Casey Hrynkow

Design Strategy
MALS, BDes, CGD, FGDC

Email LinkedIn She/Her

  • Casey is a senior strategy consultant at RDC. She is recognized for her skill in guiding clients like City of Coquitlam, City of Surrey, Nisga’a Lisims Government, Tsilhqot’in National Government, and Capilano University to clarify their objectives and goals for their communications tools. She is a Fellow of the Design Professionals of Canada, and served for many years on the Advisory Board for Applied Arts, Canada’s national design magazine. Casey has a BDes from Emily Carr University and completed a Masters in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University in 2021, where she conducted community-based research examining the stigma around homelessness.

  • Tell us about a recent achievement
    I finished a masters in liberal studies at Simon Fraser University during COVID. After an enriching two years of wildly broad reading and coursework, I was able to access knowledge of community-based participatory action research, and worked on a project looking at how design thinking might be used as a tool to reduce the stigma around poverty and homelessness. I’m pretty proud to have achieved this degree. It was hard work!

    What are you reading?
    I recently read, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson. It is an extremely well-researched and written book that gets at some of the roots of the stigma we place on others who are not like ourselves. Stigma is a deep and wicked problem that has really come to the surface in the US and Canada, as well as other parts of the world in recent years, fomented by the Trump administration and a groundswell of NIMBYism and hate. Fear is the base of it. This book helps me rationalize my approaches to community-led change.

    How did you get into the field of graphic design?
    As a young girl I used to do commercials when I was by myself in the bathroom mirror. I wanted to be a “convincer”. I got turned on to design in high school by an actual graphic design class. I always loved simple form, contrast, scale, and repetition in images. There it was in mega packs in Graphis Magazine. I learned how to run a small press in that class, did silkscreen and platen press printing. Graphic design, and my love of words of influence sent me to Vancouver School of Art for four years, and back to Emily Carr Institute for another four part-time to get my undergrad in communication design. My husband and I started a design firm in the early 80s that became very successful and the rest is history!

 

Casey’s Next Goal

I’m trying to learn to turn it down a notch. I have grandkids I adore and want more time with them. But I still have plans to do community-based research into developing a high school program that will help students across Canada to become more informed, empathetic and active voters to reduce stigma around poverty and homelessness.