Emily Woollett: Enjoy the adventure
The importance of ideas, saying yes and being patient. Advice from Emily Woollett, Creative Director at Paper Stone Scissors.
Take the opportunities, enjoy the adventure, and remember why you are here. That is the advice from Emily Woollett, a creative director at Paper Stone Scissors in Melbourne.
Woollett shared her experience in the design industry at the 20th annual Spark Week Festival hosted by Wintec Media Arts.
After starting her journey at Central Saint Martins, an art school in London, Woollett graduated in 2002. Five years later, she left London for new experiences in Melbourne where she was only expecting to stay for a year.
Armed with her portfolio, she found a job at Paper Stone Scissors and has been part of the international agency ever since.
Along with being a creative director, Woollett has taken part in guest speaking and judging competitions in the creative industry, and is part of Womentor, a mentorship programme for women in graphic design, an industry that is notoriously male-dominated.
Woollett said that it is important for young and experienced career women alike to have female role models.
When discussing her mentoring role Woollett said there were many important skills she tries to impart.
“To be able to work on skills like how to be in that environment, how to get her ideas across, how to navigate the culture and how to create change within it.
“I think it’s really important for females in all roles to be able to mentor up or down. I have learned so much from mentoring.”
If Woollett could go back in time and mentor her inexperienced self she would say “it’s all going to be okay, just enjoy it”.
She said that it can get overwhelming when students have so much to think about and do not quite know what they want to do after graduating.
Woollett said it is important to centre yourself and try to understand why you do what you do and what you excel at.
“Try and be patient. Everybody seems to want it now, and to be the best, experience comes over time.
“I think that we all need to chill out a bit, we don’t need to get to that finish line so soon.”
Woollett said her career has been an incredible journey that has taken her around the world and has allowed her to work on exciting projects with interesting people.
“Enjoy the adventure. You never know where your journey will take you.”
