Transcript
SPEAKERS
Emma Plutnicki, Ashley Gahagan
Ashley Gahagan
My name is Ashley Gahagan. I am originally from Maryland; I moved to Conway in 2012 and then went to Coastal [Carolina University] for four years. And then after college, I moved right outside of Charleston. So, that’s where I’m at now.
Emma Plutnicki
So, can you just tell us what you’re doing for work?
Ashley Gahagan
I’ve been working for Push Digital Group, which is a political and issue advocacy type firm. We do digital marketing and fundraising and various types of things for political candidates and issue advocacy groups. I am the design director. So, I oversee a design team of about four-ish people right now. And then interns come and go as well. A daily thing that I do: I manage the workload, I assign tasks to the other designers, I work on my own tasks, design tests and things like that. We do a wide variety of things on our design team. We’ll design anything from logos, custom websites: we do a lot of display ads, and social media graphics and print ads, billboards. We’ve even done like bus wraps for political clients and things like that. So, pretty much anything we could do at all.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, cool. How long have you been working there?
Ashley Gahagan
It’s been five years, but about five and a half years.
Emma Plutnicki
So how did you end up in that field? How did you hear about it? How did you kind of finagle your way into that?
Ashley Gahagan
Right after college, I had a hard time finding a design job right away. What I did was I just—I moved to Charleston, and there’s not too many design roles here. And when they become available, it’s like they’re kind of hard to get. So what I did was I just sent out my resume to a bunch of companies that I was interested in working for, and even if they weren’t hiring, and I stumbled upon one that answered me and they said, Oh, we’re about to actually post a design job, here’s a design test. So let’s see how it goes. And then they ended up hiring me. So that worked out really well. And then I was there for probably about a year and a half. Eventually, I saw the job posting for my current company. And I started as a junior designer and kind of worked my way up to graphic designer and then eventually became the design director and kind of oversee the design team.
Emma Plutnicki
Nice. So what kind of background helped you land your role? You said that you have like a year and a half-ish at the first job. And then before that, was it just through college or any other background that led you to that?
Ashley Gahagan
So yeah, I was there for a year and a half. Before that was college, I took the Athenaeum Press class, one summer and then a semester. So that was really good experience for me kind of getting the real-world type experience and designing for them. That was great. And I also interned, well not interned, but I worked on campus as a designer for Counseling Services. And I learned a lot doing that. And just I guess gaining experience in different ways outside of the classroom was super helpful.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah. That’s amazing. So you said like, on a day to day basis, you’re kind of managing workloads and things like that. But what’s expected from you on a daily basis? Is it more long term projects that you need to work on? Or are you every day working on little things? What kind of like is a typical day look like?
Ashley Gahagan
Yeah, so it’s a variety, I would say it’s mostly daily things that we do, we turn around things very, very quickly, I would say we probably get maybe between 20 and 30 ish requests a day, sometimes less just really depends on the time of the year, we also get logo projects that we get maybe like a few more days on or like even sometimes a week. And then obviously websites are more time intensive. So those would take weeks. So it really just depends. But the majority of like the digital advertising that we do, like display ads and stuff, we turn them around, like, very quickly, I received all of the requests from account executives, they come we use Asana, which is like a project management system, so they get automatically assigned to me. And then I will assign them out to the designated designer, whether it’s like a designer that works on that client often can easily like knock things out pretty quickly, or whoever just has the workload for it. But I’ll also keep my section pretty full, and help not knock things out when I can and working on like higher profile clients basically and bigger projects I help with a lot.
Emma Plutnicki
So has it been challenging to find your way into this career? And also just I mean, creative careers are challenging in and of themselves. So how do you kind of handle those on a day-to-day basis?
Ashley Gahagan
It’s just been a learning process. I think I never really thought that I was going to be working for a company that does political work. I was never interested in any of that. Not that I was like against it or anything. I just like never knew much about it. So when I came into the job I knew nothing about like politics. And so it’s been interesting to like learn that side of things. Design specific things, I think, not really a challenge. But it’s always good to keep up with like new software and tools. And just like, there’s always something new to learn. Like when I first started at Push, I was like designing websites and XD which is like a different program than what we use now. Because we use figma now, and it’s just a newer program that’s just easier to collaborate and design. And so it’s just like, keeping track of all the new things that are coming out, how we can utilize them to make our jobs easier…those kinds of things.
Emma Plutnicki
With things like always changing, are there any specific skills that you possess, or someone like an applicant who’s trying to get into this field should have to have a higher chance of landing a role in that field, like what skills are really coveted?
Ashley Gahagan
Well, the basic Adobe platforms, knowing that kind of software and just, we do such a wide variety of things, it’s good to have experience and like, say, branding, and website design, even animation is like a big plus for us, because we’ll animate like little gifts and things like that. So if a candidate can’t animate, that’s totally fine. If they’re stronger, in other areas like when they come in, we’re down to like teach them and help them grow and learn new skills. We’re really big on that.
Emma Plutnicki
Has there been one project that’s made a significant impact on you, or something that you’ve produced that really like showcase your creativity and was kind of like the pinnacle of your kind of professional life so far?
Ashley Gahagan
It’s just really cool to like work on a project, no matter like, it’s super stressful. Like, you need to turn around something super quick. And in the moment, it’s like, oh, gosh, this is crazy. But then, like you see it, like come to life. And it just like feels awesome. It felt worth it. Like I mean, even in college, like creating the stuff for the Athenaeum Press was great to see that come to life. And after college, I would say like, designing like billboards, and I’m driving on the road. And I see something I designed, like, that’s awesome. It feels great. And even like, at my current job, like, it’s political work, it’s like an interesting thing to be proud of and excited for. But when you see like stuff that you make on the news, or just things like that, and it’s just like, really, it’s a cool feeling. And I really like it.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, that’s so cool. Oh, my gosh.
And so you’re working in South Carolina now. And have there been any like organizations or events or programs that you’ve seen within South Carolina that can help like promote creative professions that someone who’s trying to get their foot into the door should know about?
Ashley Gahagan
We’re always on the lookout for conferences and things like that, or we’ll take, like online courses, where we get a certification in like Figma, or something specific.
Ashley Gahagan
I do wish South Carolina had more options, I guess, like maybe conferences and things like that for creatives, because I’m going to one next month, but it’s in Georgia. And it’s just super cool to go to those and connect with other creatives and kind of just get you out of like a funk of non- creativity, I guess, like you go to those and then you just feel like super motivated and excited and I do wish South Carolina did have more of those.
Ashley Gahagan
There is one thing that they do in Charleston, and we go to them occasionally it’s called Creative Mornings. Okay, they have them in like different cities. I don’t know if Myrtle [Beach] has one or not, but like once a month on a Friday, they’ll get together and they’ll have like a speaker that teaches things or kind of goes over like their creative process. And that’s really cool. So that is one thing that is great in this area.
Emma Plutnicki
Okay. And then just as we wrap up, do you have any advice for young people who are trying to get into a creative field?
Ashley Gahagan
Just getting involved in college I think was super helpful for me and getting outside of the classroom to do internships or jobs or something related to what I want to do after college.
I guess my first job, I didn’t wait for like a job posting, I just sent out my resume. So even if, if you’re struggling to find a job or jobs in your area, just send out your resume anyway, like, it doesn’t hurt to do that and get your name out there and who knows, like they might end up reaching back out needing a designer right when you reach out. And then just keeping up with all the new things that are coming out new programs, new software, utilizing AI into your design process, rather than like being against it. I think that would be super helpful.
