Shannon Garcia: Freelance Artist in San Juan Capistrano, CA

With the help of my previous professor and my connections with Hurley we created a program for the action sports Industry that is thriving and doing well. It was working at Billabong that I felt there was a huge gap between fashion design students and Graphic Art students for the Action Sports industry. I figured this out by heading up the interns that would come into Billabong. I felt I often spent my time teaching and connecting what I had to self learn while in the industry. The fashion students where great at designing apparel but weren't the best at Graphic arts while the Graphic Art students had no idea or background in fashion. An idea turned into reality with my professor and a few years later the college students are doing projects, internships, and jobs with such companies as Nike, Hurley, Vans, Quicksilver, Patagonia, North Face, Thalia, Stance and GoPro. It's an honor to see the program grow and be apart of the creation while teaching courses during this growth.

Billabong was a big part of my start in this industry. I was blessed to have a handful of amazing mentors. It was here that I had the opportunity to design a complete line from start to finish. Working for a company in the beginning with a small group really gave me the chance to see and be a part of every aspect. It's this well rounded vision that allows me to create with cost in mind. I traveled to San Francisco and New York yearly to shop and forecast trends for the new seasons. I created mood boards for these new seasons with photos from our trips, local shopping days, and online research. I worked closely with the Design Director to inspire and create the Tee line each season with our team. We would pick colors and blanks for the juniors t'shirts and fleece, including lab dips and fit approvals. I worked with the t'shirt and fleece vendors on pricing and would create packages with silk screening and embroidery work. I worked with the oversea vendors in China on fleece packages. I created all hangtags, labels, buttons, pins. I worked with inline on patterns and graphics for sportswear, accessories and swim. My main focus was to manage and create the juniors and Billy Girls t'shirt/fleece graphics. I worked closely with our silk screen and print vendors traveling to their shops for screen press checks. It was my job to manage and present the line at the end of season to all the reps during the Sales Meetings. We had the opportunity to travel and have these meetings in Hawaii, Vegas, LA, & San Diego. After our meetings it was my job to get all samples in boxes and ship them out to our reps. I was in charge of the catalogs from set up to print each season. I worked closely with the marketing team on the look and feel of the tee line for POP. My photography was used often in ads and tee graphics. Billabong was a great start to my career and I'm grateful to those who mentored me as a young artist entering the industry.

Rip Curl was my first job out of College. Previously I was an intern at Surfer Magazine and worked closely with the Art Director to create ads and layouts for articles. It was this experience at Surfer Magazine that landed me the job at Rip Curl. I was hired for POP and created ads for Magazines and helped the team with look and feel of window displays, hangtags, labels, etc. It was a small team and I worked closely with the Creative Director.