Five years ago, Katie Fish, TYL ’21 submitted her prize-winning design for Philadelphia’s “I Voted” sticker to a contest being held by the Philadelphia City Commissioners and the Philadelphia School District. The city chose her design and continues to deploy the sticker each election. “It’s still surreal,” Katie said. If you know where to look, however, you can see Katie’s designs year-round. From wine labels at DiBruno Bros. to tote bags for Rival Bros., Katie’s work is woven all throughout the city. “I really love it,” Katie said. “It makes me feel at home.”  

Earlier this year brought a shift when Katie’s role, along with the entire in-house design team, was eliminated from South Philly design studio Mellow Gold, where she had been since 2021. Despite the setback, Katie is optimistic about her future and eager to continue the work of designing for the city's local businesses. “Philly has given me so much,” Katie said. “It makes me happy to be able to give that back.” 

The following Q&A has been condensed for clarity and conciseness.  

How is it seeing your voting sticker still in circulation years after winning the contest in 2020? 

It's a super surreal feeling. I love to go for a walk on voting day with my dog. We walk a few miles around the city, and just seeing everybody wear it so proudly makes me so happy. Philly has given me so much that it makes me happy to be able to give that back. I feel like I’m incognito when I walk around and look, because I’m not the type to be like, “Hey, I made that!” My parents actually happened to visit on an Election Day and that was quite the experience. Every single person they saw with the sticker, they were like, “Hey, she did that sticker!” 

Do you feel that the sticker helped launch your career into graphic design? 

The sticker has been an amazing conversation starter. It’s definitely opened a lot of doors for me, and made my name stand out. But really, it’s the Graphic and Interactive Design BFA program at Tyler as a whole that has helped so much. [The professors] cared about your mental health. If you weren’t coming to class, they wanted to know why you weren’t coming to class; was it because of your work or something more personal? They wanted to know how they could help. I was very shy at the time. Especially after I won the contest, they really taught me how to network and put myself out there. I only applied to the contest because it was an assignment. They just set you up to be the best designer you can be, especially in Philadelphia. 

My professors taught me how to network and how to get a portfolio together. They shaped my life in ways that I never could have expected. The job that I ended up getting right after graduating at Mellow Gold Studio in South Philly, [the owners Laura and Daniel Abraham] almost exclusively hired people from our program. Everyone I worked under, everyone I learned from, even after college, were still stemming from Tyler.   

You actually designed the sticker for a class called The Hatchery at Tyler, right? 

That was Bryan Satalino’s class, yeah. During that class, they reached out to local people who needed design work, who needed help, and allowed us to get those real-life experiences. We also worked with The Wardrobe in that class, which is a clothing center for women and men who are looking to apply for jobs, and they go there and get fitted for a professional wardrobe. It’s all donation-based; they’re an incredible nonprofit. We worked with them, had maybe six meetings with them throughout the semester and then at the end they took six pieces to create their rebrand. 

It sounds like you had a bridge from Tyler out into the professional world. 

Yeah! And I’ve worked with nonprofits like The Wardrobe; I’ve worked with different restaurants around Philadelphia: DiBruno Bros., Rival Bros, Middle Child, just iconic Philly brands. I’d been lucky enough to have a full-time job at Mellow Gold since the June after I graduated from Tyler. Mellow Gold just had to close their in-house design department this past June, but working there was just such an experience because it was always a very small team. When I started working there, there were two women from Tyler, Grace O’Leary, TYL ’17, and Jackie Jensen, TYL ’18. Jackie was actually an adjunct professor at Tyler. Working on such a small team with them, I really got the opportunity to do a lot more than I would have been handed if I had gone to a bigger company. And it was just a lot more local, just Philadelphians making really cool stuff. 

When your sticker was released five years ago, you mentioned in interviews that Philly felt like home to you. At that point, you’d only been in the city for a few years. How has your connection to the city changed since you’ve become involved with all these local businesses? 

I really love it. My work is just woven throughout the city; it makes me feel at home. The “I Voted” sticker was one of my biggest achievements, but it also really was just the very beginning of my career. It feels like family; I love bringing my parents out to see projects that I’ve worked on. Sometimes they even recognize my name and bring out appetizers or free drinks. It’s so cool to feel like I’m a part of that community. 

Do you remember the moment when you realized that design was your career path? 

I have always been artistic, but more so drawing and painting. I was actually afraid of Adobe and all those programs. But then they offered a graphic design class at my high school, and I said, okay, let me just try it. I ended up really loving it. I was able to combine my technical and artistic abilities with design. The deal-breaker for me was when I visited Tyler. They had a junior restaurant show every year. During junior year, you design a fake restaurant from start to finish. One kid had a Mexican restaurant with fake little chips with the menu items printed on them. I walked in, looked at all the projects and thought, “This is what I want to do. This is so cool.” It was great finding really cool, different ways of presenting information. 

What is your relationship to Temple and Tyler now? 

I’m still friends with a lot of the people that I graduated with. I haven’t been as involved as I’d like to be with the school. Every year, they have a networking event for the graduating class, and I always try to make it to that. It really does feel like a family reunion every time. 

What advice would you have for current students following in your footsteps? 

Follow your gut. It’s gotten you where you are. Keep trusting yourself. I applied to the Main Campus [Programming] Board when I was at Temple. I didn’t know anybody at the organization; I just saw that they had an open seat for a graphic designer, and I wanted to help. I actually ended up getting that position. Some of those people that I ended up working with ended up being some of my closest friends outside of Tyler and I got some incredible experience from that job as well. Just get involved, trust yourself and have fun. 

Pennsylvania has statewide elections this year on Tuesday, November 4, 2025.

Visit Phila.gov's elections website to register to vote, find your polling place, check your voter registration status, and view the candidates and ballot questions. You can also find information for all of Pennsylvania at Vote.PA.gov.