Nicola Hamilton

Designer and Art Director

Nicola Hamilton RGD (she/her) is an award-winning editorial designer and art director. She jokes that she’s best known for her delusional optimism about the state of Canadian media generally, and print magazines specifically. But that’s not actually far off from the truth: part connector, part cheerleader and part community builder, Nicola’s professional life revolves around championing creative industries and people.

She has been designing, redesigning and repositioning magazines for more than 15 years, with a portfolio that includes The Grid, Chatelaine, The University of Toronto Magazine, Best Health, Precedent and Serviette, a new indie food magazine that she is producing with a global roster of contributors.

Nicola is also the President of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD), where she advocates for the value of design, helps organize Canada’s largest graphic design conference and hosts the DesignThinkers podcast, where she has interviewed legends like Paula Scher, Michael Beirut, Meg Lewis, and Gail Anderson, among others.

In July 2022, Nicola took her love of magazines to a whole new level by opening Issues Magazine Shop, a bricks-and-mortar magazine retailer with a mandate to celebrate the people and projects keeping print alive.