Kennedy Moore ’22 Employs Her Graphic Design Skills in the Local Community

Shortly after graduating from Colby-Sawyer with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design and a minor in contemporary marketing, Kennedy Moore ’22 accepted a position as a graphic designer with Top Stitch Embroidery in Lebanon, New Hampshire, a company that specializes in custom embroidery, screen printing and promotional products.

Kennedy said she works with graphics for screen printing, designing and setting up artwork for customers, creating digital mock-ups, preparing artwork for screen printing and digital printing and more.

“I also have some customer service responsibilities such as answering phones, taking orders and helping customers with creating new logos and designs — duties which allow me to meet and build relationships with a lot of local business owners, coaches, teachers and more who come in with projects for us,” she said.

The community connection is especially important to Kennedy. A native of South Reading, Vermont, she said she was raised 40 minutes away from the company and grew up wearing Top Stitch Embroidery products. Her experience as a local resident means that she also has great familiarity with many of the clients she works with. She said that a sense of small-town community infuses the culture at Top Stitch.

“Top Stitch is a small family-owned business who treats their employees like they are family too,” Kennedy said. “Top Stitch is also a supporter of many great events such as The Prouty (a popular fundraising event for Dartmouth Cancer Center that involves cycling and other activities), so it has been very rewarding to work on projects that support charitable causes. I am extremely grateful to work at a company where I can use my graphic design knowledge while also supporting businesses and organizations in the local community.”

Kennedy was involved with the Upper Valley community during her internship as a Colby-Sawyer student as well, when she spent summer 2021 interning as a graphic designer with the community relations department at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD). She said that her experience has really come full circle, as CHaD is now one of her clients at Top Stitch.

Kennedy said that her current position is a perfect blend of using and strengthening skills she already has and developing new ones.

“At Colby-Sawyer, I learned … programs that I now use in my job and feel comfortable working with every day. I also learned about a range of design disciplines, including typography, information design and brand identity design, a realm of design that is particularly important in my job now,” Kennedy said. “I love how I get to apply my graphic design knowledge to a new genre of design that I didn’t know much about before. Since the day I started, I have been learning as I go, and I think that my favorite part of my job is that it involves a lot of variety which allows me to learn new things every day. Because we have such a wide range of clients, I am constantly working on different designs and learning how to best design for specific decoration methods, which keeps the job really fun and exciting.”

As Kennedy approaches her one-year anniversary at Top Stitch, she said she looks forward to continuing to learn new things, work with new clients and expand her industry knowledge. She is excited to see where her role takes her.

“My education at Colby-Sawyer provided me with a great foundation of knowledge in the industry that helped to ease me into my job at Top Stitch,” she said. “(It) has given me a good starting place to continue to learn and grow in the work I am doing every day.”

The most recent outcomes report from the Harrington Center for Experiential Learning indicates that, like Kennedy, 100% of the Class of 2022 is employed or in graduate school. Read more about Colby-Sawyer graduate outcomes.