Graphic Designer – AO Arena

I actually came into graphic design from a music background. I’ve always loved music and been involved with it in different ways, and I started to notice how many parallels there were between the creative side of music and the creative side of design. That overlap is what pulled me into this career. 

I’m Mark Harris, and I’m the graphic designer at the AO Arena. My role covers any graphics the arena puts out — posters, digital screens, social media visuals, anything that represents the brand. Everything has to stay within our brand guidelines, but it also has to help us promote our events and products in a way that feels exciting and engaging. 

In terms of education and skills, having an art background is really valuable. Understanding composition, structure, and how to communicate visually is a big part of the job. But there’s also a technical side to what I do. Maths comes in more often than people expect, especially when you’re working with measurements, scaling, or layout. And because the work is almost entirely computerbased, being confident with IT is essential. 

I work inhouse at the AO Arena, so my week is pretty much a standard ninetofive. That’s one route into the industry. The other is freelance, where you set your own schedule — which sounds freeing, but often means you end up working more than ninetofive. The upside is that it’s flexible, and you can shape it around your lifestyle. 

As a graphic designer here, I’m part of the marketing team. I work alongside marketing executives and the head of marketing, and everything we create is aimed at achieving specific outcomes. That’s really what separates design from art — design has a purpose. You’re trying to excite people, interest them, engage them, but always with a clear goal in mind. I enjoy that, because being able to measure how effective something is gives you a real sense of whether your work is doing what it’s meant to do.