Her Story
About Amanda
Amanda Noa is a Brooklyn-based branding designer with more than 16 years of experience shaping visual identities for advertising agencies, hospitality brands, and Fortune-level companies alike. Her design education began in high school and continued through a communication design program in college, groundwork she later built upon with a BFA from Pratt Institute and a pre-college design program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Over the course of her career, she has led rebrands and visual systems for organizations including Blueprint Cleanse, Juice Press, Capital One, and Blackstone, while gaining additional creative experience through work connected to West Group Creative, Us Weekly, Saks, and Victoria's Secret. As Design Director of her own studio, ANOA Design, she now guides projects that span brand strategy, digital design, and full 360-degree identity systems for clients across industries such as finance, hospitality, and real estate.
Amanda approaches branding as a system rather than a single decision, weaving together visual language, messaging, typography, and imagery to create experiences that feel intentional and human. That philosophy has become especially important to her as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in creative workflows; while she recognizes the value AI brings to certain design processes, she remains focused on preserving the personality, emotion, and perspective that keep brands from blending together. Her guiding principle, refined over years of navigating the gap between creative instinct and business expectations, is to stay calm and persistent — continuing to refine an idea until it genuinely surprises and delights the people it's meant to reach.
Outside of client work, Amanda maintains a personal creative practice through painting and illustration, an outlet she has considered exhibiting publicly, and one that has deepened her understanding of color and emotional resonance in her commercial work. She balances the demands of the design industry with hiking around New York City, exploring Queens, discovering new desserts, and practicing yoga and Pilates. As she builds her own business alongside her continued job search in New York City, Amanda is applying everything she's learned from mentorship, formal education, and hands-on agency experience toward a new chapter — one where she defines her own brand with the same curiosity, empathy, and strategic care she has brought to every project throughout her career.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Amanda
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to staying calm and patient, and continuing to work through a problem until it truly solves a human need. As a creative, that isn't always straightforward, because my taste as a designer can differ from an executive's taste — so a big part of getting there is not losing my cool and staying patient through the process.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I've ever received is to stay calm and patient, and to keep working a problem until it genuinely surprises and delights someone — because if it surprises and delights me, there's a good chance it will surprise and delight my client or their audience too.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women entering this industry is to keep doing the work and focus on being a good designer. Keep sharpening your skills and your toolset, and keep getting better. Stay curious about what inspires you, follow the people who inspire you, and ask questions of those who have more experience in the business. Network constantly — you never know when you'll meet someone important, whether it's at a bar, a party, or a wedding.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge I see right now is the industry's growing lean toward AI-generated design over human-led design. We're in a holding period where we're still figuring out how to use AI as a tool rather than a replacement. Companies are adopting it quickly, but you can often tell when an ad or campaign is missing that human element. The real challenge is convincing businesses to invest in people — or in small, independent design businesses — to develop the big ideas, rather than defaulting straight to AI.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Curiosity, human understanding, and strong relationships are the values I hold closest, both in my work and in my life outside of it. I believe the ability to keep learning is what keeps a creative career relevant, especially as tools and technology continue to change. No matter how design evolves, I stay committed to understanding the people behind every problem, because that human perspective is ultimately what makes the work meaningful.
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