Fashionista's dream job
It is time to admit it - I do love fashion. It doesn't mean I buy everything and my wardrobe is exploding but it does mean I follow the news, know iconic names, and bold enough to break some rules dressing up. I admire window design art and can appreciate good fabric because my mother was a dressmaker and I grew up around cloth leftovers and tailor-made coats and suits.
Shop& Go is a magazine about fashion, make-up, and lifestyle. There is always some editorial part (1/3) from the main office in Moscow and the rest is up to the regional office: content, advertising, events, and social media promotion. Taking this job offer was a challenge for me but I felt "This is so right and this is for me!".
My work
Every day was intense to meet deadlines at the end of the month when you have to send the issue for print. It is easier to say what I was not doing because I was responsible for all magazine's content, from editorial design to custom advertising pages for our clients. For premium boutiques, we have organized plenty of photoshoots and all communication with photographers about concept or guides were on me. And when you are dependent on external photographers and models, chaos comes - I've been replacing photographers, I wrote articles about fashion and beauty when our copywriter was ill. I had a lot of fun creating eye-catching headlines and even once I was a model! I communicated daily with copywriters, proofreaders, and marketing departments of famous fashion brands to ensure that we have high-quality material and it fits visuals too. As a media company, we were organizing events and all promo print and digital material I was supporting as well.
"I got skills"
- This busy and varied role gave me a huge experience in print design skills: how to prepare images, which details about resolution, the colour correction you have to consider to get a picture not to dark and not pixelized. How to prepare all 40-50 pages' publications for the print shop with strict deadlines and last-minute reordering/replacing client's pages.
- I mastered Adobe InDesign software, learned to work with the grid, and make plenty of layouts based on one grid - it helped me a lot in my future web-design career.
- My communication skills were also trained and improved too due to daily talks with brand PR departments and individual clients. I had to learn how to pitch my ideas and persuade clients to follow them.
- I started to think a lot about branding in general (before it was mostly city branding) - because every advertising depended on what this or that brand is standing for and a tone of voice and visual language had to be different too. Many tiny details and nuances you have to consider creating communication with your audience of the magazine.
It was an exciting time when I met a lot of interesting people and wore heels insanely often. But all this complicated process of print production and the digital-first policy of some brands pushed me to dig into web-design.