We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emilie Chen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emilie below.

Hi Emilie, thanks for joining us today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

I’m not sure if ‘innovative’ is the right word but shortly after joining the National Theatre, I worked on Everyman, an upcoming adaptation of a medieval moral tale where God sends Death on Earth to fetch an unsuspecting Everyman. My poster art showed a Giant Finger coming from the sky to point at a man glued to his phone. I pitched the idea to the Marketing team to create a public art installation based on the poster design, by putting the Giant Finger on the front of the building for people to interact with. Even though there was no budget for something like this, they liked the idea so much that they took it to the Senior Management team who made it happen.

The ‘Giant Finger’ was on the front of the building for the duration of the show and was a big hit with the public, with tens of thousands of people sharing their picture on Twitter and Instagram. We even made Time Out Magazine London 2015 wrap up issue! To this day people still talk to me about it.

Everyman was the first show directed by Rufus Norris after he was appointed Artistic Director of the organisation, so it felt like a great symbol to signal to the public the change happening at the Theatre.

Emilie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a freelance graphic designer and art director. I come from Paris, where I studied visual communication, before moving to London for an internship. I loved it so much, I am still here 13 years later.

I work on branding projects, advertising campaigns, book covers, and exhibition graphics for clients like the National Theatre (UK), Penguin Books, and Wimbledon.

I work mainly from writer’s words, and I strive on the challenge to translate layered stories and abstract ideas like racism (‘Les Blancs’), grief (‘Nine Night’), or the negativity bias (‘The Power of Bad’) into smart, striking visuals that will captures audiences’ imagination.

I have had the opportunity to work with some of the world’s most influential directors (Sam Mendes for ‘The Lehman Trilogy’), writers (Malcolm Gladwell for ‘Talking to Strangers’ UK edition), photographers (Nadav Kander for ‘Jane Eyre’) and famous actors (Saoirse Ronan in ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in ‘Everyman’) during my career.

I’m really interested in demystifying the creative process, and use my Instagram Stories to share the behind-the-scenes of my work, from where I find my inspiration, to images of photoshoot set-ups, and I have a course about generating ideas for art direction coming out on Domestika this year.

I’m passionate about making the creative industry more inclusive. In 2016, I co-funded the the Ladies Wine & Design London chapter, a community group for women and non-binary creatives. I have been one of the organisers ever since. We run monthly events such as talks, portfolio reviews and creative workshops, and all our events are free. Even though we have no budget, and run the group outside of our day job, the group has grown to over 4000 followers through word of mouth and our events have grown so popular, they sell out under 2 minutes on average! We’ve had prestigious organisations like D&Ad New Blood and General Assembly reach out to collaborate with us, and we’ve been invited to talk at several universities in London including London College of Communication and Ravensbourne.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I graduated the year after the 2008 recession. No one was hiring, and even getting internships proved extremely competitive.

It took 18 months to land my first permanent junior designer role after graduating – and in the interval I was serving food to kids in nursery schools to make some money. I left that role after 9 months to move to London, where I had done an internship the year before, and it took another 8 months before I landed my next permanent role. It was tough. I must have sent over 100 applications and got very few replies, all negative. I was really close to give up and to head back to France, when I met with a recruiter who told me my work was really good but I probably hadn’t got a job because they were going to white British boys. It was the first time I came across the concept of unconscious bias, and this was a game-changer. I had always assumed my work would speak for itself. The conversation around diversity was simply not happening back in 2009/2010.

The same recruiter made me practise my handshake and corrected my choice of words and way I held myself when presenting, to appear more confident and assertive. It was a steep learning curve, but within 2 more months I had landed a permanent role.

I’m so glad I stuck at it, and now ten years later, I am working on theatre posters and book covers, my dream job when I was at uni!

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

I was approached to take part in a pitch to create the campaign for a festival the year I went freelance. The brief was to create three visual concept options, and I badly wanted to do that project, but I was dismayed that there was no pitch fee offered to the participants.

Even though I was scared to burn bridges with that organisation, I set up a call with their Head of Marketing, and in the nicest way possible, I explained that as an independent creative, I could not afford to spend several days on an unpaid project, and that even more importantly, this was devaluing creative work and everyone should be paid for their time.
Their first reaction was to say that the other designers had not had any issue with the pitch not being paid, but they offered me a fee. The figure was really low so I pushed back, and they doubled it immediately! It was still lower than what I would normally charge to cover my time for the brief, but it was now a reasonable offer, so I agreed to it, and went on to win that pitch.

The same organisation approached me a year later to pitch for a different festival they were putting on. They explained they were now paying all the participants in the pitch. It was a lower fee than the one I had been paid the first year but still, I’m really happy that my speaking up benefited everyone. It’s easy to feel disempowered and to accept bad conditions when you’re a freelancer (I blame scarcity mindset), but the truth is, we can educate our clients.

PS: On the topic of free pitching, I recommend Sarah Boris article on Eye Magazine ‘The Design Industry Needs to take a stand-Against Free Pitching. I reached out to her for advice and she was incredibly helpful.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://emiliechen.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spottedbyem/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilie-chen-42a02026/

Image Credits
Nine Night: photography by Sorted Les Blancs: Anna-Maria Nabirye – photography by Franklyn Rodgers Salomé: photography by Sebastian Nevols