I had the pleasure of working with Caren Houlihan on a few recent projects, and I highly recommend her for any design needs. Her work is not only incredibly skilled but also executed with impressive speed. She consistently delivered high-quality designs under tight deadlines, all while maintaining clear and effective communication throughout the process.

Her experience shines through in her creative problem-solving and attention to detail, making collaboration seamless. If you are looking for a designer who is fast, talented, and a great communicator, Caren Houlihan is an outstanding choice.

I have worked with Caren in her current business but Caren and I go back years and she was our go-to designer in the early days of starting my business. I love working with Caren as she really has the most amazing attitude, she is energetic, creative, responsive to feedback and has a great attitude. She is also constantly upskilling which is vital for all industries but I think design and content creation is one that especially needs flexibility and agility.

I’ve used Caren’s design and website building services for years. I got addicted to the Ooooo moments she creates. Her work is a few steps above the norm. Beautiful designs, beautiful person to work with.

Caren’s create intelligence has no end and she literally ‘eats’ with her eyes.’ She is most alive and engaged when she is creating things and animation is her call. Bringing her heart and soul into her work, Caren leads with authenticity and raw honesty- often going over and beyond to deliver on a creative brief. Striving for 120% perfection, buy her own admission – the job isn’t done until she gets the ‘ooo’ moment for her clients.

Caren’s creations have a tremendous impact on others, and as a veteran of the digital creative industry this places her in true genius zone! Run don’t walk to work with Caren- she is talented beyond measure, and you have no idea how big the ‘ooo’ can until Caren works on it.

Working alongside Caren as a Team Lead, I was privileged to take a leaf out of her book on many an occasion. Not only is she super driven and incredibly organised, but she also exudes an enthusiasm that inspires everyone around her to do better. Never one to settle for less than the best, she always leads by example – putting in whatever time and effort are required to ensure her work is exceptional. She’s not afraid of a challenge, always on top of trends, eager to learn new things and focused on finding solutions. Bottomline, she’s a great asset to any organisation.

If people are what make your business, then you want Caren in your team. She is your go to person to make it happen. She listens and manages her team to meet the needs of the client. She has the solution and drives it to completion. Her designs are inspiring and her leadership is contagious. She is passionate about what she does and the people she leads. I always enjoy working with her.

Caren and I have worked together at Digital Outsource Services for many years on numerous and varying print campaigns. She as the Designer/ Team Lead and I, the client.
She listens to the client and engages with them to establish what is required. She has the skill to communicate the brief to her team and inspire them to deliver.
She is solution orientated and will go the extra mile to understand your business and come up with innovative ideas that can save you money and still have an impact.
Caren is business minded and understands that any design is a piece of communication that must have a positive impact on the target audience, speak for itself and most important, add revenue to the bottom line and that is what Caren delivers.

Caren has a big personality and is lots of fun to work with.

Caren is a multi talented designer and leader.
I have had the privelage of working with Caren for 6 years, the first 3 years being my team lead where she helped mentor me into the confident designer I am today. Caren is a very enthuastic individual, a go getter that will go out the way to make sure jobs get done and a fantastic client liason. Caren has a wealth of knowledge in the design industry, that mixed with incredible organization skills, makes her a boss at creating perfect design systems and processes. Always thinking of ways to make things easier fo her team. Besides being great at her job aspects, Caren is a person you can call anytime and she will be available to discuss anything. Get Caren on your team if you want to get the job done!

Caren has multiple talents, vast experience and a quirky, sociable personality that is of immense value to any client or team.

A strong work ethic, impressive multitasking ability and impeccable organisation means that Caren manages to get even the biggest projects done efficiently and to excellent standards. Her decades of creative experience and ease of communication ensure that her client needs will be met with the best solution – on time, every time. Working with Caren means having confidence, peace of mind and quality… with a bucket of laughs to go with it.

Caren has worked closely with the new games’ teams for the past 4 years (even though I have only been the Games space for 2 years). In this time, Caren has worked very closely with my team and built strong & lasting relations with them. They keep in touch daily and are always in constant communication about the workload on both sides, to ensure that jobs are managed effectively (and without any issues).

We have countless last-minute requests and Caren is always able to work her magic to ensure that we don’t miss any deadlines and I feel this speaks to her ability to prioritize our workload, communicate & manager our expectations. This is also achieved as she knows the ins and outs when it comes to getting all designs ready for games release, and is a big help for the games team in getting all marketing assets and documents ready and organized

She is very passionate about her work, and this is seen in her daily interaction with the team and results in her ability to be an amazing leader.

It’s been so many years of collaboration. Started as a Designer client to a Team Lead client, and throughout had some pretty amazing content delivered.

Caren is an expert at design principles and has a special skill to guide a design in-line with client requirements, where this is usually a major block for some designers.
She can translate the client requirements to a design team in the most receptive way, satisfying client needs, and ensuring the delivered product is exceptional.
When you need to generate revenue, design needs to be impactful, and nice, and ticking a box is just not good enough, Caren gets this.
Caren is super innovative and will often bring a concept to the table that is next level to what the initial idea was.

Caren is business-minded and will drive the business directive to deliver the desired result. She’s very much solution-oriented and will overcome any hurdle/ disconnect between the client and the design team. Design needs to go beyond telling a story, it needs to elicit the desired reaction, create a response without any words, and this is what Caren delivers with her teams. She’s been an important component / link between a satisfied business client and an effective design delivered.

Caren initially interviewed me and has been my direct lead from my first day at Digi Outsource Services. She was an excellent mentor in my starting days and helped me to quickly gain my feet and confidence when DOS was still new to me.

She recognized the strengths I bring to the team and has entrusted me to be her second in command on various occasions. I appreciate that she often asks my opinion and that she considers my insights valuable.

She organizes and oversees our work allotment and has keen insight into the scope and requirements that each new project will require.

She is an excellent mediator between our team of designers and the rest of the business.

I have been working with Caren for 9 years and from the day she started she stood out from the rest, with her passion for her work and dedication to deliver only the best. Not only has her work been exquisite and a totally new era for the company’s creative level, but she also has an amazing sense of customer relations. It is so easy to work with her, from brainstorming to tweaking to the extra mile to get it perfect.

Caren was a big loss to us as a designer when she became Team Lead but a huge gain to the creative department as a whole. The way she leads, empowers, and enforces her work ethic in her team is inspiring. Her team only looks up to her and we have gained a knowledgeable, passionate, and dedicated contact person from the business side.

Everyone knows that if you want quality, no matter how tight the deadlines, you go to Caren, and she gets it done… with a huge smile on her face.

Truly one of the greatest people, I have worked with in the last 10 years.

Caren was one of the first designers I brought into the team after taking the leadership of DIGI Outsource in-house creative studio as the head of department.
From the day one Caren showed fantastic energy and desire to learn and grow. Even thrown into the deep end at the very beginning to work on the number of brands our company just took over, she took ownership of the task and proved herself very quickly as someone who’s not running away from a challenge, but rather face it, and produce the best possible results. But her strength is not just her technical knowledge of design tools, but even more her capability to create good relationships and communicate easily with the clients and her team. She possesses great interpersonal skills which always helped her and people around her to deliver the best possible quality.

Caren’s got very high standards when it comes to the level of performance, great work ethics, and courage to deal with the problems when they arise.
I’ve had a privilege to have Caren in my team for more than nine years now, to have her full support, and together we managed to build a fantastic team, which she continuously keep on improving, never being satisfied with status quo, looking for those yet undiscovered opportunities, and not being afraid to step out of the comfort zone to keep the originality and freshness of her, and her team’s work.
Caren is definitely a person and professional I’d always work with because she can be trusted as a great professional partner in building the best performing teams, but even more as a great friend.