Today we’d like to introduce you to Elyn Kazarian.
Elyn, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The seeds of my career were planted when I was still attending ArtCenter College of Design, but I believe the influences that I acquired go back to my early childhood.
Every experience I had was like a beginning; it was how it all started, one by one, every time another layer made it more evident what I was going to do and who I’d be. Where a lot of people may still feel unsure about what career path they want to explore even by the time they’re in school, I always had a strong understanding of myself and what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to be an artist, and no one was going to stop me.
I started drawing and painting at the age of two, and by the time I was five, my mother put me in piano lessons, which I pursued until I was eighteen. I also always had a love for film, and for some reason, listening to film scores, and when I look back on my life and think of the elements that really shaped me into who I am now, it was images and music, specifically the combination of the two.
By the time I was in my second-to-last term at ArtCenter College of Design, I had done an internship at an art gallery, and I realized that that was not the world I wanted to be a part of, which was a little scary because all I ever saw myself being a part of was the art world. Ever since I was a child, I had my eyes set on being a painter, having gallery and museum shows, and living what I now realize to be a very romantic version of what it’s really like to be a working studio artist.
As quickly as that career path went out the window, this other passion I had, music, came into my life. All of a sudden, I felt I had truly found what I wanted to pursue, and all of these memories of sitting in the living room in my house as a child, listening to music while looking through my mother’s CD collection came to the surface. I would spend so much time examining the booklet that came with these CD’s, digesting all of the imagery, taking mental notes on the cover art, reading and memorizing the lyrics to my favorite songs.
It hit me at that moment while I was in school that I can combine my love of visual art with music. 2012 was still a time when SoundCloud was a big deal for a lot of musicians, especially the “bedroom producers” and various collectives that started coming up. Here was a free service where you could upload your music, and thousands of people could potentially find it. And with the music came the cover artwork. Very quickly I realized that this was my niche, this was my crowd, and I was going to go after it.
Since I was preparing to graduate the following year, I had created a website showcasing all of my artwork, so this felt like the perfect opportunity to start putting my work out into the world, outside of sharing it (at the time), on Tumblr and Facebook. I started sending cold emails to the various artists, producers, independent labels, and collectives that I felt my work would be a good fit for, and I started to get responses. I landed my first paid project that year, and it was the cover art for a single that would be coming out on a local record label, Modern Filth.
I was hooked, and the projects kept coming. After I graduated in December of 2013, I knew full well that the music industry is where I wanted to find a job as a graphic designer. Now, I need to stress that graphic design was not what I was studying at ArtCenter. I was in the Illustration department, which had a Fine Art Painting track, and that became my core focus. I was taking painting classes primarily, and then any other fine art class that seemed interesting to me.
The only class that was even remotely associated with graphic design was a creative typography course I took early on in my time there. So, I would say that I am mostly a self-taught graphic designer, but with a lot of the other interests that I have, I think the fact that I’m a highly observational person makes it easier for me to pick up on things quickly.
Three months into applying for jobs, I was contacted by someone that I was connected with on Facebook; we had a lot of mutual friends in the music scene, and I found out that he owned a music venue in town, Los Globos. He had seen the work I had consistently shared on Facebook and wrote to me asking if I wanted to head the art department at his venue. Of course, I did! Here was this person handing me a full-time job in the music industry. I wasn’t going to say no to that, even though I was going into new territory.
The interview went well and he offered me the position of graphic designer on the spot. It all happened so quickly, but I felt like I was on the right path, and what I was working towards was working out. After having worked at Los Globos for about nine months creating show posters and social media content, I was laid off. I pretty much saw it coming though since two of the people I worked with that booked shows and gave me the most work left, but it still hurt, and a lot of fear came out of my thoughts revolving around what I’d do next.
Prior to being laid off though, I had already started to apply to other jobs, and one of the positions I applied to was exactly what I wanted to do. This music management company called Slush Management was looking for a creative director, and I knew I’d be perfect for it. I don’t think I gave the position too much thought after I applied, but I definitely wanted it, and I was hoping that I’d hear back from them. Two weeks after I was laid off from Los Globos in late 2014, I heard from Slush Management. They were interested and wanted me to go in for an interview.
The interview with the two managers that ran the company went so well that I knew I would get the job, but the position was actually going to be for the other management company they worked with, Deckstar. They worked out of the same building, and it was Deckstar that really needed an in-house creative director. They gave me a couple of test projects, one being to create a show poster for one of their artists, and the other became a year-long album campaign that I was the creative director for.
In January of the following year, I was asked to go in for another interview, this time with the marketing team at Deckstar. After a couple of months, I was hired in March 2015. I worked there for a year and a half, gaining skills and experience that I have brought into my life now. The kinds of projects I worked on, like that year-long album campaign for one of their artists, Mat Zo, was exactly what I wanted to continue doing in my career.
Unfortunately, in May of 2016, I was laid off, and once again I felt the fear of not knowing what was going to happen next in my creative life. Two days later, my father passed away very suddenly, and with that came a slew of unresolved issues and emotions that I was yet to confront, explore and overcome. My parents had divorced just a few years prior, and my relationship with my father for most of my life was not great, so that loss really hit me hard, and it felt confusing in a lot of ways too. It was probably one of the worst weeks of my life, but I slowly came back to what felt like a more grounded reality.
I had started applying to full-time graphic designer and creative director roles again, but at the same time, I was feeling confused about my career path. I didn’t know if I should continue putting my energy into finding a 9-5, or if I should put my energy into developing my freelance career. I would hear back from some of the places I had applied to, which was great, but I felt like something else was pulling me to a place that at that time scared me. Even though the interviews with these companies went well, I ultimately would say “no” to the job offers because something just didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t them; I could have easily accepted any one of these offers and probably have made good money at it, but I was going through a shift internally regarding my career path and what that could even look like.
A few of my close friends had asked me why I hadn’t pursued a full-time career as a freelancer, because I had done freelance work outside of my previous full-time jobs, and with the kind of work I did, I really didn’t need to work for someone else. Both they and I knew that I had the drive, discipline, self-motivation and patience needed to go through the process. Truthfully though, I was scared. I was scared of not having a sense of security or stability. I knew what it was going to be like; that there would be months that would be really dry, and months that would be good, but I don’t think I was prepared to put myself through that, so I kept applying to full-time jobs that made me feel like I would have a sense of security.
However, by January of 2017, my pursuit of finding a full-time job was not working out, so I decided to commit to being a full-time freelancer. As I had done while I was still in school reaching out to artists, producers and record labels, I again started sending cold email after cold email, messages on LinkedIn to people with specific jobs like A&R’s at specific companies I wanted to work with to create album covers, creative direct album campaigns, and more. I would go out and “network”. But with that came waiting for responses, so I realized that I had a lot of free time on my hands.
I started frequenting the library, reading and learning new things, listening to podcasts, watching Lynda.com videos, and during that same time, I started teaching myself guitar, something I had wanted to learn since I was five. By December of 2017, I even started volunteering for an organization I was already a member of, Shesaid.so, and through that, I was able to share my interest in starting a podcast with anyone else that wanted to do it with me. That idea then turned into a monthly radio show on Dublab that I help produce and co-host with a small group of other incredible womxn working in the music industry.
No matter how hard things felt financially, no matter how many times I got rejected, or why it felt like my career had plateaued, I still knew I was on the right path. It wasn’t like things weren’t working out entirely. In the Summer of 2017, I was contacted by someone at Parkwood Entertainment, Beyonce’s company, about how they were looking for a graphic designer on a freelance basis, and that they loved my work.
Here I was at 25 being contacted by someone who worked for one of the most well-known artists in the music industry. That was a huge ego boost, but also very humbling. Outside of this, I was getting a lot of positive responses to the cold emails I had sent out to potential clients. I had even started reaching out to artist representatives in the hopes that I’d find an agent. I would hear back, but the timing was always off; they weren’t looking to add anyone to their roster, but that I should stay in touch.
So the mere fact that I was getting responses from people that were interested in my work, even though a lot of the time the response was, “We don’t have anything right now, but we’ll keep you in mind”, made me feel that I was doing something right, even though my situation made me feel otherwise. I also began to understand that the amount of free time I had to utilize differently allowed me to grow in ways I wouldn’t have if I had a typical full-time job.
After having conversations with other friends who were working artists, specifically self-employed artists, I started to listen to a lot of the same stories. Stories that we all seemed to share, one way or another. I knew I wasn’t alone, and that in and of itself made things feel a little less scary. Being self-employed is not easy, and I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t take a full-time job somewhere if it felt right, because I would. I think that’s the time we’re living in now. A lot of creative professionals find themselves going back and forth between being employed somewhere full-time, to being self-employed, and maybe even having a side hustle or two.
There’s no right or wrong answer, and there also isn’t the sense of security or the reality of working at one company for the rest of your life anymore. That’s all shifting, and we’re all experiencing its side effects whether we like it or not. I have found that persistence, patience, and adaptability are really the most important qualities if you’re in this for the long term. You have to be aggressive yet humble. These realizations and experiences have gotten me to where I am now, and where I am now is only another added layer to where I will be tomorrow.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has not been a smooth road, even amid all of the work I was getting in my early 20’s. I’ve found that the road to success is never an easy one. It’s also never a linear path.
A lot of the struggles and challenges I faced were mostly financial because being an artist is not generally considered to be financially stable. Outside of this, in my mid-twenties, I started to deal with something that I think a lot of artists experience: imposter syndrome.
I found myself doubting my accomplishments like I hadn’t really done before, and sometimes not feeling like I was capable of doing what I was being asked to do. The “dry” periods would definitely make these feelings worse. I really believe that there will always be struggles, no matter how successful you become.
Whether it’s work related or something that happens to you in your personal life, these experiences can all have effects on your work and your mental stability as an artist, but again, the important part here is persistence, patience, and adaptability. Will you be able to overcome these struggles and continue to grow?
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am a multi-disciplinary visual artist, creative director, and graphic designer conceptualizing and executing experiences for the music industry. I help artists arrive at the essence of their visual language through listening to what challenges they have, and presenting them with creative solutions.
My work ranges from designing album covers and packaging, visual identity development, merchandise design, to project coordination, research, management, and more. Outside of music, my curiosity, passion, and knowledge of art and design that I continue to acquire allow me to apply those various subconscious connections to projects within and outside of the music industry. I believe that that’s what sets me apart from people doing the same type of work as me. I always set aside time to learn new things from areas outside of my immediate interests.
What were you like growing up?
I was fairly introverted as a child, and always more mature than my actual age, so it made it a little difficult for me to make friends with others easily.
On the other hand, though, I was always very charismatic, funny, and adventurous, so I felt like I got the best of both worlds. I was a very curious child, intently observant of the people and places around me.
My interests from an early age were in art and music, but I also loved being outdoors playing sports. Or spending hours indoors reading, listening to music, or drawing. My interests really came from the most simple places.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://elynkazarian.com/
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @elynkazarian
- Facebook: @elynkazarianis
Image Credit:
Kat Kaye, Ibra Ake
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
