We recently connected with Elise Crigar and have shared our conversation below.
Elise, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
After graduating college with a degree in graphic design and fine art, I wanted to combine my multi-media background of photography creative direction, and women’s sports into my dream job. I knew a job such as this wasn’t going to be easy to find on paper, especially in Florida.
I took my first role out of college for a local lifestyle magazine. Here I acted as a sponge and soon adopted roles such as head photographer in addition to experimenting with creative direction, social media strategy, and account management.
While doing this I began building portfolio work mirroring companies that I wanted to work for in action sports, such as Vans and Red Bull. Through building my social media with creative content featuring myself and others, I built a portfolio of work samples. Working for free. Projects such as this soon brought me to one of my most pivotal career moments. Designing the first comprehensive hardback book on female skateboarding, “It’s Not About Pretty”, published by Cindy Whitehead and photos by Ian Logan.
If the path you want doesn’t exist on paper, or it’s hard to reach, find a creative way to get you there.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Elise. I’m a Skateboarder, Photographer, Graphic Designer, and Director of Social Media Strategy at Octagon. At Octagon myself and my team serve as the social media experts across our agency’s clients such as Simone Biles, Trinity Rodman, and Stephen Curry.
Working with the world’s best athletes took strategy, resilience, and creativity while building my career. Each new industry I found myself in was never an open door, but rather an investment of educating and proving myself to get in.
After graduating college in Florida and designing “It’s Not About Pretty” I landed my first job in the action sports industry in Southern California. From here I went on to work for brands such as Hurley and the World Surf League as the Director of Social Media. In this role I lead the league’s social media coverage for the 2021 Olympic Games, 2022 International Women’s Day Activation, and Apple TV’s “Make or Break” in addition to coverage of the Championship Tour of Surfing.
After being laid off from this role in 2022, I found myself at a pivotal moment as I aimed to grow into the broader sports industry. It took nearly one year of not only interviewing for roles, but submerging myself in broader sports, creating sample work, studying games and athletes, and building network opportunities. After tackling the interview process for companies such as ESPN, WNBA, and Meta, I finally found my home as the Director of Social Media Strategy at Octagon, one of the top athlete representation agencies in the world.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Sometimes I feel that my whole career journey thus far paints a picture of resilience.
From the start after graduating college, I had lofty dreams. I knew what I wanted was specific, and hard to come by and I soon realized it was going to take a lot of creative grit to get there.
Coming from Florida with no industry connections, landing a job in the tight-knit action sports industry was hard to do. It took creative thinking and free sample work, which pushed me to design the first comprehensive hardback book on female skateboarding, “It’s Not About Pretty.”
Working for Hurley and the World Surf League were both dream jobs, and after finally making it there, due to the state of the industry, I was laid off by both of them.
Not only did I navigate these layoffs, but I used the experience to continue launching my career upward, reaching a role in the broader sports industry at Octagon.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
In 2014 I was featured by Thrasher. During this time female skateboarders on Instagram were practically nonexistent. My Instagram account grew from a couple hundred to 14K followers overnight. I had a platform and a decision, I could use it for myself or to build a career. I chose the latter.
As a multimedia artist, photographer, graphic designer, and skateboarder I used my platform to feature all of these things. I captured other athletes, collaborated with artists to capture me, worked with brands, and more. I built a portfolio of sample work, earned my way to California, and once I was there, my content and connections increased even more, but best of all, I had built a career.
Passion, strategy, and resilience can take you a long way if you let it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.elisecrigar.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elise_crigar/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-crigar-75990525/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/elise_crigar
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@elise_crigar https://www.pinterest.com/elise_crigar/_saved/ https://bio.site/elise_crigar
Image Credits
1, photo of me shot by Grant Puckett 3, athlete Izzi Gomez (San Clemente, CA) 4, athlete Janthavy Norton (Los Angeles, CA) 5, athlete Vaihiti Mahana Inso (Oahu, HI) 6, athlete Angie Marino (San Diego, CA)