Today we’d like to introduce you to Will Nichols.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Will. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Once upon a time, hahah jk. Na my story started, I would say in early 2010 when one summer, I had to have reconstructive hand surgery so leading me to be sidelined from my in n out job at the time, two years removed from high school and was getting ready to transfer to a four years university from a junior college. This occasion after a stupid night out with friends ended up being the best thing that ever happens to me.
Being injured for six months really allowed me to think about what really my purpose was in life and allowed me to head in that directions. I reached out to my favorite clothing brand from my home town and started interning for them. Fast forward six months, they ended up doing a licensing and distribution deal with Stussy and bring me along for the ride. Those six months were a crazy grind, but it paid off as they brought me in to be a sales rep for Stussy, Undefeated, and Us Versus Them. I never went back to school or in-n-out.
A year later, I started interning for HypeBeast as a social media manager when it was around 25k. After that year, I took some strategy I learned and reached out to Highsnobiety who had a way lower follower count around 8-10k and became their social media manager under former Editor-in-Chief Pete Williams.
At this time Highsnobiety didn’t too many people on the team in L.A. so they frequently asked me to go to events and take photos for them. This is exactly the moment I fell in love with photography. I fell in love with the process of collecting and saving memories, so I learned as much as I could about it and started using it as a form of therapy. Whenever I was stressed, I would head to the beach and I’d find my self taking photos of palm trees, this allowed me to develop my aesthetic that I’m known for today. My experience working at highsnobiety was amazing, as it challenged me to come up with new ways to strengthen and build our community. Building a network of contemporaries while working for an emerging publication and working for my favorite clothing was a lot of fun. I was able to travel to and set up projects with some of my favorite and brands from around the world. From photos walks with shake shack at art basel (Google the shirt hahaha) to setting up and running a trade show booths for stussy at magic selling the latest offerings to my retailers.
Two years into working for highsnobiety, I parted ways with stussy to pursue photography full-time. Since then, I’ve been a hired gun for household legacy brands such as Nike, Apple, Adidas, Puma, T-mobile, Red Bull, Volvo, and The Olympic Committee. This all happened within a three years window.
The following summer after making my career change, I got recruited to work for a creative agency in New York to become a social media creative for Adidas’ @adidasorginals Instagram account. Here my knowledge of production grew as I produced shoots for Alexander Wang x Adidas.
I spent one year in NYC and relocated back to la to once again purse photography 100%. This time back around it was mainly focused on music as I traveled with rapper G-Eazy documenting him and creating a decent size body of work.
Working with G lead me to discovering and managing my first artist named Global Dan.
This was around 2017, and I came back from NYC on a mission to fulfill my wildest dreams since being back I started a creative house titled Finally Offline, who now manages two artists, Global AZN and Doze. Through our creative house, we’ve worked on nationwide community art projects with Adidas as well as worked with Redbull and puma. Our collective is bi-coastal as we have operations in NYC as well as la.
While focusing on the creative collective with my co-founders Zack Hunkins and Karl Pierre, I also aligned with my friend Stew Malcolm to create a luxury hand furniture brand. The brand is titled Human Age Design Studio and will be coming out Q4 of 2020. This experience of studying and learning design has allowed me to develop my taste.
After taking photos for the last better half of the decade, I wanted to challenge my self and try new creative passion painting being one of them. I started taking it a little more seriously and displaying my works in November of 2019 and today, I have a contract in my email from a Fine Art Gallery that has worked with some of my biggest inspirations creatively to have them represent in the fine art world.
I’m thankful for all the support I’ve had from family and friends and beyond excited to see what’s in-store for the next chapter.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Nothing has been smooth. My entire life depends on my being able to have a vision and capture it literally and figuratively. The problem with that is that creativity has highs and lows like a volume chart, you can try and influence the volatility and it works to some degree but at the end of the day, it can hit you whenever and leave you before you know it.
My solution to this has been to 100% follow my gut, I believe that there is nothing more important in than to follow your intuition. So at this point, I don’t overthink anything at all which allows me to live in a flow state cushioned on trusting in my process.
Please tell us about Finally Offline, Never Mind The Mess & Human Age Design Studio.
Finally Offline (Creative House)
We specialize in making people’s dreams come true. We’re known for coming up with creative strategies that can be applied to irl tangle movements. Our companies is most proud of the community we have internally the family we’ve built have life-long memories and that’s what it’s about to me.
Fine Artist
I’m a painter. / Fine art photographer who works to date embodies the essence of and cityscape of Los Angeles. I am most proud to be able to express myself how I see in my head and convert that vision onto different mediums
New Age Design Studio
We are a design house which pays attention to the concerns of the human spirit through design. We believe in thoughtful and timeless design supplemented by rich and long-lasting materials. We design to enrich life and bring people together.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Honestly, my mom. She’s been there through all of the ups and downs supporting me 100%.
Contact Info:
- Website: Finallyoffline.com
- Phone: 9513348711
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @willnichols
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