, saying she 'was the only woman amongst a bunch of beards and beers'. Simpson is an advocate for female representation within graphic design and the media, as well as utilising design for climate change awareness. She joined Ladies Wine & Design Glasgow as chapter host for more diversity within the creative industry (2019 - 2020).

Education and career
Simpson was born in Manchester, United Kingdom. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2014 after attending the Grange School for higher education in Cheshire. Simpson began her career at O Street in 2014, she is now full-time Creative Director (2021, Current), producing creative results for clients such as National Galleries of Scotland, Last.fm, Scottish Book Trust, National Theatre of Scotland and Bruichladdich Distillery. When welcomed to O Street, Simpson was described by O Street designer. Josh as 'a graduate who has eased into the industry like she’s been at it all her life'. Her feature in Design Week for rebranding the craft beer Stewart Brewing with the O Street team is one example of her recognition within the creative industry.

Advocate
Simpson is an advocate for women in the graphic design industry. Simpson has said it’s important for leading female designers to put themselves at the forefront by being vocal about their work and volunteering for talks to be seen within the industry. Simpson immerses herself within the Glasgow design community at talks and events for O Street to 'give back to the community', stating that she 'doesn't see enough female speakers getting up there'.

Simpson has spoken out about her experience of female under-representation, such as her welcome to a male dominated studio and client preference to male colleagues. Her blog includes kerning the gap figures, they visually resemble printed posters by the Guerrilla girls, an anonymous female collective who expose sexism and racism in the art world and culture at large.

Her passionate advocacy for female designers is found online by leading design magazine articles:


 * ‘Design That Fights Sexism’
 * ‘Sexism in Design’
 * ‘The most important issues for female designers in 2018 and how to address them’
 * ‘Design Weeks Super union to Hope to Nope: the biggest design moments of 2018’

Initiatives encouraging women
Simpson co-hosted Ladies Wine & Design Glasgow (2019 - 2020), a global non-profit initiative founded by Jessica Walsh for more diversity in the creative industry with particular attention to leadership roles. Ladies Wine Glasgow listed Simpson amongst leading female graphic designers admired by those involved with the initiative.

Simpson has an archived collection of her work online, including magazine Skin Deep with the intended purpose to raise questions about how the media portrays women and female beauty. Her design choice makes a fitting resemblance to the work of Barbara Kruger, such as ‘your body is a battleground’ which is a collage directed towards female rights to abortion.

Design utilisation for climate change
Simpson has featured on Design Week where she has spoken out about how designers can help tackle climate change, saying that a graphic designers core job is to make information 'digestible and enticing', meaning they have 'a responsibility in packaging up all of the data in communicating to the masses on world problems'. Co-founder Danny Miller of ‘Human After All’ (a design agency concerned with making a positive change to the world ) supports Simpson in adding that designers should use their skills as emotive communicators to help resonate with people on the impacts of climate change.