Daily Inspiration: Meet Pamela Olecki

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Olecki.

Hi Pamela, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up in Germany but was born in the USA. My mom brought my sister and me to Germany after separating from our father when I was about 3. I had the great luck and the brilliant foresight of our mother to grow up in a great environment where much emphasis was placed on education and a robust social network where higher education was free. My mom was an example of being hard-working and resilient while raising two kids on her own. We never had much, but always enough. My sister became my deeply trusted best friend. Whenever I needed something, she would be there for me. Especially when I had the opportunity to work in New York after getting my Masters in Communication Design. After high school, my sister moved to the US, but she returned to Germany to help look after our mother so that I could pursue my dreams of working in New York. I originally only wanted to stay for one year, but one year became two, and then three, then my sister moved back to the US, while I went back and forth between Germany and New York as much as I could to support our mother. In 2018, we lost our mother to leukemia. After losing a big Love of our lives like that, I decided to make family a priority and moved to California, close to where my sister then lived and had her first child Harper. It was like a bright new light entering our lives. She is so kind, cute and so smart.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In all those years, even as a kid in school, nothing seemed as if it would be easy. Almost everything would be hard at first, but over time it often changed, and I could get better and better. I came to Germany not speaking a word of German, feeling so alienated, and now it is my almost my native language. I was far from being the best designer while studying, but I got to finish as some of the best in our year at the end. I had no idea about typography when I started, but now I have the great pleasure to have it be the focus of most of my freelance work and am able to teach it to young new designers at The ArtCenter in Pasadena, where I have been teaching for four years.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
In all the years at school, in New York and then in Los Angeles, I had the great fortune to find incredibly generous mentors who shared their knowledge with me and took me under their wing. I have had the great privilege of collaborating with some of the most renowned agencies and creatives in New York and Los Angeles and working directly with my clients. Agencies and companies that I have collaborated with include Gretel, Sibling Rivalry, Imaginary Forces, Trollbäck & Company, and Sullivan NY, Hulu, Surface Magazine, and Condénast. They gave me a chance when I needed it and are still showing me how to collaborate well, work on my craft and design philosophy.

I hope I can be part of more of these kind of incredible collaborations and keep sharing what I learn with my students and young designers that I work with in the working world.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I am always looking for new exciting projects and/or collabortators. You can always reach out through my websites.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pamelaolecki.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pamela-olecki-380a064
• Instagram: polecki01

Image Credits
Portrait: Paula Morris BET and TCM logo: Hired by Sibling Rivalry for the design of these logos, 2022 National Geographic: Hired by Gretel NY to redesign in the system for the interior pages, 2016 Thing: Design of a magazine, published by Gretel NY, 2026 Book: Hired by Hulu to design and conceptualize a publication of Hulu’s research. Call of the Wild: The opening spread of cover story for WWD Beauty Biz. Photo by Guy Aroch