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Making it happen in the Big Apple

08/06/15  |  Posted by  |  Posted in Student Blogger

It was sometime at the end of March that I received an email from a CIA alum and good friend, Austin Zarobell, who also majored in Jewelry + Metals at CIA. She reached out to offer me a position at her place of work as a design intern. Of course I probably jumped the gun and responded with an immediate “yes,” without actually thinking about everything on a larger scale. I started to panic because I knew her job involved a lot of Adobe Illustrator knowledge, which I had barely ever used. Luckily the whole moving to New York City, dropping everything at home, and going for a job I had no technical skills in worked out to my advantage. I moved to Park Slope (Brooklyn) a few days after spring semester ended, and so far it has been nothing but a great experience.

The company that I work for is Trebbianno LLC, and fortunately with the help of Austin and another CIA alum, Emily Bute, I was able to pick up Illustrator way faster than I had imagined. I will be forever grateful for that. (Thanks ladies, I owe you.)

When I started the job, I was doing a lot of specs, or tech packs, as they are commonly known in the fashion/design industry. It involved a lot of measuring of product and designs in and out of Illustrator. Mostly I was working with Emily for BCBGeneration, BCBG’s jewelry line. All of this helped me teach myself the ins and outs of the design process in a 2D way. As designers we have to clearly communicate to manufacturers exactly how a piece should look while only sending them 2D illustrations. Therefore, we want to be as precise as possible with our artwork and specs.

Shortly after finishing the specs for August 2015 Market, Emily asked me to start designing jewelry for BCBG. I probably can’t say what exactly at this point in time, but they are using a lot of my designs in August and November markets, which is so exciting to me. I was never one to sketch anything, and now I am fully capable of communicating my ideas through Illustrator sketches and renderings.

Luckily, our office has a very laid back environment. Almost everyone just does their work and listens to their music. I can’t even count how many times I’ve listened to these albums daily: Sixteen Stone by Bush, Frank by Amy Winehouse, and the Easy Rider soundtrack. I highly recommend those for the workweek, which for me didn’t include Fridays. This allowed for a lot of beach days and hanging out around the city.

In my next post I will try to think of tips and stories of how to live a proper New York City summer while working in the center of it all. Hard work definitely pays off and I wouldn’t be in the position I am now if it weren’t for the help from supporters in the CIA community. I am excited to return to Cleveland to finish my last year of school, and I am really thrilled to possibly jump back into things here afterwards.

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