Gabrielle Parker Interview for Lionheart Magazine
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POLLY VADASZ
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STORY: Gabbi Paker PHOTOGRAPHY: Gabbi Parker
It’s hard to remember the days when we didn’t document what we were doing with our lives online. Whether it’s an Instagram photo of what we’ve ordered for lunch or a blog post sharing our latest buys and passions. But unlike POLLY VADASZ, not all of us are Instagram famous from a hobby that became a full time job. Surrey-born Polly started her independent business (Sighh Designs) when she was only 16 and in her first year of college. Slowly she began to establish a name for herself as one of the internets most talked about business’, creating everything from phone cases, pocket mirrors, notepads and tote bags. “In my early teens I discovered that graphics design was a way to discover new things about myself, by having a gap year after college I was able to fully focus myself on the business and launch new products,” she says. Since then, her online presence has blossomed and Polly has a valuable online witty persona. This past year alone has seen her reach 38,000 Instagram followers and a staggering 1 million Sighh orders. It also marks the launch of her online blog pollyvadasz.blogspot.co.uk, writing about popular beauty products, essential DIY recipes and product ideas. “When I hit 10,000 Twitter followers I thought it was about time I had my own little corner on the Internet where I could share my interest in lifestyle and beauty as well as my business website. My followers seemed to enjoy having an input, on social media, when it came down to deciding on final designs and colours for products. They even liked it when I posted photos of my homemade recipes so I thought ‘why not’ to joining the blogging community.” Nobody appreciates it when you only get one like on your Instagram photo, but this has never been a problem for Polly. She started her feed based around her graphics design and her drawings, and in 2015 alone she received over 800,000 likes. Vloggers and bloggers such as Gabriella Lindley (velvetgh0st) and Amy Valentine are known to carry Polly’s phone cases in their pockets. “Me and Gabriella were messaging on twitter for a while, saying how much she liked my ‘quirky’ designs and wanted to know if I could design a phone case to her specific taste and of course after it went viral I sold over 2,000 cases to my audience,” Polly explains. “This is another reason behind my choice in attending university, I want to be able to freelance design.” Having your hobby become your job must be ideal but that doesn’t mean being self-employed is easy. Polly was completely against going to university at all costs. Literally. She didn’t want to live with the thought of thousands of debt and saw herself making it on her own, after all Sighh Designs was picking up a lot of revenue. “I don’t know what clicked in my brain but one day I thought I’m not going to get anywhere unless I have experimented with other graphics than typography.” Don’t get me wrong; everyone loves a little bit of typography, quotes and beautiful handwriting but she wanted to be able to design anything. Which comes down to her iconic tote bags, something Polly had never imagined creating became the most popular product last summer. “As most of my audience are female I wanted to create a fashionable tote bag that was witty and creative,” she says with a huge smile on her face.
This was when, Sighh Designs as a business, started Instagram so that Polly could repost customer photos with credit. Some of the customer photos are even published on her website, she does this by scrolling through the photos that are tagged with #SighhDesigns and choosing high quality images. Of course, when you’ve been designing for as long as Polly has, coming up with innovative fresh ideas must be hard, right? After all, new business’ are hitting the internet every second. So how does she come up with the ideas? “I don’t tend to look at other peoples work when I’m designing, I want it to be my own design. By staying focused on what I’m trying to achieve it lets me be as creative as I want to be,” she informs. “My life influences a lot of the concepts that I come up with, especially with the actual products I’m making not the design. Things such as phone cases, MacBook covers, pocket mirrors are all accessories I use everyday. Although, for me the visuals are a lot more important as I’m physically drawing and laying them out and the photography of the products is essential because obviously I want them to look appealing!” A big change in the world of Sighh Designs’ phone cases was the new premium option; this means that the case is tough, smooth and shiny and the print is wrapped around the edges. “I wish you could physically see things through the web because the quality of the new premium cases is amazing, so worth the money!” Polly expresses with passionate hand gestures. From September one of the most popular products was the day plan desk pad, a note pad that you can fill in each day and tear away at the end of the day. You can write in what time you wake up, a list of things to do, a mini mind map, an emergency doodle and a box to tick whether you’ve completed todays tasks or not. Could you get anymore organised? This is ideal for university students and Polly’s followers clearly love this as it’s currently sold out at the moment. Some of the products, such as the tote bags, took months in the making and a lot goes on behind the scenes when it comes down to the creation of products. Polly often posts polls on Twitter with what products her followers would like to see next or even re-designs of current products. As important as it can be to take in constructive criticism it’s also relevant to ignore the negativity that is received through Instagram and Twitter. Having over 50,000 followers on her personal accounts alone, it’s deemed that someone wont like what she does as a business. “When you post so much of your life and your ideas to the public you will get judged on things, so you have to ignore it and create a barrier so it doesn’t hurt as much,” she says tucking her hair behind her ear. “Personally I believe it’s all down to luck because not everyone is going to like what I do, but I love what I do so it doesn’t really matter.” Alongside the brushed-off gossip-esque criticism, Polly insists that the main characteristic that is key to becoming a successful young business woman/student is the drive towards graphic design. “I think when you start a career as a designer most people don’t think it’s going to be a career because it doesn’t exactly happen to everyone, it’s all down to finding what you’re good at,” she says. “Using your own initiative and creating beautiful designs you’re proud of is what makes it all worth it, at first it was a waiting game for the orders to come in but you have to be patient. Everyone who has a successful Etsy or are self-employed within the creative industry, have been working at it for years now and have built up their followers and specific audience. If you do want a career based around creating you need to be consistent.” As for giving advice towards anyone looking to work in that field Polly says that “being scared is something to avoid, you need to be confident about your work and comfortable enough to share it.”