Christiana Azmy

I've been really lucky to have some wonderful mentors who have helped me grow and expand my skill sets to a huge extreme. The two biggest people who have helped me were from Commonwealth, previously the AOR for Chevrolet. Alex Sheldon was an Associate Creative Director who managed me and taught me hand lettering, which has been a huge skill set for me in my freelance career. Being able to make custom fonts by hand has been really appealing to musicians and brands, especially with AI and automation coming out. Something more authentic and hand-done has been my strength. Jacob Rosenberg, the Design Director I still work with in some freelance capacity, taught me a new way of seeing design and creative, and how you can expand and add concepting within design to really strengthen it. He's helped me land some really fun freelance work and has been a really wonderful intersectional ally who cares about touching creative to the core in a way that's been really unique compared to mentorship I've seen at other places.

When I was a freshman in college at my orientation, one of the speakers said something that really stuck with me: anyone can learn how to draw. It's not the skill of drawing that we're focusing on, it's the creative mindset and sharpening your creative brain to be quick and agile. I truly believe anyone could do my job, it's just a matter of loving it as much as I do and the amount of time that I've put into it. That advice helped me understand that what matters most is developing that creative mindset and being willing to put in the time and dedication to sharpen those skills.

Starting out is incredibly difficult for everyone,  but especially difficult for young women. There's a push for some change now, like the 3% Conference exists, so there's more conversation around putting women in positions of power. But I would say, lean into community. Whether it exists or it's something you have to build, people are more willing to give feedback and uplift each other than you might think. It might feel overwhelming or really large to message a stranger on LinkedIn or go to a networking event, but the best thing that we have is each other. The best people to advocate for each other sometimes are strangers and new connections that we've built. Those connections and that community are probably the strongest thing for someone starting out and getting into the career field, because advertising is a beast. It's a beast with many heads, and it is unwielding. Having strong community and strong connections is probably the most helpful thing that I could have had.

Advertising is a very flawed industry. I'll be the first to admit that. A lot of politics go into decisions that are made, and often knowing how to navigate them isn't something you learn until much later in your career. I hope to be able to be the change, and remedy what I can. I don't think anything is irreparable, and the best thing we can do, our greatest opportunity, is to be that change.

Compassion is probably the biggest value for me. I think it's easy to navigate a professional field in a more individualistic sense, but I think that both in creative work and interpersonal relationships, compassion is important. If you just care about the creative only and not the people behind it, it's not a holistic value and the work suffers as a result. Showing compassion for your colleagues or for people that you meet on the street is huge. I think there's a lack of compassion in the world today, unfortunately. I would also say integrity, which maybe that's a bit cliche, but I think it's really easy to not be the best version of yourself or walk away from your morals in order to achieve certain things. Standing my ground and being really rooted in myself and what's important to me has really helped strengthen my career. So I would say compassion and integrity.