Making her mark: Isabelle Allard

To highlight the contributions of women who innovate every day and dare to break the rules, this article is part of our portrait series on some of our inspiring creative leaders.

For Isabelle Allard, our creative director, there was never any other option than the creative industry. Her interest in drawing and the arts charted her academic path and led to her first foray into design. Throughout her journey, her vision of design evolved from a desire to create something beautiful to a more engaged perspective of the profession.

Joining a small agency at the beginning of her career made her aware of the impact of design. Surrounded by inspiring people with a much broader perspective of what design can bring, she realized that its purpose went beyond just beauty.

A little shy and unsure of herself, she learned to spread her wings while working for a big agency, where she discovered that her design skills could influence a brand. That she could create a strong foundation for a brand, make it enticing, and give it a personality. That her work could even help brands have a positive impact on people’s lives.

Nowadays, her main motivation as a creative director is getting to work alongside her partners to build strong concepts and review the positioning for the brands on her plate. She and her team are always trying to create work that is intelligent, thoughtful and unique.

Having worked on a wide variety of projects, she believes that she can learn something new about any topic. She enjoys the challenge of reinventing something, taking it a step further, and becoming a subject matter expert while working on a specific project. When diving into a new assignment, the value is in looking beyond design and drawing inspiration from different places.

That’s one piece of advice that she gives to anyone who wants a career in the industry: cultivate your general knowledge. Go to museums, watch movies, explore architecture, dive into a book to get inspired. The important thing is to imbibe the culture. As a creative, her faith is in culture as a strong anchor for designers. Her last piece of advice is to not be afraid of trying many different things, and to be generous.

Isabelle Allard in front of painting in museum with mask on

Isabelle has relied on many mentors, mostly women, throughout her life. However, she doesn’t believe that enough of them are in the spotlight in the graphic design world. Yet these badass, determined women, many of whom are older than herself, have inspired her in both her personal and professional life. She hopes that in the future, we will see more women in leadership positions at agencies.

Isabelle Allard reading Women in Graphic Design book

Read more articles from this same series: Marie-Elaine Benoit, Christina de la Cruz