Looking for a job in LA!

As I mentioned before in my blog I moved from NYC to LA looking to work in the junior side of the industry in fashion, so one of the first things that came to my mind was, What companies are in LA? Well I did some research and it took me a few week to get a full list of these companies. I noticed that La has a lot of very small companies that sell to boutiques and specialty stores. But basically to give an idea of how to search for these companies and learn more of them, I went over the sites like www.stylecareers.com and you can get a few companies enlisted. Also you wouldn't believe me how useful Google Maps has become to me, I basically went and types in search maps apparel manufacturing companies and it will give you a list with full addresses and sometimes sites. I found the following:

*BCBG - the company itself has over 1,500 employees in its building and it in Vernon, LA, close to downtown. Working at this company can be quite a stress if you are not used to this kind of enviorment. Its very fast paste and long hours can be expected to work.

*Forever 21 - I have a ex-coworker that worked there, and I actually interviewed for a position as an assistant designer. The company looks more laid-back and there a lot of young people working there. They seem to have issues paying a decent salary to people with experience, (according to people to used to work there).

*Guess - This company is a great company , it seems more of a company that cares about there employees. The building has a gym for its employees and the facilities are great. I had the opportunity to work freelance there, and it was a nice experience, people are friendly.

*Perry Ellis- there is a division of Perri Ellis that is located in LA and is women's contemporary, can't remember the name, but it was basically sportswear. Don't know much about the company itself but it seems that is adding several divisions for women and they are constantly looking for people.

*Warnaco - Warnaco actually has its main location in NYC, but here in LA I think they just run there swimwear line. The complex is huge and it seems to be hard to get into this company. I never see openings on this company in particular, so what i do is sent my resume directly from there site: www.warnaco.com

*Tommy Bahama- I believe this company is located in Pasadena which is like 15-30 minutes from downtown LA. I have never had an interview with this company, but it seems to pay pretty good (according to an ex-coworker) and you can check in there site that they always have openings.

*American Apparel- This company is a huge 3-4 building complex located near downtown. The company seems to have group interview for design positions, as if you were applying for some of these retail stores in Holidays. My experience was a very quick interview and they are looking for people with cut & sew experience, as you see everything they sell is Cut& Sew. I feel like this company is very laid back to work with.



These are the main huge companies that are located in LA. This does not mean that these are the only ones, most of the other companies are small denim companies. One HUGE advise that I will give to anyone if you plan to work in LA in the fashion industry -mass production -junior side, try to get an internship at a denim company. LA is the main capital of denim industry in the US, most of the companies look for denim knowledge.

Other things an Assistant Designer might do

In my experience there are always things that you will find in your job that you will not like to do. Like opening your email in the morning and replying to millions of email from people yin production, factory, an design. But that is part of the job, and hopefully when time pass you will eventually have your own assistant who will do that for you. Other duties that you might have as an assistant are:

-Setting up the showroom for presentation to buys.I remember working with this big company that had many licenses and small line and I used to work for one of them. My job as an Assistant Designer was to set up all the garments that were going to be presented to buyers, steam them and make sure we had all the garments from the line. That was a lot of fun to do.

-Assistant are also ask to organized fabric or swatch libraries,organize garment racks, and overall design room. I did that a lot and still do it if ask for it, so don't complain if you have to do it.

-Sometime you might be ask to go to the garment district and get some fabrics, trims or even buy inspirational garments and return them later.

What does an Assistant Designer do?

If you are considering to study fashion design, you are probably asking yourself, Will I be designing, draping or pattern making all day? All these factors depend on what career path in fashion you might want to start on. As I mentioned in one of my previous postings, most of the times students start working for the mass production world. Like Forever21, Gap, Jones Apparel, or probably small companies that have licenses for Wal-Mart and department stores. These are the most likely paths that students take in the beginning. Either starting out in a small company or not you will be most likely doing hte following things:

-helping to make tech packs or spec sheets for pre-production
this entails basically taking a garment and taking the measurements or it, making
sure that you add all the design details into the spec sheet, for instance pocket
measurements, tread color, buttons, type of stitch desired etc. Basically every
single detail that you can see in the garment. For most of the companies, specially
small ones, the assistant designers do the tech packs just for the production of
the production of the first proto sample and after that technical designer take
take care of the rest.

-helping on presentation boards that have to be presented to buyers or head design
team. This entails Internet research on new styles and tear sheets as inspiration
for boards. This task is not done frequently, some companies just do 1 presentation
for season.

-The most important task is sketching flats in illustrator. Normally the head designer has somethign done by hand and as I mentioned before most companies
are using technology now days to make flat sketches that can be easly edited
later on in the computer instead of done by hand. So this task is very important
for any assistant designer.

-Helping editing pictures as mood pages for presentation boards. Basically you have to have at least basic knowledge in Photo shop to be able to manipulate colors in
tear sheets from magazines to be used as inspirations. Sometimes the designer
wants to change an element in the picture to have the colors to changed to the color
ways already selected for the season, just for visual presentation purposes.

- Line sheets are very important. For many companies assistants help doing line sheets
wich are basically all the garments placed in one sheet with all there correspondent
info,as style#, suggested retail price, color, sizes, and prints.

-Sending linesheets and spec updates via email. Any updates that you make in the day
like, updating linesheets, spec sheets, sketches etc. All have to be sent to
correspondent team members at the end of each day. Being accurete and double
checking your work is very very important.

-When changes are to be done to any arriving proto garments, you will be ask to
search for any buttons, etc. and sew them. Take pictures of the garments when
head designer come from shipping for inspiration garments, and maybe later on
having to go and return those garments.

Keep tuned to see more tasks...

Life as an Assistant designer in LA

I moved to LA, about 6 months ago straight from NYC where I had started as an assistant designer in a great well known company. There were many reasons why I moved here, one of them was to explore the Junior market here in LA as a fashion designer. The jobs have been pretty tough out here, since the economy started going down. I have been doing some freelance work in companies like Guess and BCBG, and its been quite a journey.

One thing that I noticed here in LA, was that companies do whant to pay even $35k for an assistant, wich is pretty sad considering that the lifestyle is not much different from NYC when it comes to money.

Apparel companies in LA seem to have a different feel. The enviorment is defenitley more laid back and design-wise is more open and free. Once you go into the fashion world there so many other positions and career-wise you learn of no many oppportunities you can find out there. You just need to be the best!!

Illustrator CS tips and tutorials

As I mentioned before in my previous post, knowing Illustrator as an assistant designer is very important, so I decided to open a section where I can share with you tips that will help you work faster and have fun while you work.

1.Below is an example of how to do a mock neck sweater with different size 2x2 rib.
In this example we have the sweater already done, so we will go ahead and do the rib.




2. Now, lets start with the cuffs with a 2x2 rib. Draw a straight line where you want the rib. (for the moment you can do the line with any stroke weight, I did 1pt.)



3. Next, on the Stroke window, click on Dashed Line> and use 0.75, 1pt., 0.75, 2pt.
(Remember, I am using this particular setting because I want to give a 2x2 rib
effect, you can always play with it and create a different rib spacing)


4. The next step is to determine the height of the rib, just change the weight of the stroke and you are done with the height. In this particular case the weight of stroke is changed to 10 pt.




5. Now we are going to Menu> Object> Transform> Reflect> Copy> OK and place the rib in its place.



6. Now to create the rib for the bottom sweater, just repeat steps 1-5 and this time I used the same dashed line with the stoke weight will be 41pt.





Next will be the mock neck:

7. Make a slight curve line at the Neck, (in this case my stroke is 1pt.)
8. With this line selected, use the eyedropper tool, click on the already done rib at the cuff, and this will automatically create it into the rib neck.




9. This next step might be a little more challenging, now the rib we want the rib to fit exactly into the neck line.
10. Draw the shape of the neck in red just to differentiate it form the original neck, make sure it is Arrange< Bring to front.



11. With Black Selection Tool, select the red neck shape and the rib at the neck at the same time, then go to Object< Clipping Mask< Make. DONE!!
(This Mask that you have created can be release at any time)




Above both the rib and the red line neck shape are selected.



Now with the mask done, the rib will fit perfectly into the neck.


For more tutorials, you can go to http://www.designertoday.com/Tutorials/Illustrator/2.aspx
www.teachertube.com

Know your salary

Below I have attached some examples of where to go a do research before going into your first interview, this way you know what to expect when salary comes to the table.I always go into www.payscale.com or even www.salary.com these sites help you figure out the salary that you should be getting depending on the location and experience. A side from this, it also has many other things that will help you how to negotiate your salary at interviews, prepare for interviews,dress up professional. These people have updated surveys on salary for every location, So check it out!

Below is a chart of the expected salary depending on your experience:




Check it out for your self at,
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Fashion/Salary

My career as an assistant designer in the fashion industry

This site is ment to be like a compilations of peoples experiences in the fashion industry, people that have been working as assistant designers and want to share their toughs in many different areas. Aside from that I am going to talk about what I do and also a few hints for recent or about to graduate students in fashion design. Some of the topics that I will like to share are; what to expect right out of college?, what to do before graduating to build a good portfolio?, and many many other tips, that of course are open to other people to comment.

First off being an assistant designer can be a very exiting career, the reason is that all companies work very different. So sky is the limits...

Now, before I go forward these are all my personal opinion and of course they are open to other comments, here are some tips from me to you for before you graduate...


* If you want to get a real good offer in you first job, try to have at least 2 internships by the time you graduate.

* Never rely just in what your curriculum offers, do some research on what an assistant designer needs to know these days, in my opinion some schools are just not up to what is new out there. Know illustrator and Photoshop from A to Z.

*If you want to be open to work in everything as an assistant designer,Try to take a course in Excel, besides from illustrator and Photoshop, the reason is because you could be doing specs depending on the company of course. (Don’t go crazy over this program meaning that you won’t have to be a brain on this).

*While in school you will have a lot of time to develop a good portfolio, and the trick is to make your portfolio as professional as you can. What do I mean? Very clean, no sloppiness and also try to do research online on other designers,for you to have an idea of what professionals have been doing over the years. One site that was a success for me in many ways, was www.styleportfolios.com here you see millions of peoples portfolios that will give you an idea.

*If you have knowledge in illustrator and like to work with it, try to include some projects done in computer, especially some flats and prints. *I would say this was essential for me to get a job, because out of many many interviews I went, not one didn't ask for it. Why? Because in many companies they do their flat sketching in illustrator, although their still companies work the “old school way” (by hand).

*Lets say you go to an interview in a company that happens to do sketching in computer, (which is almost every company) They will ask you to do a separate project in computer and hand it in the second interview. "Which I have seen"..

*After you have your portfolio done try to get it out there as much as you can, scan it and post it in your blog, and try doing what I did which is posting it over the internet in www.styleportfolios.com , this is what got me the Real Job. Many many recruiters and companies that post openings in fashion are constantly searching for peoples portfolios.

Now, after you get the job, don’t expect to be designing all day, the reality is other, although like I said before it all depends in what type of company you are working at, I would say in almost every company you will be doing a lot of multitasking …

In your first job..

*In the morning check emails and reply to factories is something that you will be doing a lot. This will take probably your first 30 minutes in the morning, and for the rest of the day you won't get off Outlook.

*Helping doing presentation boards, knowing how to work clean and meticulous is important.

*Sketching flats in illustrator, and using Photoshop to scan images for mood boards.

(Some companies will use a lot of Photoshop to manipulate images to use for their

mood boards, so color manipulation is essential)

*In other companies, assistant designers will have to create prints, plaids and stripes in Photoshop, or if not they sometimes just need to recolor them.

(Sometimes companies will prefer to do their stripes, plaids and prints in illustrator, so have this in mind).

*You most probably will be handling a lot of samples and inspirational garments.

Organizational skills are very important to keep track of everything.

*At least where I work (corporative enviornment) Filling is sometime that most of the times you can never escape, I at least file once a month. Filling trims, specs, and cads, "believe me its not the most exciting part of the job, but I tend to do this when is a little more slow, so that I don’t get bored", although in some companies you will just not have time at all.

*Some companies will like you to go and source trims and fabrics around the fashion industry (specially small companies). "I used to do this when I was working for a small line".

*Also going online to find stuff to knock off, is very common in the fashion world, so you will be doing this a lot .

*Specs are something that really depends also in the company, I personally have worked in 2 big companies and in one I did not have to do them and the other company I am. So, that is why I said that knowing a little of Excel doesn’t hurt.

* I will like to say that the position as an Assistant designer can be a little discouraging at the beginning because you will ask yourself, Shouldn't I be designing all day?.... But this is something that everybody goes trough in many careers when they are starting, it will not be just you!

Another Question you ask yourself, is..

Should I start in a small company or a big company?

*When I was in school I personally thought that I wanted to start in a big company, so that I can have a good name in my resume. Because believe it or not, working in a much known company will make an effect in your resume. The other reason is that I wanted to see how a corporative environment runs the business.

*I got the job in a known company and I ended up realizing that working in a smaller company would have given me a more wide experience. In small companies you have to do a little bit of everything so you get more experience, -vs.- in a big company like the one where I work, I do less things because they have their own tech department and cad department.

*That was the conclusion that I can to.. What do you think? Please feel free to comment..

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