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Christina Melito - Designing for Tension: Creative Leadership in the Age of AI
15 Plays1 day ago
What does it really mean to lead creative work in a world being reshaped by AI, complexity, and constant change?
In this episode, Tracey Halvorsen sits down with Christina Melito, Creative Director at Fifteen4, for an honest, funny, and deeply insightful conversation about what creative leadership actually requires today — from managing stakeholders in regulated industries to operationalizing AI tools without losing your soul.
They explore how tension can be a design tool, why client work is often a form of behavioral psychology, and how real change comes not from polishing pixels — but from shifting minds.
Plus:
– Why AI might be the most liberating thing to happen to creative teams in 20 years
– How to make clients feel heard without losing sight of what really matters
– What nobody tells you about visual design (spoiler: zooming in 10,000%)
– And yes, the return of the lawnmower, microwave baloney, and meat roll-ups
This isn’t just about websites — it’s about transformation.
And how brave, curious creatives help make it happen.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to 'Escape Velocity' Podcast
00:00:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Welcome everyone to another episode of Escape Velocity. i am here, your host, Tracy Halverson. I'm always here. and I am here talking with Christina Melito, who is a creative director at 15.4 and has a lawnmower going in her background right now because that's just the way things happen.
00:00:27
Christina Melito
I do know.
00:00:31
Christina Melito
We have to get things done, don't we?
00:00:32
Tracey Halvorsen
So
00:00:33
Christina Melito
we still got to get things done.
00:00:33
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, that's the universe just saying like, how good are you going to be able to deal with the issues we are going to throw at you today? So we're going to roll with it. Anyhow, so thanks again for listening. And ah
Unexpected Beginnings of a New Episode
00:00:51
Tracey Halvorsen
just a little background. So Christina kind of got on my radar a little bit.
00:00:57
Tracey Halvorsen
unusually in the sense that she just kind of reached out and wanted to chat. And she's, you know, a fellow creative working in the same area as I am, you know, in Maryland, has has spent the last almost 20 years working in this industry.
00:01:15
Tracey Halvorsen
and And I'm, you know, it's funny, you'd think more people would kind of reach out and ask to talk and engage. And I'm just telling you, They don't. The ones that reach out are usually like spammers who want to sell you something.
00:01:27
Tracey Halvorsen
So it was a real breath of fresh air. And I took her up on her request and we had a great talk. And I loved hearing about her journey and answering questions and and asking my own.
00:01:39
Tracey Halvorsen
And so we decided that we would turn it into a podcast episode, which we are doing today. So Christina, thank you for joining. if you'd like to kind of give a little background about what you're up to right now and let everybody know who's listening a little bit from you.
Career Transitions and Growth
00:01:54
Christina Melito
Well, i I will thank you again for your time about six months back when I thought I just needed a little check-in from somebody I've admired for years who's been doing great work from just around the way, you know, Baltimore.
00:02:00
Tracey Halvorsen
and
00:02:07
Christina Melito
And your name came highly recommended as somebody I could maybe seek advice from or just throw some ideas around with. And so I i still thank you today for that time.
00:02:18
Tracey Halvorsen
You are most welcome.
00:02:18
Christina Melito
and You're very generous, really.
00:02:19
Tracey Halvorsen
And it's good.
00:02:21
Christina Melito
we're all very busy. And so that was lovely. so I'm about one year in, having switched agencies from maybe G to 15, four. And, you know, I was, I was naive.
00:02:35
Christina Melito
I was a little naive about how easy I thought the transition would be from, from one team to another, from a larger agency to a smaller, from one set of clients to another. and so I'm getting my groove though now.
00:02:48
Christina Melito
And I, and I'm really, I am starting to flourish and it's going really well. And so,
The Pandemic's Impact on Work Dynamics
00:02:56
Christina Melito
you know, I just think this is a wonderful time to sit together and just reflect on the things that we we've been through together or we the experiences we've had and see if it helps your listeners.
00:03:06
Christina Melito
So thanks Hey guys.
00:03:07
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, great. Well, all of my listeners, how there might be like maybe 10 at this point. don't know.
00:03:18
Tracey Halvorsen
But we are so appreciative that you're here listening right now. and And look, it's been crazy the last couple of years in particular. And, you know, I went, I exited my old agency In 2019, I was like going through it, figuring it out, you know, working with lawyers. It was so not fun.
00:03:40
Tracey Halvorsen
and then finally, like things get signed, bam, pandemic happens. And I'm just like, well, I've already been kind of in lockdown isolation for last year, so I can deal with the pandemic.
00:03:51
Tracey Halvorsen
And then coming out of that, it's like the whole nature of how we work together got so changed by that. And then, you know, the universe said, let's give you a little more fun.
00:04:05
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:04:06
Tracey Halvorsen
And so i just feel like what I thought was crazy times passing and then we get to a new normal that feels like normal just accelerated into more crazy and more crazy.
00:04:19
Tracey Halvorsen
And from, you know, being in client services, right, we work with people and we use our creativity
00:04:28
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:04:30
Tracey Halvorsen
and our other talents, um um not like the lawnmower guy who is using his lawnmower to mow the lawn.
00:04:31
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:04:36
Christina Melito
My husband. Right?
00:04:41
Tracey Halvorsen
But it's such a challenge and it's really easy, I think, to to navigate all the people in the mix in client services from your own internal team. And now you're managing more people and have more responsibility. And then of course there's the clients and whatever issues they have.
00:05:02
Tracey Halvorsen
So I think, you know, one question I have for you being a year in where you're at, in the midst of crazy times like the rest of us, has there been, we all know that the the bad, right?
00:05:16
Tracey Halvorsen
Has there been one thing that's gotten you really excited that you were not expecting to be so exciting about the industry or your job or your career path?
Embracing AI in Creative Work
00:05:27
Christina Melito
Yeah. So couple things real quick. I remember when quarantine started and, you know, there were a couple teams I was working with and my previous employer.
00:05:33
Tracey Halvorsen
you
00:05:39
Christina Melito
There were like seven others of us like supporting a contract together. And I remember it was really a dark time for some people to get acclimated to the isolation or the perception of isolation and then breaking that down with more virtual meetings, turning our cameras on, of kind of water cooler talk and building time and then rituals around how we can still stay connected. So I remember that, but I thought our teams thrived and if anything, we were delivering some of the best work we had to date as a team, even though we were all virtual.
00:06:12
Christina Melito
and so, but like, you know, fast forward to where we are now and had, could we have guessed in 2019? twenty nineteen Well, I think ai was out. I think ChatGPT was out or was just around the corner.
00:06:26
Christina Melito
I remember it was, and it it launched, it was free.
00:06:26
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:06:29
Christina Melito
it I was curious. I definitely wasn't, I don't want to say an early adopter, but I was definitely an early like tinkerer of like, what is this thing? And there was a moment about four or five months ago when my my boss came to me and said, hey, there's this like,
00:06:48
Christina Melito
There's this company I've talked to and I'm learning about that builds custom AI agents, like specifically for creative agencies. And I like instantly knew 10 things that if I never did again and could assign and direct to somebody that could be in the form of like this, like operationalizing that I could free myself up or the team's time up to focus on strategy and focus on concept and dedicate more brain power to what I ultimately think clients want to pay for. <unk> That's the value is like freeing up the human mind to do better work, to do more differentiated work, more fresh, more.
00:07:39
Christina Melito
I can't wait to tell them going to feel so bad. And so in that moment, about four months ago, I was like, oh my gosh, Like this is the most, oh man, like it was a very moving moment actually where I was like, oh, I don't have to flesh out a 60 to 100 icon library, custom icon library ever again. I can just define 15 of them and have an agent produce the other 90.
00:08:04
Christina Melito
Those are, I don't want my developer Photoshopping logos that are gonna go on the website. I'm like, no, I wanna free them up to code I want to frame up the build things from scratch and apps and build new product systems and stuff. So I am very excited about it.
00:08:21
Christina Melito
You know, I, I will say some people at the company at 15 four are nervous and they're, they're, they're not sure. And I do these little activities where I'm like, Hey, I've just saw you write a, like basically build a custom plugin for a client that's had to meet all these really complex requirements.
00:08:43
Christina Melito
And now that it's done and fully tested and launched, deployed, can you just try to like reverse engineer your process using chat GV? Like just test it and see, could it, could you under it's under the like, expertise that you bring as like a senior level software engineer, like, and you prompting it, what to do.
00:09:05
Christina Melito
can you get the results that you want? Can it, could it have saved you some, a number of hours? And, and he's done that a few times where he was like, I impressed with what it can do.
00:09:17
Christina Melito
So, that's just an example of like trying to chip away at, at the fear of something that I don't think is going away. I sometimes relate it to remember when you had,
00:09:30
Christina Melito
people working at print shop. I don't even remember this. You might, it might even be like, but you had people working in print shops doing paste up and, and, and manually cutting out CMYK sheets of color.
00:09:42
Christina Melito
And this was pre Adobe Photoshop and illustrator. And then the moment Adobe rolls out its software, it revolutionizes things.
00:09:50
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:09:50
Christina Melito
And I think it created more jobs. And when Netflix launched its streaming content, very disruptive. And we can argue that there's a lot of bad genres now, thanks to Netflix, but there's all these nuances and like sub genres and there's so much more
AI's Role in Operational Efficiency
00:10:11
Christina Melito
available. And in theory, there's like more demand for more content and more experiences that we're sort of democratizing those big, you know, those big,
00:10:24
Christina Melito
like production companies like Fox and I'm fine if we chip away at those big guys, you know, like, so I, I'm excited about it,
00:10:33
Tracey Halvorsen
is, yeah, I mean, you touched upon some really interesting things. First of all, just for people listening, i think it's really helpful for everyone to hear, like, what what tools are you using? What
00:10:45
Christina Melito
so we aren't using a tool yet. I mean, we use, we use chat GPT or i do some of us do to do administrative tasks to assist in either calling research or formatting and organizing research.
00:10:57
Tracey Halvorsen
Mm-hmm.
00:11:03
Christina Melito
but that's my, my favorite way to use it right now, because I think learning and researching is 50% of my like time, understanding the client's needs and their industry, the market users, uh, you know, and so forth.
00:11:20
Christina Melito
I use it as a research tool predominantly in this moment. but we, we do want to, we're, we're looking to stand up ways in which we can relieve the production design.
00:11:30
Christina Melito
aspect of of producing design and digital products.
00:11:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:35
Christina Melito
so that full transparency, yeah, that's where we are. We're like a very infancy stage. But the the ideas for what we could operationalize, even from proposal writing to writing technical requirements to doing technical audits pre-signing a proposal, right?
00:11:51
Christina Melito
I'm like, we need to better understand the beast we are about to redesign and develop.
00:11:52
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:11:57
Christina Melito
We can automate a lot of that.
00:11:59
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, it's, it's right.
00:11:59
Christina Melito
We can't, yeah. in
00:12:01
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, I'm right with you on AI being one of the most exciting things that I have experienced. And it reminds me of when the web was first getting started, because that's when I got in and sort of obsessed with it.
00:12:17
Tracey Halvorsen
And it's why I named my first company Fastbot, because I wanted a short domain name, And I had been obsessed with the idea that with a quick cam, this is back in the quick cam days with, with a quick cam, a little Adobe after effects knowledge and knowing how to publish anything on the web, I could create commercials.
00:12:45
Tracey Halvorsen
I could create 15 second spots. That prior to these tools being, as you said, democratized, that was the work of giant production houses and huge budgets.
00:12:54
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:12:57
Tracey Halvorsen
And here i am like thinking this is all possible now. I think that AI is is doing the exact same thing in terms of giving people a lot of ability. I mean, I use chat GPT.com.
00:13:16
Tracey Halvorsen
One of my favorite ways to use it is if something's broken or if I don't know how to do something from software to like, uh, what did I use it for the other night? My pepper shaker had come apart and all the little pieces, was like a grinder and all the little pieces had like fallen all over the table.
00:13:34
Tracey Halvorsen
And, and I thought, I'm going to have to get a new pepper shaker or pepper grinder. And then I took Chad GPT. I took a picture of all the pieces and parts.
00:13:46
Tracey Halvorsen
and said, can you tell me how to put this back together? And it did.
00:13:49
Christina Melito
I love that.
00:13:50
Tracey Halvorsen
And I put it back together. And if so and if I'm working in software, yes, yes.
00:13:53
Christina Melito
And one less thing the landfill too, by the way, which I love. Mm-hmm.
00:13:58
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, I'm able to fix so many more things than I used to be able to fix. And i also use it a lot to...
00:14:08
Tracey Halvorsen
to Well, i'm I'm thinking about like how I use the the vision part of it where it can see things. you know Diagnosing my my sick plants, I'll ask it, and know hey, what do you think is wrong with this?
00:14:25
Tracey Halvorsen
With the kid's homework, I don't know to that.
00:14:28
Christina Melito
Right. Yes. Yes.
00:14:30
Tracey Halvorsen
I don't know how to do that.
00:14:30
Christina Melito
My husband, is my husband has the patience to help with homework.
00:14:32
Tracey Halvorsen
i don't know how to do yeah
00:14:34
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:14:35
Tracey Halvorsen
But I will just take a picture of the homework sheet with all the crazy math on it that I don't even know how to do now and just ask it to ah ah you know walk me through how to help one of the boys figure it out or to verify that their answer is right or even to explain what is going on.
00:14:50
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:14:53
Tracey Halvorsen
So anyway, it's great it's great for that. And I was just talking to someone else earlier who was talking about Google's notebook LLM or notebook, whatever it's called.
00:15:05
Tracey Halvorsen
But the fact that you can take a bunch of really complicated stuff, drop it into that, and get a 15-minute podcast that you can give your team or the client so that they can understand complicated things very quickly and very easily versus read all of this research material and books or whatever.
00:15:15
Christina Melito
Oh, yes.
00:15:28
Tracey Halvorsen
No, here, just listen to this and you'll be up to speed. Fantastic.
00:15:31
Christina Melito
Yeah. I, in terms of like, if you use AI to assist in just communicating a creative idea, it could be if you could think about it, just prototyping, you could think about a client who maybe does like to tinker around
00:15:38
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:15:45
Christina Melito
and it And it really is just an aid for them to get an idea out so that the right team can come in who has the expertise to say like interview and put the right, put like real people on camera and help tell that story.
00:15:59
Christina Melito
i I just see it i wrote as a communication tool, which like I can use that help. I think it's going to help a lot of people and reduce a lot of hurdles and bumps and friction for training and learning and really just having certain kinds of tough conversations.
00:16:20
Tracey Halvorsen
So I agree. and It just made me think, as a creative, one of the things you have to be good at is communicating abstract ideas to both clients and team members who have to execute.
00:16:40
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:16:41
Tracey Halvorsen
And because of that communication skillset that you do have from your profession, i do, I, I believe that is the most exciting thing for me to see how AI is changing because it does, we are getting shorter and shorter from the idea to seeing what it might feel like or look like or act like in, at least in digital spaces.
Prototyping and Feedback with AI
00:17:10
Tracey Halvorsen
we were We were working with a client not that long ago. And while we're in discovery, while we're kicking off, we are going ahead and and prototyping and wireframing and iterating and letting AI tools, you know, give us instant feedback and vibe designing or whatever, you know, whatever. We're vibing.
00:17:35
Tracey Halvorsen
We're vibing.
00:17:36
Christina Melito
We are, we, we recently were working on a proposal and along with the submission was a clickable prototype of of very particular kind of application they needed.
00:17:46
Christina Melito
And it was small in terms of its user flow, but it helped for, it helped that the proposal writer didn't have to try to attempt to articulate it and the aspects of it.
00:17:59
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:18:00
Christina Melito
And somebody else on the other side got to like, kind of feel around knowing that none of the code, I mean, it was done in Figma, but like none of the code was going to be used in them, but like to to feel it and to react to it. I'm actually very pro hearing the reactions, good or bad from, from stakeholders.
00:18:20
Christina Melito
Cause that's telling in and of itself, because I feel like creatives are, are behavioral psychologists first followed by researchers, followed by producers.
00:18:32
Christina Melito
And so Yeah, that really was something that our team found like wonderfully helpful. I think that the proposal receiver was grateful to to expedite the process.
00:18:48
Christina Melito
And it really helped us really fine tune the requirements and ultimately the cost, which like I am all four delivering to the client what they actually need and not necessarily what they believe they need that they've written into an RFP that we've been
00:18:52
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:19:02
Christina Melito
mirror of response to, I'm, I'm all about like listening and really figuring out the need, the problem, uh, and, and delivering just on, on that or like versus, well, we'll sell them whatever we sell or like, this is what we, we want to sell them.
00:19:18
Tracey Halvorsen
right
00:19:20
Christina Melito
And i'm like, I really think we should just hear them out and maybe curb parts of our process to, to not over or under deliver,
00:19:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, you know, earlier before we, before we hit the record, we were just talking a little bit about, you know, just, uh, the industry and, and how long we've been in it, how long we intend to stay in it and keep working.
00:19:33
Christina Melito
You hit the record.
00:19:45
Tracey Halvorsen
And, and I think basically what we're saying is we're both very curious people. and who both I think believe that there's, there's always something bigger and better or more or different or more fulfilling or will give us growth, whatever it might be ahead of us.
00:20:04
Christina Melito
you
00:20:06
Tracey Halvorsen
We aren't sort of like looking for the finish line in our, in our lives.
00:20:09
Christina Melito
Right. We embrace change. We are open to adapting. Yeah. yes
00:20:15
Tracey Halvorsen
So knowing that, that we're similar on that front, I think that it's got to be hard when you're trying to work with people who who do like to feel like they know the answer to everything before they've listened.
Curiosity in Client Collaboration
00:20:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Or God forbid they even say, i don't know, but that's really interesting and curious. Let me think about it. And I'm a big believer in...
00:20:50
Tracey Halvorsen
come to the, come to whatever it is that you're coming to with curiosity, don't already have the answer in your head. And if the client is the same way and appreciates that, it lets you move so much more quickly and the outcomes are just so much better because everyone's going into it with a explorer mindset and a collaborative mindset instead of a, uh,
00:21:10
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:21:15
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:21:19
Tracey Halvorsen
you know agency, vendor, waterfall process. you know We'll see you in three months after we've and our done our research.
00:21:24
Christina Melito
Oh yeah, no. Right.
00:21:27
Christina Melito
Well, interestingly, one of the questions that you, you sent prior to this meeting that we're in right now, uh, was about.
00:21:36
Tracey Halvorsen
isn't This isn't a meeting.
00:21:37
Christina Melito
Well, okay. Our cool fun chat, was about, uh, it had to about, what was it like innovation and risk in industries that are regulated, heavily regulated.
00:21:38
Tracey Halvorsen
All right. Our chat.
00:21:50
Christina Melito
And, and one of the techniques that I've used is sometimes I'll, I will want the company or the team or myself to come into that first meeting with An idea of what the strategy should be just so I have something to challenge as I listen to them.
00:22:10
Christina Melito
Like, cause I feel like I need something in there to bend and squeeze and pull chip away at just so that like, that's the framework that I need to debate in my mind. Is there some time like, and I like to look at their, the client's landscape.
00:22:27
Christina Melito
and what they're already doing and what's public facing and put together what I think their strategy is so that when we walk into discovery meetings or stakeholder interviews or look at analytics from various digital tools they're using, like,
00:22:42
Christina Melito
Then I can start to chip away at it or validate it and so forth. So yes, I'm all for like, are we, do we have an open mindset? Are we open to not knowing what's, what's around the next corner?
00:22:58
Christina Melito
But for me, I don't, I think it's, I like to walk in with something and that that's because I would like to be more well-read or researched I like to have some amount of of a barometer, as we used to say in my old team.
00:23:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
00:23:13
Christina Melito
like We build a barometer for how we know we're going to like navigate through this process and how will we know that like we're getting closer and honing to the right territory and direction.
00:23:18
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:23:24
Christina Melito
So I just thought, oh, that's so interesting that you're like, let's go in blank slate. i'm like I almost can't. Cause like, I want to be able to have like, listen to what they say about their subject matter and be able to follow up with a meaningful reaction or or a follow question that lets them know, I understand where they are and I understand what they're trying to do.
00:23:48
Christina Melito
But internally i'm I'm like, was my hypothesis right? Was it wrong? Just, yeah. Isn't that, is that like, I don't know. is that weird? What do you think of that?
00:24:00
Tracey Halvorsen
I don't know.
00:24:00
Christina Melito
Yeah, that's fine.
00:24:01
Tracey Halvorsen
i think i think it's a
00:24:02
Christina Melito
This is what it is. Yeah.
00:24:04
Tracey Halvorsen
I think it's interesting. i don't think it's weird.
00:24:06
Christina Melito
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:24:08
Tracey Halvorsen
I think it's interesting. i think it shows that you have a lot of empathy for your clients because you want to know where you're meeting them at. So how can you do that if you don't do your research and understand the ground they are standing on when you meet them and what they've covered leading up to that, if at all possible?
00:24:26
Christina Melito
Yeah. Talk about building trust, right? Yeah. I want them to know that I'm taking their problems and what they've been doing like very seriously so that they know at least I'm informed or the team's informed when we do make recommendations to pivot or evolve or expand or change or whatever it is, just so they know that like we're very informed on what you've been doing.
00:24:35
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:24:50
Christina Melito
And some of it's great. Some... Some of it's really great. ah Sure. And then we like inch our way when we talk about like regulated customer, you know client clients that operate in regulated industries.
00:25:03
Christina Melito
Innovation isn't a 45 degree turn.
00:25:07
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:25:07
Christina Melito
It's like every month, every quarter, we're we're going maybe one degree, one degree, get there. We're moving the needle. And after a year, because typically the clients I've supported my previous employer, we were on like three, five year long contracts.
00:25:21
Christina Melito
So we had to kind of have an end goal in mind at the beginning, knowing it it's it's 10 degree pivot. But like, how do we guide this client through in a really in a way they feel confident?
00:25:34
Christina Melito
maybe even still in control that like we're going to inch towards like differentiating you or like tweaking your tone or approach you know so forth so anyhow that's just some things i'll say
00:25:48
Tracey Halvorsen
I think, so that made me wonder, has have you ever experienced, and maybe you haven't, hopefully you haven't, but have you ever experienced a point in a project with a client where you thought you'd been building the trust?
Navigating Strategic Shifts with Clients
00:26:04
Tracey Halvorsen
There'd been a lot of agreement and consensus, so everything feels like it's moving along in the right way. And then, actually, this is two-part question. Either one, the client says,
00:26:17
Tracey Halvorsen
I want to go want to make a left here. And you're shocked and also, no, we've we absolutely are not going left here.
00:26:28
Tracey Halvorsen
We're going right. has Has that ever happened around you you know a creative direction or a strategic direction where they just come in and suddenly and there's the lawnmower back again?
00:26:37
Christina Melito
ready
00:26:46
Tracey Halvorsen
thought he was I thought he was gone. I thought he called it a day.
00:26:48
Christina Melito
He was in the back for a little bit, now he's in the front.
00:26:48
Tracey Halvorsen
He missed a spot right by the window. He's like, oh, I missed a spot.
00:26:55
Christina Melito
He is detail-oriented in his lawn craftsmanship.
00:27:00
Tracey Halvorsen
It's nice. It's like white noise. But yeah, I mean...
00:27:03
Christina Melito
Well, it's the question, have has there been a bigger pivot? Yes or no. And then if there's been a pivot, have you been able to wrangle the client back over to like, no, or like convince them
00:27:14
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, well, what do we do when you do when you have a stakeholder show up who thinks they do know exactly what has to happen? And it's the absolute wrong thing. How do you...
00:27:24
Christina Melito
I mean, i don't think I've ever been like that. I don't think I could characterize a moment like that quite that severely, not that severely, you know, like what it was dramatically, you know, but there has been a, there have been a couple of times where we've had to pivot.
00:27:45
Christina Melito
we can talk about that in a minute is your question ultimately though, like how we wrangled them back. Is that a kind of story you'd want to hear? If at all.
00:27:53
Tracey Halvorsen
well Well, I do think that's interesting, but I guess my deeper question is while on its surface, something happening like that can seem like, oh no, everything was going great.
00:28:07
Tracey Halvorsen
And now we've got somebody showing up who carries some weight and they are saying some crazy shit right now.
00:28:09
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:28:11
Christina Melito
yeah
00:28:14
Tracey Halvorsen
And how are we going to get this back on the rails? Sometimes I find that those moments in a project, can accelerate better outcomes because there's this conflict now.
00:28:27
Christina Melito
Sure.
00:28:30
Tracey Halvorsen
There is this pressure, yeah, tension.
00:28:30
Christina Melito
Tension. Love it. do
00:28:33
Tracey Halvorsen
So that's where I was kind of curious to get to. in that example, it's not invited in. And i I'm a big believer in and and invite and being in trying be in control if you can, right?
00:28:43
Christina Melito
Yes. Oh, same Z's.
00:28:45
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:28:46
Christina Melito
Yeah. I guess I I'll say have been there. We to mitigate the chances of that happening again.
00:28:59
Christina Melito
when we get into discovery and we do stakeholder interviews, we try to explain to the client who would be the most ideal candidates. And it could it could purposely be people we don't we know don't see eye to eye.
00:29:12
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
00:29:12
Christina Melito
We might stick them in the same meeting. We might not. We try to understand the motivation. you know We have one point of contact that'll like guide us through with the context and the political climate.
00:29:23
Christina Melito
and And so we can understand the weight or gravity of what we're hearing from certain people. my act My favorite thing to do actually is to pull them all into one room.
00:29:35
Christina Melito
That is my prefer my preference would be to do facilitated discovery session or sessions, depending on how big it is the kinds of information we need to get out of the team. And we purposely present exercises and questions that we know the chances of tension arising.
00:29:54
Christina Melito
Like we want to create an environment where those things are happening, where we do have to talk politely, but we do have to put it out in public and like hash it out. And, and so I'll say, yes, there have been times that's happened.
00:30:08
Christina Melito
And now we try to like get ahead of that and just embrace it and know, and now that we're really good at like managing through those discussions and, being okay with being uncomfortable and and guiding the client through.
00:30:22
Christina Melito
It's okay to be uncomfortable. That's exactly what we want. It's by design and getting them comfortable enough to open up and things like that.
00:30:26
Tracey Halvorsen
Yes.
00:30:30
Christina Melito
Again, behavioral psychology.
00:30:32
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:30:33
Christina Melito
And so, but but when there have been times where there's a curve ball, and even once in my new job, like we knew what logo we were going to proceed with of the ah ah handful we had presented and They shared it with some stakeholders that weren't in the traditional stakeholder team and they had a subjective thought about it. what that They could not get past what they were seeing.
00:30:59
Christina Melito
And I was like, I don't see that at all. but but But if you really want us to consider ways of salvaging aspects of this. you know we're I'm open to being flexible and finding a way that everyone feels heard, that we are empathetic and okay. we you know But some sometimes you want to pitch the work.
00:31:23
Christina Melito
You want to pitch those creative and design decisions or ah strategic decisions you almost almost want to bake a scientific angle to it, or data-driven, or like we've seen a pattern that when we do this, or when we use this color combination, or we know users prefer this type of photography at this angle, like we we just try to study up on like what does perform well, what aspects of visual layout work well.
00:31:45
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:31:48
Christina Melito
We go to LinkedIn and Next and Facebook and we like read the trend reports. And and so, So you try to bring in the objectivity and how you talk about the work, how you prepare the team to even dissect the work.
00:32:04
Christina Melito
Right. So we recently had a visual identity kickoff. Right. Which is like, OK, we've done the messaging part portion of your brand. We're going to move into the visual part of that.
00:32:15
Christina Melito
And like, let's two together stakeholder team that absolutely doesn't do graphic design at all, or like study theory, design theory, but or behavioral psychology. let's Let's like, like i'll tell I will tell them straight up, like how do we remove the subjectivity from it?
00:32:33
Christina Melito
Because we aren't designing for you. I'm not designing for me. I'm not designing for you, other stakeholder. I'm designing for your college students or for your college students' parents.
00:32:43
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:32:43
Christina Melito
And I was like, so here's some criteria we recommend. How do you all feel about this? Do you agree? Is anything missing? Should something be removed? you know And it's another way to say, like to build that barometer together, because then you can go back in a few weeks time and say, remember the stuff we said, like would would make it successful.
00:33:05
Christina Melito
Here it is again. And so like now that as the more i try to reduce risk, which is weirdly something I say a lot, is like, how do we better communicate? How do we build the expectation?
00:33:19
Christina Melito
How do we bring the client along? How do we make them feel like they know how to receive this work and make like informed decisions about it and approvals? And so the you know, we're tracked for years. We've been tracking with like, we're getting more approvals than not.
00:33:37
Christina Melito
We're like moving through these things. We aren't like what, what touch points, what document, whatever it is, what, what tools are we administering to manage expectations on both sides throughout the duration of what can be like a six to 12 month long project where you're like, we ain't got a lot budget sitting around to like totally redo the visual identity.
00:33:52
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:33:57
Christina Melito
When at the end, someone's like, Oh, you didn't, Do a trademark research. You didn't, you didn't like check to see if this was trademarked, which like obviously we do, you know, but like there were times where like people may not have, and you're about to release a logo that looks a lot like the Nike swoosh, you know, or like you gotta do your research.
00:34:11
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:34:16
Christina Melito
You have to maintain a pulse on their competitors. You have to make sure you're not about to drop messaging. It sounds just like their competitors. So it's, it's a lot, but I love it.
00:34:24
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:34:26
Christina Melito
I mean, I love it. So.
00:34:28
Tracey Halvorsen
What, what's your, what's your favorite aspect of, of what you do? If you could say.
00:34:35
Christina Melito
I mean, I've, wow, that's so interesting.
00:34:42
Christina Melito
I do feel like very, very, like fortunate to get to hear a customer's problem and then be trusted to set a team free on like really solving for their problems.
00:34:59
Christina Melito
And one of the questions you'd turn out was like, what is it what is a what is like an unknown?
00:34:59
Tracey Halvorsen
Let's
00:35:08
Christina Melito
Oh, I love the question. Hold on.
00:35:11
Tracey Halvorsen
see if I can find it.
00:35:13
Christina Melito
I know I got the little list here. or This list. Yeah. It's,
00:35:17
Tracey Halvorsen
Biggest misconception outsiders have about creative work.
00:35:20
Christina Melito
It's about what team, yeah, it's about like what what designers do that the stakeholders have a misconception about or like they don't.
00:35:27
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:35:28
Christina Melito
and and And I don't know if, I try to manage this in presentations, but I don't know if they know just how much we deliberate over decisions that like, I mean, visual designers, like graphic designers are zooming in 10,000% on their logo.
00:35:48
Christina Melito
on their logo They're like, we're drawing, like we're in there. We're like all up in. We couldn't be more intimate with the details of the problems that they have or the solutions we're proposing for them.
00:35:59
Christina Melito
And so some, you know, sometimes it's a script and they want to like take a sentence out and you're like whoa, whoa, whoa. That's like the sixth beat
Deliberation in Creative Decisions
00:36:06
Christina Melito
of the eight beat structure. I don't think you under i understand the impacts you're making to this like whole message.
00:36:13
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:36:14
Christina Melito
and And that can happen in our traction. And so that we spend hours talking about their problems and really assessing their problems is I, and that we're very well researched and and aware and maintaining that pulse in their industry on their behalf.
00:36:35
Christina Melito
It's something I love to do, but I think there's also this misconception of like how, you know, well read or how much do they, does the team actually care about, know, I'm like, weirdly a lot.
00:36:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, yeah.
00:36:49
Christina Melito
Like we think about it at 6am sometimes.
00:36:52
Tracey Halvorsen
I know, right? Sometimes more than the client even.
00:36:54
Christina Melito
Right. Right. Well, so I love when a client is like, Oh, thank God we found the people. We found the people.
00:37:00
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:37:00
Christina Melito
Yeah. You do it. ah ah you tell me and they show me numbers. Sure. And like, cool. And explain it to my stakeholders. Great. And I can go to sleep at night, you know,
00:37:10
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the best compliment when, uh, when someone says, you know, wow, this, this really feels like us. This feels like the us that I always thought we could be, but I could never articulate it. I could never visualize it I didn't think anyone, i didn't think it was possible.
00:37:24
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:37:27
Tracey Halvorsen
And then not only do they feel like it reflects them in a powerful way, it reflects them with big headlights, right?
00:37:36
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:37:37
Tracey Halvorsen
ah ah Shine a big path. forward for them. Because what I love is, yes, hearing the problems. and I'm a obsessive problem solver.
00:37:48
Tracey Halvorsen
it's you know It's probably why I need my own therapy is because of how much I try to fix and problem solve for everyone. But I i think that a lot of times clients don't either don't know or they don't allow us, speaking collectively as just creative people,
00:38:06
Tracey Halvorsen
to, to dig for the problems because we want to solve business problems.
00:38:12
Christina Melito
you
00:38:12
Tracey Halvorsen
We don't want to solve aesthetic problems. We don't want to, we're not into redecorate.
00:38:16
Christina Melito
performance problems.
00:38:18
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. And our process is not for performance. This is not performative strategy. whether it's a website or brand packaging, whatever, it's all about the business.
00:38:33
Tracey Halvorsen
And a lot, so many times actually, you know, I get an ah RFP or somebody reaches out and they're like, here's here's who we are and here, here's what we need. And I'm like, yeah.
00:38:44
Christina Melito
Here's an example. We are a company, we just bought our competitor company and we're merging now. And we think all we need is a website with like no real UX, you know, support or research or, you know, no consideration of how voice and tone and brand is shifting for one or the other, or this now new entity.
00:39:08
Christina Melito
And it's, You know, we, of course, in this particular instance where it's two companies merging, they think, easy peasy, just give me a new site. And we're like, well, will you continue to to administer the same sets of services?
00:39:23
Christina Melito
how does one customer like How does a customer base from one company feel about now getting services from the competitor company?
00:39:23
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:39:30
Christina Melito
And we're like, have you thought about how that? And in the end, I don't know if they saw the value of that, but we were like, we don't know any other way. Like yeah we really think it's our responsibility to tell you that this is a problem you should address now versus waiting until something fails down the road, like really embrace fully, uh, what you're trying to do here so that your company is at least positioned to like do better.
00:40:00
Christina Melito
Ultimately.
00:40:00
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:40:01
Christina Melito
Yeah. So,
00:40:02
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. It's, it's so fun. and and And I think you're right. I think we probably spend more nights lying awake thinking about our clients, businesses and projects.
00:40:13
Christina Melito
It's fun though, right?
00:40:15
Tracey Halvorsen
It was fun.
00:40:15
Christina Melito
It's not scary.
00:40:16
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:40:16
Christina Melito
It's just like fascinating and fun. And like they're real problems. Like they're real problems.
00:40:20
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:40:24
Christina Melito
that's That's what's like so wild is like I get to assist in hopefully helping them and like being a fresh perspective or even like saying, here are three distinct patterns we're seeing.
00:40:38
Christina Melito
And like, what's your reaction to that? Sometimes you want to ah create create environment that they discover it like you just like lay the groundwork and you're like, what do you see?
00:40:44
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:40:46
Christina Melito
And then they're like, oh, right.
00:40:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. i always I always warn clients or caution them or or promise them that they may think that they are signing up for a brand project or a website project.
00:41:03
Tracey Halvorsen
It might not even be digital at all. But they if they are not transformed through the work, they will do.
00:41:10
Christina Melito
right
00:41:12
Tracey Halvorsen
for the better, right? And the business as well, but everybody involved is going to change through this process.
00:41:21
Tracey Halvorsen
That's when i think you start to understand that like a website redesign can be a complete organizational transformation.
00:41:31
Christina Melito
Yes. Change management. yeah
00:41:33
Tracey Halvorsen
It can, it will, it can and should change everything for the better. And so to, to just realize that That's what you're really doing. You're not doing a website. You are changing the organization.
00:41:47
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:41:47
Tracey Halvorsen
And who the organization serves will benefit from that, which will ultimately, you know, serve the organization.
00:41:55
Christina Melito
So sometimes if you were to say that that exact language to a client, they might think, oh, but we're not ready for change.
00:42:06
Christina Melito
And so some sometimes I like to just like, here are the problems, hear about how their current web team manages blogs and posting and making updates and adding new landing pages and so forth.
00:42:21
Christina Melito
you can hear the lawnmower totally apologize but sometimes i just want to hear i want to like hear ways in which they manage their brand and operate in their brand and use their tools and then we kind of like to just bake in best practices knowing their needs and let it be an aha moment and like let them happily discover like this just got way easier like you no longer have to manually put this blog post there or this article there like it will
00:42:24
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah I mean, you've got a really big lot of them.
00:42:41
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:42:50
Christina Melito
cascade through it. all Related content is going to work so much better now. And I almost like like it to be that, oh I don't know how to explain that, but there's been moments when we're doing training and the client's like, oh my God, I love how you built this module for this thing that I hated dealing with before. And we're like, uh-huh.
00:43:12
Tracey Halvorsen
well
00:43:12
Christina Melito
So, yeah.
00:43:13
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. I mean, making people's lives better by removing pains in their asses is, is great, but I think you're right. You don't want to freak clients out by saying everything's about to change. Are you ready? Yeah.
00:43:27
Christina Melito
And I'm sure you're not going and saying that unless you know that's what they asked to hear and or been been like they're paying for.
00:43:35
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. I mean, so some of them aren't, and some of them aren't ready or don't want that. and that's fair. Right. But I think there are a lot of clients who, who know that other things need to change, but they're talk, they think they're talking to me about X, Y, or Z. And what ends up happening is it, it, it's a holistic change.
00:44:01
Tracey Halvorsen
it's going to touch all aspects. It's got to have buy-in. It's got to have support. Like it's got to have momentum. It's got to have belief, whatever it might be from the right people in the right ways, you know, which back to your point earlier of, of reminding people that this is not for them, nor is this, you know, this is not in my studio.
00:44:10
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:44:23
Tracey Halvorsen
This is not a pro a personal project. We are doing this work to, communicate and to create action from very specific audiences who have their own very specific pain points and needs and concerns and stresses.
00:44:34
Christina Melito
Like prompt action. Right.
00:44:45
Tracey Halvorsen
And it's almost like if you do it right, you finally detach. It's like a conjoined twin that you finally detach. And the organization realizes, oh, we can do our own internal stuff.
00:45:00
Tracey Halvorsen
And then there's our marketing and our brand and our website.
00:45:03
Christina Melito
right
00:45:04
Tracey Halvorsen
And we don't, we can solve them in different ways because they should be solved differently, but we don't have to just keep being tied to our own structure, our own way of doing things, of
00:45:16
Christina Melito
in our own ways.
Language Clarity in Healthcare Communication
00:45:18
Tracey Halvorsen
thinking, of talking.
00:45:21
Tracey Halvorsen
We can change that. You know, i think I was just talking to very brilliant strategist about working in, who was she working with? It was it was like a ah was a hospital system.
00:45:37
Tracey Halvorsen
and i think it was ah was a higher ed hospital system. and She was saying that these doctors who had spent a lot of time and money get to get a lot of you know initials after their were liked to use big words, big complicated words when they were explaining what they were going to do with whatever their specialty was, right?
00:46:00
Christina Melito
Oh, to patients
00:46:01
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, just a lot of jargon and big complicated medical terminology that your average reader is just going to be intimidated by.
00:46:08
Christina Melito
scary too. can be depending on your, yeah.
00:46:14
Tracey Halvorsen
And she literally found data that supported that when you present medical information in easy to understand plain language, there is a so there is a trackable drop in mortality.
00:46:31
Christina Melito
How?
00:46:32
Tracey Halvorsen
So she was like able to use data to convince these doctors and these, you know, maybe professors too, med school doctors, I don't know.
00:46:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Basically you use plain language, drop all the jargon and, and trying to be sound impressive because you're smart and everyone knows it and you'll actually be saving lives, saving more lives.
00:46:58
Christina Melito
That's amazing.
00:46:59
Tracey Halvorsen
And they were like, Oh, okay.
00:47:00
Christina Melito
I get that.
00:47:01
Tracey Halvorsen
okay Well, I guess we got to do that.
00:47:02
Christina Melito
Like we are in this profession to do just that safe life. So how could we not? Right.
00:47:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Yes, yes.
00:47:09
Christina Melito
That's wonderful. Yeah.
00:47:09
Christina Melito
You know, obviously work, maybe not obvious, but I used to work for the government and one of, you know, speaking of regulated industries, we had to communicate at like an eighth grade reading level.
00:47:09
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:47:23
Christina Melito
Like that's a plain language.
00:47:23
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:47:24
Christina Melito
Plain language is I think their term. It's like written in policy. like if you're gonna do strategic communications, it has to be at these kind of this this reading level for the general public because people just need to understand how taxpayer dollars are spent.
00:47:39
Christina Melito
and if you're saying and if a scientist is writing their research paper about the wonderful cutting edge life-saving vaccine work we're doing and research and development we're doing uh but they're like i don't understand ha know how do you either turn that into a metaphor or like really distill it down to the the building blocks of the fundamentals of like what a scientific research like approach is and how much time that will take to turn into a life-saving vaccine or therapeutic you know like i i that's that's also fun it's hard work though like how do you just i love distilling down problems into like their simplest forms so that we can like rebuild a story or like a narrative around or package around around that so
00:48:22
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
Agencies as Storytellers
00:48:29
Christina Melito
yeah very fun yeah
00:48:29
Tracey Halvorsen
Absolutely. and Yeah. And finding where those stories are true, right?
00:48:34
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:48:34
Tracey Halvorsen
And which ones are the jargon that they've been living with for so long.
00:48:38
Christina Melito
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I, I've been in virtual calls with scientists and, and I will, I'll be the first to ask the question. I think everyone's like thinking, but afraid to look maybe, I don't know, not as polished, but sometimes I'm like,
00:48:55
Christina Melito
Are you talking about a vaccine? yeah like Like they're just like so 10 feet ahead, like way high up here like language barrier. And I'm like, I think you're describing a new approach to a new style of vaccine, blah, blah, blah.
00:49:11
Christina Melito
And I'm like, is that right? You know, I don't mind kind of getting them to kind of start all over. in those rudimentary building blocks, like I'll be the, i don't, I don't care.
00:49:17
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:49:21
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:49:22
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. It's, I think it's human nature.
00:49:23
Christina Melito
I look vulnerable.
00:49:24
Tracey Halvorsen
It's human nature that, the closer and deeper we are into our own little world, the harder it is for us to remember that not everyone is there with us.
00:49:25
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:49:36
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:49:37
Tracey Halvorsen
You know, it's that myopic kind of self-centeredness of the human experience that can be problematic and
00:49:46
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
00:49:47
Tracey Halvorsen
But I do think that it's ah ah it's a great reason why everyone's always going to need an agency, right?
00:49:54
Christina Melito
Right. Everyone's going to need someone to to distill and and repackage or or sometimes just remind the client, like, do you realize, like, from my perspective, this is a huge, valuable thing that you just explained to me, but you brushed right over that.
00:49:55
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:50:10
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:12
Christina Melito
And like, what? We need to lean into this, please. And they're like, really?
00:50:16
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, there
00:50:17
Christina Melito
That seems cool to you? I'm like, what? This seems mind-blowing. So... so those yes that and those were some of the scientists like yeah hey
00:50:24
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, even just remind, if I had a dollar for every time I reminded a client that it's okay to keep retelling the great stories because not everyone has heard Yeah.
00:50:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:50:39
Christina Melito
and especially in this day of age i mean click click switch you know news feeds like
00:50:41
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:50:44
Christina Melito
it's moments you if you even have that to remind people of
00:50:47
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah yeah
00:50:52
Christina Melito
Yeah. Your position and, and, or your thought leadership or the experience you've had or the the foundation you've laid like, yeah. Yeah. i would
00:51:02
Tracey Halvorsen
So let me ask you this before we, uh, before we wrap up now, especially now that, uh, your lawnmower guy, is he done?
00:51:07
Christina Melito
I know now that I got quiet.
00:51:09
Tracey Halvorsen
Is he done or is he just really far away?
00:51:10
Christina Melito
Well, it's starting to rain. That could be it here. At least I'm in Ellicott city.
00:51:17
Tracey Halvorsen
what advice would you have for other women
00:51:25
Tracey Halvorsen
or anyone? really, but who is coming into this field, is getting started, is thinking about it, and wants to know that they are, you know, maybe following the right path. I don't know. Would you have any advice, any tips, any guidance?
00:51:44
Christina Melito
Yeah, so In the end, like, be true to yourself and not everything's comfortable and and that's okay.
00:51:56
Christina Melito
But it is still important to like get feedback. or like get validation, whether that's from a peer or people you're working with people that are observing you do your thing.
00:52:06
Christina Melito
something that, I absolutely leverage that from, from peers, peers I don't work with anymore, uh, or whether it's a career coach or a therapist or psychologist, like it's okay to, talk through your problems, your, your creative, your like career problems and things like it's okay to be vulnerable, but seek feedback and continue to like hone and find your voice and your approach.
00:52:33
Christina Melito
And I would say it's don't miss the, don't like, you must seize the opportunities to get those questions out. Like, don't be afraid to ask in, in a big meeting with stakeholders, if something's gnawing at you and and, and in time you, you, you might find more clarity as you go about like, why am i why do I even want to ask this question? But like, just seize those moments and don't be quiet and don't,
00:53:04
Christina Melito
Don't worry about how people might see that. i yeah I'm the person that cuts people off. and I'm like, I'm sorry, but I promise it will all boil down to a better solution and recommendation in the end.
00:53:11
Tracey Halvorsen
Mm-hmm.
00:53:15
Christina Melito
if you can just sort of get around that I can be a lot sometimes or whatever. it's something actually like Steve, Steve Smallman's my boss. He's so elegant when carries people through stakeholder interviews. And i love the training of just watching him and his element and just being so graceful about extracting information from people and in a really comfortable way.
00:53:36
Christina Melito
But ask the questions, pulls the threads, like, You getting the information you think you need to confidently make decisions about someone else's company, that's really important.
00:53:50
Christina Melito
And ask for forgiveness later, or like someone can pull you aside after that meeting to say, i don't know if I would have gone about it that way.
00:53:50
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:53:57
Christina Melito
You can be like, okay, but I got the information I needed. Because that, you know, give what you need, get you what you need from others.
00:54:05
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:54:06
Christina Melito
Get as much training as you can.
00:54:09
Christina Melito
from the place.
00:54:09
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:54:10
Tracey Halvorsen
And, and the relationships that you form
00:54:12
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:54:14
Tracey Halvorsen
over the course of your career are going to define it more than anything else. So be really cognizant of, you one of the, one of the jobs, one of the last jobs I took before I started my own company was because of who else worked there.
00:54:26
Tracey Halvorsen
I wanted to work with those people.
00:54:28
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:54:30
Tracey Halvorsen
I wanted to learn from them. And what I, what I would.
00:54:32
Christina Melito
You're lucky by the way, you may have been at a place where you're like, I know who I don't wanna work with.
00:54:37
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:54:37
Christina Melito
And just waiting for the moment where you could even get to a team or an environment or even if it's in-house, you know, where, oh there's a whole different ways to think about problems or process or to approach peers or to get feedback or whatever.
00:54:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Well,
00:54:52
Christina Melito
So like, you're fortunate.
00:54:55
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, I was. was i've I've had a lot of lot of lot of luck and tim good timing.
00:54:58
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:55:00
Tracey Halvorsen
But what I would also just say is don't wait around for somebody to show up and tell you now you are
Asserting Expertise in Creative Fields
00:55:09
Tracey Halvorsen
an expert. Now you have a right to have an opinion. Now you can play around and try things and experiment.
00:55:16
Tracey Halvorsen
Now you're allowed to have a voice. No one is going to show up and give you that badge or that certification. and so to your point about digging in and doing your research, it's like if you want a job somewhere or you want to work in a certain field, dig it are you you want to win a client.
00:55:38
Christina Melito
You study that agency. You want to be somewhere you network with them. you do you do a fake project that's in the same industry of clients they're supporting.
00:55:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:55:49
Christina Melito
That's advice I've definitely given people who, for a variety of reasons, whether they geographically just need to be at a place where they are. I'm like, you need to be strategic in how you're even studying either the people you want to work with or the agencies you want to be at or the in-house shops you want to be a part of.
00:55:57
Tracey Halvorsen
you
00:56:06
Christina Melito
If it's like an industry or calls, that like you you can really back that mission and like it's really meaningful to you. Like I have a ah breast cancer survivor friend who's just finished school for design.
00:56:19
Christina Melito
I'm like, you know so much about the recovery process and cancer and like, and you're so passionate about it you could like totally work for a nonprofit or, you know, your your amount of passion that you bring, just like being a survivor could like totally be infused into the work you do day in and day out that you have immense conviction for.
00:56:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:56:41
Christina Melito
But it's also okay it to like go anywhere and just see, just like open yourself up to experience and learn from that.
00:56:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Oh yeah.
00:56:49
Christina Melito
Cause not everybody knows what what they want.
00:56:51
Christina Melito
I'm like, just get somewhere.
00:56:52
Tracey Halvorsen
No. And the first couple, yeah, the first it's all just just don't stop making moves.
00:56:53
Christina Melito
don't know.
00:56:57
Tracey Halvorsen
Right. I think those first couple years do as much as you can do throw yourself, do the grunt work,
00:56:57
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:57:06
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:57:07
Tracey Halvorsen
you know, do it while you're young and you can stay up late and you don't have kids to get home to and, you know, and then take your vacation time and go have fun, but do as many different things as you can do. And,
00:57:21
Tracey Halvorsen
I just think, again, putting yourself out there, having an opinion, always being curious, and just throwing yourself into things is the only way to to make progress.
00:57:35
Tracey Halvorsen
so and i'm you know You are one of the few people that's that's reached out and connected with me in a meaningful way.
00:57:41
Christina Melito
Close my mind.
00:57:44
Tracey Halvorsen
so I say that just to, to say, you know, when I've reached out to people that I'm sure are like never going to respond, sometimes they do more often than not, they do because we're all sitting there thinking the same thing.
00:57:56
Tracey Halvorsen
Oh, they're so busy or, you know, they're so whatever.
00:57:59
Christina Melito
have nothing to lose, though.
00:57:59
Tracey Halvorsen
They're not going to write back.
00:58:00
Christina Melito
I mean, yeah, the only thing you'd lose is not getting a response, but like just be ready for that.
00:58:01
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:58:04
Christina Melito
And then the moment they do respond and you're like, oh, my gosh, then you're like, I can't. I have to use this time so wisely. Then then then the nerves kind of, you know, what's the best pieces of advice to go seek out?
00:58:15
Tracey Halvorsen
Yes.
00:58:18
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:58:19
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. i I had a great, I'll share one
00:58:20
Christina Melito
Yeah.
00:58:23
Tracey Halvorsen
When I was just getting started with my first company, i had gone at my last job. They paid to send a couple of us up to New York City to so to a conference. it was This was back when Flash was still around.
00:58:36
Tracey Halvorsen
We went up to Flash Forward in New York City, and it was just a great conference. It was so fun. It was like half creative, wild, cool stuff, and half super geeky technical.
00:58:49
Tracey Halvorsen
It was like developers and artists all together. And so I came back. I had a great time. Learned a lot. Was super inspired. And then I remember thinking,
00:59:02
Tracey Halvorsen
damn, every, that audience was so diverse and there were definitely about 50, 50 men, women in that audience.
00:59:11
Christina Melito
Oh.
00:59:12
Tracey Halvorsen
and from all different, you know, it was just a very, it was a great, great audience. Every single person up on the stage was a dude.
Personal Growth Through Challenges
00:59:24
Tracey Halvorsen
And this conference was run by a woman, Linda Wyman, the famous, infamous Linda Wyman. So I wrote her. I told her how great the conference was, but this was something I noticed. And I was just curious about it. I didn't come at her. I didn't attack her. But I was i was just like, how is that the case? so And she wrote back and said, you will be surprised to hear that we don't get speaking proposals from women.
00:59:53
Tracey Halvorsen
So there's only so many we can ask that we know of that are out there. And she said, so I look forward to reviewing your proposal for your talk.
01:00:01
Christina Melito
No pressure.
01:00:02
Tracey Halvorsen
It's the best throw the gauntlet down moment in my life, honestly. And I'm eternally grateful for her for doing that.
01:00:14
Tracey Halvorsen
Because did I did send in a proposal. It was accepted. I spent six months like driving myself batty because I wanted to create something to show, to demonstrate what I was talking about.
01:00:25
Tracey Halvorsen
And then I nearly threw up at least 1,000 times preparing to get up on that stage in front of 2,000 people
01:00:28
Christina Melito
yeah
01:00:33
Tracey Halvorsen
to talk about something that I was just kind of figuring out myself.
01:00:38
Christina Melito
Yeah.
01:00:38
Tracey Halvorsen
And it was one of the best experiences of my life. And it totally helped launch my company. and But, you know, that never would have happened if I hadn't written to her to share some feedback and ask a question.
01:00:52
Tracey Halvorsen
Oh,
01:00:52
Christina Melito
Yeah. I, I, you know, I, I don't think I would be a 15 four if I didn't just kind of bump into some people at an AIGA event. and just got to talk and shop and business. And was Will Smallman. He's a, he runs the business and we were just, I was transparent. I'm a creative director at ADG. And, you know, so he knew, I didn't know how he would perceive like a creative leader from another shop. Like I wouldn't, not real competitor, but ish. And
01:01:24
Christina Melito
we just, what mattered was we spent 25 minutes just sort of immersed in talking about what the industry's like. And, um, the, the, it was just fascinating. and from there, we just kept talking and the chemistry was great with the team. And, and so I, I think networking is, is where, where is
Networking and Career Opportunities
01:01:44
Christina Melito
it? I think cold calling, putting resumes not knowing where they're going and,
01:01:50
Christina Melito
you gotta just get out and talk to people. The experiences are just so much more rich and, and you never know who you're going to meet or the opportunities you'll get or with the podcast you'll end up on.
01:02:00
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah.
01:02:04
Christina Melito
Uh, but I will say conferences is one way that I keep like, ex ex high, like,
01:02:05
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. no start
01:02:09
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
01:02:12
Christina Melito
Talk about a way to validate. i with Me and my the so senior designer, Kristen, I work next to, we both went to first round. It's a day-long set of presentations but where agencies show you their first round brand pitch decks.
01:02:30
Christina Melito
And they're like unabridged, unedited, like this is what we show. You see our strategy. and And I knew my experience the first time I went. That was one of two of a few moments in my last 10 years that i were core memories where I was like,
01:02:45
Christina Melito
I think the same way. I have the same philosophy and ethics and like, I can do that color palette. And so I asked her after this experience, which she found wonderful. I was just like, were you validate, were you like, oh my gosh, I i strive to achieve that, wanna do that? Or do you feel like you already are just maybe on smaller scales?
01:03:06
Tracey Halvorsen
Oh gosh.
01:03:06
Christina Melito
She was like the latter girlfriend. I was like, yeah. Like I was so relieved that she saw in her abilities, like we're doing this. Like it's like a smaller scale.
01:03:16
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
01:03:17
Christina Melito
It's not Wolf and Allens, you know, but, but like, heck if we're not doing just as informed and, and, and critical and like awesome work as they were.
01:03:27
Christina Melito
And so when I came to 15-4, I said, Steve, false man, My goal is I want to like have a first round pitch deck that I can take one day to this conference. Like that's my, I want them to come to Baltimore.
01:03:43
Christina Melito
I want to like dream about the agencies that would be on that list to present. And like, could we make it to that list? And so that's just like, you, you got to create your goals. I've, I've heard you talk about that in the and other episodes and like create,
01:03:58
Christina Melito
what's success to find success for you. It doesn't to be like revolutionary. You could just take these one off little things and like, I do love sitting.
01:04:04
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, it doesn't happen sitting at home though. It doesn't happen.
01:04:07
Christina Melito
No, I'm not going to lie.
01:04:08
Tracey Halvorsen
doesn't happen.
01:04:10
Christina Melito
I do love sitting, but you got to get out there. You got to put yourself out there, go to happy hours.
01:04:14
Tracey Halvorsen
look i
01:04:15
Christina Melito
have to,
01:04:15
Tracey Halvorsen
i I hate networking more than you can imagine. I'm i'm an introvert extrovert. I can be extroverted in certain situations when I know what I'm gonna be talking about or i'm with a small group of people.
01:04:30
Tracey Halvorsen
Big groups of people where everyone's wearing their name tags and you're just walking around like, hey, who are you? Hi. i would rather stick needles in my eyes.
01:04:38
Christina Melito
Ooh.
01:04:40
Tracey Halvorsen
I find it to be so uncomfortable.
01:04:42
Christina Melito
Hi. I'm going to try to get you to one.
01:04:44
Tracey Halvorsen
but
01:04:45
Christina Melito
I'm going to try to get you to one.
01:04:46
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
01:04:47
Christina Melito
That's my goal. October. i don't know the dates yet, but it's coming.
01:04:52
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, I will accept. um um I will accept and maybe it will be less painful because you have it right.
01:04:58
Christina Melito
I think you'll see. i think you'll see.
01:05:00
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah I think you will invite me to a good one.
01:05:00
Christina Melito
Yeah. yeah
01:05:04
Tracey Halvorsen
But yeah. And i so again, you know, if you're like me and the idea of all of this is, you know, scary or painful or intimidating, it is so great to reach out to people to find, you know, a mentor, someone that can help say, I'll be the friendly face when you show up and, you know, we can hang in case like there's creepers there whatever it might be.
01:05:24
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm. Or clicks. It's usually clicky.
01:05:28
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah Or clicks or if you're just not sure, but, but you do just have to start saying yes to, to getting out there and and forming those relationships because even if 99 of them are awkward and uncomfortable and the one that will stick could change your life.
01:05:29
Christina Melito
Mm-hmm.
01:05:45
Christina Melito
Right. They could change everything. They have their whole trajectory of like, yeah, it could.
01:05:49
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
01:05:51
Christina Melito
This is true.
01:05:52
Tracey Halvorsen
All right. Well, this is, that's a good, good one to end on.
01:05:54
Christina Melito
Oh, yeah. It wasn't microwave baloney.
01:05:56
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you. Yeah.
01:05:58
Christina Melito
but You'll have to listen to some other episodes to figure out what that means.
01:06:01
Tracey Halvorsen
i
01:06:04
Christina Melito
But yeah.
01:06:06
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah You know, nobody wants microwave baloney is really the moral of the story. So don't
01:06:11
Christina Melito
Which, by the way, is essentially a hot dog. I mean, like a hot dog, hot dog.
01:06:15
Tracey Halvorsen
flat, flat round.
01:06:16
Christina Melito
dog.
01:06:18
Tracey Halvorsen
hot Hot dog.
01:06:18
Christina Melito
hot dog
01:06:20
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, I guess it is. i guess And I suppose you could roll it up. You could invent a whole new food group, really. It could be a roll like fruit roll-ups. It could be meat roll-ups.
01:06:29
Christina Melito
me
01:06:31
Christina Melito
We could. or we could we could what's Let's not and say we did.
01:06:33
Tracey Halvorsen
Baloney roll-ups.
01:06:38
Tracey Halvorsen
All right. Check in in a few months when Christina and I have launched our new hot rolled meat line.
01:06:39
Christina Melito
Thank you.
01:06:45
Christina Melito
That will totally fail before it even even launches.
01:06:50
Christina Melito
Thank you.
01:06:51
Tracey Halvorsen
No, seriously, thank you so much for joining.
01:06:53
Tracey Halvorsen
Thanks for suffering the universe's way of just trying to make it a little bit more uncomfortable for you with the lawnmower. Thanks to all the listeners for laughing along with us about the lawnmower.
01:07:05
Tracey Halvorsen
And I hope this was an interesting conversation for anybody who's listening. Christina, I'll see you at that networking event. Thank you again.
01:07:14
Christina Melito
Thank you.