About the owner…
Experienced Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Creative, Professional, Honest
Kaz is Karen Coleman, born in the UK, but a Canadian citizen since 2005. She has more than two decades of print design and desktop publishing experience, acquired in both countries, working for newspaper, magazine, book and catalogue publishers. Karen is both PC and Mac literate and is skilled with numerous graphic design and layout applications, including the Adobe CS5 Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Acrobat) and Quark. She is also a competent user of Microsoft Office 2007 and WordPress.
Kaz works with professionalism, accuracy and integrity, enjoys a challenge and never quits till the job is done right, on time and on budget. Kaz strives to offer her clients the best design service possible, offering advice and solutions to any graphic and website problems they encounter, as well as creating quality designs in print and for the web.
Supporting important causes
Kaz also has a sense of community spirit and felt honoured to be part of the Acton Leathertown Festival Committee in 2004 and 2005 as Media Co-ordinator, and after moving to Cambridge continued to design their ads for the 2006 festival. Money raised from the annual festival supports local organizations such as the Off The Wall youth centre.
Also that year, Kaz became involved in The Weekend to End Breast Cancer (now The Weekend to End Women's Cancers and known as The Weekend), walking 60 km in Toronto and raising over $2100 for breast cancer research, care and education. In 2007, she and her partner continued fundraising, and between them raised $28,000, walking in 7 Weekend events across Canada.
Throughout 2008, Kaz continued fundraising and supporting The Weekend, and in 2009 she and her partner, Joseph, added the Ride to Conquer Cancer, a 200 km bike ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls, to the mix. 2010 saw Karen fundraising for and participating in the Toronto Ride, the Quebec Ride, The Weekend and the Kitchener CIBC Run for the Cure. In 2011, Karen donated to the Rona Ride for MS in support of her partner who took part in both the Grand Bend to London and the Acton to Waterloo Rides. On September 10 & 11, she walked once again in the Toronto Weekend. To date the couple have raised over $70,000.
Since 2009, Karen and her partner have also supported www.101heroes.org whose mission is to "Change the World, Build a Legacy." 101 Heroes and the CIRE Foundation help educate and create a better life for children in the Philippines through the building of learning centres and child sponsorship.
While Kaz Design Works will continue to support these important causes, Karen's current and future efforts will be focused on helping a new local not-for-profit, Power of HOPE Community Organization, which helps women in crisis and families in need in Waterloo Region, Wellington and Perth.