What does a typical Thursday look like for you, starting from when you wake up – to heading to bed?  

I wake up at 5:30am and cook myself lunch; I’ve got a ton of serious food allergies so I’m an anti-allergy cook extraordinaire! Clearly I am insane because for the love of my job, I then take the TTC and Mississauga Transit for up to two hours in the morning (granted my lovely bus is running, it apparently has an aversion to incremental weather). If I have a large rush project, I will jump right in to that. If I have a little more time for whatever I’m working on, I will do some trend research and read up on a few fashion/footwear blogs in order to stay current with the trends. This past Thursday I was photographing footwear for the Dickies catalog I was working on and tweaking the layout. Intermittently small fairly ‘quick’ projects may get put on my plate and I might stop to work on those. Samples come in intermittently throughout the week so I get to check those out and do corrections to send to the factory through the brand manager. At the end of the day I commute back home, about an hour and a half if I’m lucky with transit, and make it home around 6:30pm. Whew! After that I might sew and relax watching movies or go for a massage therapy appointment. My job is physically exerting and I have tendonitis in my mouse arm from repetitive strain. It has gotten much better since I’ve done treatment but when I’m working particularly hard on something it can get worse, so I go every two weeks no matter what.    

What was your first job out of school?  

I was actually doing an internship when I officially finished my final school semester, rebranding the entire print campaign for an industrial binding company, random I know! Being that I had decided to additionally try and complete a Business Communications Minor in that final semester on top of my normal workload, I ended up doing one night class to polish it off. At eight courses that last semester, I’m pretty sure my mind would have exploded if I added anything else! 

My first official job after that was at a clothing label that developed all the branded university/college clothing for the Ivy League schools, among others. Almost all of the clothing was made in Ontario and the logo applications as well. It was really interesting getting to see things done from the fabric buying right to shipping it out to the clients. I did the logo development for garments, packaging, store layout and merchandising design & technical drawings for the clothing. 

What are the 3 skills you require most to do your job well?

creativity/eye for trends

time management (esp. under stress)

passion/drive  

What do you love most about your career? I love working on children’s shoes because I get to have practically free rein on the illustrations I do. Everything I create is completely original, so I get to experiment with all kinds of digital drawing styles and content. And truth be told, I am just a really tall kid, so I am secretly designing them for myself:) Nothing brings me greater joy than when I’ve poured myself into a project and the sample comes into the office. If it is something I am especially excited about, I do at times skip and or run to the brand office with anticipation! 

Do you have any warnings? 

If you are good at what you do, chances are that you will eventually have to deal with individuals that feel threatened and lash out irrationally at you. If you can’t have a logical conversation or the workplace is too abusive, you shouldn’t feel threatened about speaking to upper management (or HR if you have that accessible to you). Even if they don’t take any visible action other than getting you and the person in the same room, the individual will know that the spotlight is on them from then on. Happy workers are productive workers so if the company has any semblance of legitimacy they will take an interest in conflicts that could impede their productiveness. 

If you could try a different career on for a year, what would it be?  

I’ve been sewing since I was around 4, as far back as I can remember. Since then I’ve earned a BA in Fashion Communications (Design) which added to my skills and I have kept sewing in my spare time for most of my life. Right now I am a complete costume junkie, I did 5 for the month of October! Along with this obsession, I have taught myself the art of F/X makeup. I would love to do costume design and F/X makeup full time for an entire year. I’m dying to learn how to make custom prosthetics! That would be totally amazing.