Business Boom Bolton

It’s a pleasure to be interviewed! I am an artist, graphic and web designer originally from New York, but now proud to call Manchester home.

Well graphic design wasn’t actually my original intended career. Although I’ve always been very artistic, the focus throughout my life had always been on music; opera in particular. I began a classical degree in Vocal Performance as a Soprano at Manhattan School of Music and after two years, realised that Opera as a career was taking the passion out of it for me. So, I became a music school drop out and started temping around New York City. One of those temp jobs, at Kaplow Communications, turned out to be the start of my career. I started as an executive assistant, working under two incredibly talented brand strategists, David Herrick and Tina Chadha and quickly showed them and the company what skills I could offer in graphic design. Long story short, I ended up being heavily involved in the new business process and also gained the trust of the internal account teams, allowing me to work on many projects for some very big companies. One of the great things about starting my graphic design career at a PR firm is that marketing and branding run naturally through my veins. Whenever I start with a client, I don’t just give them a logo or a website. Brands need a personality and goals. I think about the whole picture or, in some cases, create the whole picture.

In tandem with my work at Kaplow, I also started attending higher learning courses at The School of Visual Arts (SVA) and was very fortunate to have met a mentor and teacher, Genevieve Williams. She introduced me to great designers like Michael Beirut, Stefan Sagmeister and Marian Bantjes who have been my inspiration since then. She also helped me put into place the design and colour theory and typographic technique needed to continue to push myself in the right direction.

I love living and working in the UK. Coming from New York where you’re lucky if you get 2 weeks holiday and work only 10-hour days, there is a much better work-life balance here. I also love Manchester because it’s bursting at the seams with art, design and music, but it’s all very accessible.

A typical day for me consists of waking up, having a coffee, walking out the door trying not to trip over the pile of beer cans and spilled chips in the hallway of my overpriced and undermanaged apartment building in the Northern Quarter, walking 10 blocks (I know, New York speak!) down the road to my office, Ampersand Commerce (http://ampersandcommerce.com), and then from there everyday is different. I wear quite a few hats including marketing for the agency, award entries and new business document design, managing, copywriting and designing for our own website, among other internal things. On the client side, I’ve recently begun designing the front-end for select clients. As a technical agency, focusing on Magento ecommerce development (http://ampersandcommerce.com/what-is-magento/), design is a new venture for Ampersand, so it’s exciting to see where my design input take us in the future.

Manchester is a great city for a designer to live. New York is fantastic, but there is so much choice and so much going on at the same time, you always feel like you’ve missed something great. In Manchester and other cities in the North West, the creative scene is so alive and has such a great energy, and using tools like Twitter and Eventbrite it’s really easy to see what is happening and connect with likeminded people. I have to say the only thing I miss about New York is the food, but once a month my husband and I attend something here in Manchester called Gastroclub (http://thegastroclub.com/). A woman named Katie Brunt, who recently won Food Hero award at the Manchester Food & Drink Awards, puts it on and asks local chefs and restaurants to push the boundaries and serve a group of foodies some weird and wonderful dishes. She recently asked me to design a logo for the group also, and it was really fun to work on a project for a monthly experience I already enjoyed so much.

The 2011 Big Chip Awards were incredible for the Ampersand team. It was the agency’s first award and in one night, we left with three! The team were extremely excited and proud and we’ve actually ended 2011 with a total of five awards for our work on Made.com including a Lovie Award and a DADI Award.

This year, because of our wins last year, we were asked by Manchester Digital to re-skin the Big Chip Awards website, (http://www.bigchipawards.com/) and as the Ampersand resident designer, I was very proud to be able to work on the project.

You have recently expanded into the niche of e-commerce web design, how are you finding this field of work and how does it differ to other projects?

There was a time, before working at Ampersand Commerce, when I was a bit of a traditionalist. I was very stark about being a print designer and typographer and only ventured into web when it was absolutely necessary. I admit now that was more out of fear than anything else. I’ve realised that the web is just as tactile as print design and can be even more interactive. Designing for conversion in ecommerce is also a very interesting field to study. Psychology and standards come into play and you really have to push your imagination to be inventive while still staying close to a format that customers are used to. I wish I could show you some of the client work I’ve been doing at Ampersand, but ecommerce development takes quite a while and my designs have not yet been released!

I lived in Florence for 10 months while I did a masters course in graphic design. I have to be honest; the school itself was not the best. But I took the opportunity to really push myself to find my style and find what makes me tick as an artist and a designer. I focused on type design, collage, layout and editorial design.

The main advantage for me of studying in another country is that you don’t take anything for granted. Everything becomes inspiring – food, wine, people, music, landscape, buildings. While I was there I met some incredible friends, who are also designers, and we had a constant banter about art, collaborated on designs and critiqued each others work.

Right before graduating, I actually won an international design competition as part of Design Den Haag, “A New Symbol for Europe” competition (http://www.designdenhaag.eu/en/node/3123) The task was to create a new identity for the EU flag as many people in the countries in the EU didn’t relate to the current flag and it’s 13 stars. I won, along with 10 others and my design was showcased at several governmental events across Europe. It was an incredible experience.

For me, and I think for many designers, my work is my life and visa versa. I’m always designing something, for my home, for my friends, making t-shirts to add to my husband’s collection. Other than design, I’m a big reader and an avid TV watcher. And if you haven’t noticed already, I love music. It really inspires me. I love listening to awesome jazz and hip hop while dancing around my apartment. I am very lucky to have three DJs in my close group of friends, so I’m a bit spoiled when it comes to music.

I definitely have. When I first moved to Manchester, I had about 300 twitter followers, now I have over 1,000 and most of them are local. Manchester has such a lively online community it was where I went to start to scratch the surface of the creative community here, and it really worked!

Here’s where you can find me

Twitter @rbgArts (http://www.twitter.com/rbgarts)

LinkedIn (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/racheltonner)

Behance (http://www.behance.net/rachelgraham)

Issuu (http://issuu.com/rachel_graham)

I also have a new portfolio website and blog http://racheltonner.com being coded at the moment by my colleague Clare McKenzie (http://www.twitter.com/anythingstripey), so stay tuned.

My Macbook Pro – It holds my life and my work. Even though I start many things on paper, my computer is the tool the turns my sketches into final products

My black cowboy boots – I don’t know how or why it happened, but they have been a style staple for me for about 10 years now. Everytime a pair wears out it takes me months to find a replacement! I’m very particular about my boots.

My dot grid notebook – This is where my ideas start. I can’t work on plain paper because I have trouble drawing a straight line (shhh).

My red chanel lipstick – This was my treat to myself for my wedding day and I’ve never found a shade better.

Mr Scruff’s chai tea – It’s like heaven in a cup.

Thank you Rachel, best wishes for the future!