Meet the team — Natalie Larkin
This week’s meet the team instalment we break away from the engineering team and speak with our amazing illustrator Natalie on topics such as the creation of the Paid pig and creating 2 foot tall wedding cakes.
Tell us a bit about what you do at Paid
My main role is working on the brand identity and illustrations for the Paid website and marketing material. When I joined the team, as a fairly new startup we had very little more than the early concept for a logo and a single page website. As we develop our brand assets the style is constantly evolving and it’s my job to ensure we have visual consistency across all mediums, including the website, web app, social media pages and also our print collateral.
What does your day-to-day look like?
I really could be working on anything creative, from a Paid-Pig illustration for our website, to a 7 foot tall roller banner which needs printing for an event in 24 hours!
We’re currently a part of the Barclays Techstars London 2019 programme, and have been working a lot from the Rise office in Shoreditch. Last week we visited the co-working space WeWork at Market Square to interview freelancers and small businesses to gain feedback on our platform.
We used homemade chocolate & raspberry brownies in exchange for their time, which involved me doing some very late night baking, and a 24 hour print deadline (which I haven’t had since being at uni!).
It was great getting out and speaking to people in real life, as opposed to sitting at a screen and gathering feedback via an online user feedback website. This part of London has a great vibe and has been really inspiring for my work.
What were you doing before you worked at Paid?
I set up my first company at the age of 22 which specialised in WordPress websites. After 6 years I exited and spent the summer renovating my first buy-to-let property whilst working as a freelance designer.
If you weren’t at Paid, what would you be doing?
I’m passionate about getting more women into tech, and keeping them there. Studies have shown that up to 40% of women who have a career in tech actually leave tech. I’d love to work on helping to solve this problem.
Tell us something unexpected about yourself.
I used to make weddings cakes in my spare time. I’m a self taught baker from watching hundreds of youtube videos and my favourite TV programme, The Great British Bake Off.
The biggest wedding cake order to date was for a 2 foot tall 4 tier cake, containing a whopping 50 eggs!
