What is your name? Julia H.
What is your profession? Showroom Lead
What company do you work for? Flavor Paper
How long have you been in this role? Almost a year!
What did you study in college? Art History.
Why did you choose this job? Eventually, I want to go back to school for graphic design, and this position could teach me A LOT about Photoshop, InDesign, etc. while working collaboratively. It’s super creative and I love that.
What is an average day like in your role? I work with the designers who come to the showroom or via email, reading CAD drawings and helping clients customize their paper. I also spend time editing all blog articles, press links, and editing images in Photoshop for web use.
What’s the most challenging part of your job? Being with such creative people who know the graphic design world like the back of their hand(s) is super inspiring, but can be really intimidating!
What’s your favorite part of the job? We’re producing a new collaborative line with the Warhol Foundation (launched a Spring 2013 collection as well) and working with everyone together on the artwork has been so exciting. We get to see original Warhol photographs and artwork, but still have the ability to play around and change things. It’s been crazy exciting to see just what we can do and as someone who studied Warhol at Dickinson extensively, it’s been unreal to have the experience.
What’s a common misconception about your job? People think it’s all Sales, which is definitely a component, but it’s so much more than that.
Any tips for current college students who aspire to have your job? Put yourself out there and ask for help. When you work with so few people and everything is right there at your fingertips, ask how to do something and do it. I had to ask to do the blog and press editing, and it lead to a lesson in Photoshop and now daily use of the program–what I’ve always wanted to do.
If you had a time machine and could travel back to visit yourself in college, what’s the #1 piece of advice you would have given yourself? Take more extracurriculars not as a resume builder but because, even though you might think you know all your interests, there’s so much more to learn and college is the best place to do it. I wish I had written for some publication, maybe took a graphic design course, something to push myself more.
What is a fun perk of your job? Call me cliche but I love working with celebrities…we recently worked with Neil Patrick Harris, are constantly collaborating with Lenny Kravitz, and on my very first day, Jorma Taccone (the artist on season one of Girls and he’s in the Lonely Island Boys with Andy Samberg) came in to work with us. It’s a silly perk, but it makes it exciting!
