The New Studio + Fresh Start

If any y’all were following on insta-story you’d see that last week was particularly epic, work-wise. To celebrate I dressed up like I was 18, hung out in my dorm room and ate a bowl of cereal in front of the camera 🙂 Everything above is from Target, by the way. Here’s what went down …

We had two major shoots across town from each other, we moved studios, all while trying to keep up the content. I notoriously like to push things, physically and mentally. I don’t space out tasks very well, and instead say, with a challenging grin, ‘can we get it all done this week?’. I know it’s one of the reasons that I’m successful, that being productive and churning out content is indeed an important part of running a digital company, but there have definitely been times where I’ve thought to myself, Woah, lady. That bite in your mouth is bigger than even a grizzly bear could chew. 

But a grizzly bear only has one mouth and I have 8 incredibly wonderful and talented people helping execute (including freelancers). Ginny, Mel, Erik and Tessa were on the Pasadena Sotheby’s shoot while Brady, Sara and Emily B. (other Emily, PA assistant) were on the Target Dorm room shoot at the new studio. Jess coordinated the move from the old office (stayed til 11pm one night!!! Thank you Jess!!!) and I bopped around like a crazy person giving notes, tweaking things, posing for camera and hopefully heaping enough praise for all the work that they were doing.

On Saturday we had our studio sale which was insane – super market sweep for two hours. Thirty people were in at a time, for only 15 minutes so that those waiting in line didn’t have to wait hours and lose out on everything. It was super exciting and we all had serotonin rushing through our veins…

Brady, Ginny and Sara all helped on the day of the sale (The crew has obviously figured out the blue, denim and stripes go-to uniform) although missing from pic is Jess, Mel, Emily B, and Erik who all helped prep for the sale with us.

We started our first day of work in the new studio on Monday. I know I kinda bypassed why we moved and so many people have asked. Is it bigger? No. Is it cheaper? Nope. It’s smaller and more expensive. Great!!

But it’s a 1930’s deco building that has been totally refurbished with tasteful details and good light. (I just insta-storied about it so head there if you want to see some footage). The main reason we looked for a new building was because even I had a 25 minute commute home and I was the closest. Our old space was so close to our old house, but once we moved to Los Feliz it just seemed like there was no reason to be so far east. Brady and Sara were both commuting 45 (at least) minutes. Once I decided no more flea or design clients I realized that we didn’t need as much space or storage, which prompted the hunt for a new space that made sense for what we were going to focus on moving forward.

And lastly I needed my own office. I’m a total extrovert, obviously, but sometimes that isn’t great for open concept offices. I find that even the presence of someone else makes me want to gab and I get so distracted, accomplishing nothing. I was becoming so scattered, trying to answer everyones questions all day that I was doing such a disservice to everyone. We would go out back for a “meeting” or conference call and sit on the curb. I stopped coming in because I knew that I wouldn’t be productive at the office and instead stayed home to write, leaving them to have to text or come over if they wanted to meet with me. It became so inefficient and they were guessing too often what I wanted.

So even the first day at the new studio was great. I met with Ginny and Mel to finish up all the design client work (without everyone else being disturbed by it!), then Brady and Jess to talk blog and editorial calendar, then Sara about social and photography deadlines, then Brady again to chat through sponsorships. Sure, it was 3pm before I started writing the next day’s post but I could tell that everyone felt covered and they could better do their job. Learning how to be a good boss and not just a fun one is so hard, folks.

The studio itself is more industrial – old brick, black steel casement windows and cement floor, but the building is super pretty with gorgeous doors and architecture. We share the building with another design firm, a music studio and a magazine + below us is going to be the new Five Leaves (the original is in Brooklyn) with delicious drinks and food. Also we are right across the street from the big Scientology building so it’s REALLY safe (they have patrollers all day, every day).

You can’t really ‘decorate’ a space like this. So my instinct right now is a couple epic mirrors, sconces, pendants, a big mood board and probably new desks. I love our desks but they are pretty big – we used to have two people on each desk so the size was great, but now that it’s only one person per desk I think we could downsize to make it feel bigger.

This room is about the same size as our old studio, but without the storage in the back. We are renting a storage unit a block away but hopefully we don’t just keep accumulating stuff 🙂 We didn’t get a chance to take real before photos so sorry that these are kinda messy, but you get the gist of it 😉

We are all loving it so far. Better food, less commute, better view (we can see downtown from our desks), and already so organized – thanks to everyone’s help.

It might take us a bit to catch up, not having internet for a while kinda slows down a digital company but we are all extra excited about the content coming out, so stay tuned. And again head to insta-story if you want to see some footage of the space with desks now.