Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Noelani.
Alex, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Born in Santa Monica until I was eight then moved to San Diego. I was always drawing women fully-dressed and accessorized, but come graduation time I wasn’t sure what to do – since my art emphasized the apparel and styling of my characters, I decided fashion school made the most sense. After high school, I went to FIDM San Diego enrolled in their Fashion Design program. Halfway through I transitioned to Product Development since I wanted to see the overall branding, the big-picture idea surrounding fashion design, not just be constricted to clothing design, sourcing, and detail but what else happened around and outside of that. Who knew that would repeat itself later in my career.
A big surfer in my teens and early twenties, leaving San Diego was daunting and the economic crash happened so I was relieved to avoid the move to Los Angeles. Instead, I got several freelance jobs designing logos and graphics for local labels, designing surf apparel prints for men’s and women’s line Cali’s Finest, a surf skate lifestyle line based out of Orange County. My dream of fashion design in the surf industry while living in San Diego, became less realistic as surf labels were outsourcing to third world countries or offered low pay design positions in-house in Irvine! I was not moving to Irvine, so I worked in the wholesale apparel industry in San Diego, print/embroidery accounts and doing light graphic design.
I started listening to Mastin Kipp, founder of the Daily Love, a motivational speaker, and writer, who inspired me to make a huge change in my life. I felt like I was wasting my potential by staying in San Diego and should take the risk and move to LA. Friends and family thought no experience in the actual LA fashion industry, was a bad idea and that I should just wait to get a job or opportunity up there before making a decision. I wasn’t going to wait and followed my gut to JUST DO IT. I applied to a few internships saying I already lived in LA, my first two got back to me: WREN, a contemporary women’s label based out of New York that was carried at Nordstrom and select high-end boutiques on the west and east coasts, and Brian Lichtenberg, high-end designer whose pieces were constantly being pulled by stars like Gigi Hadid, Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga for editorials and music videos, his collections sold through specialty boutiques and top department stores in Los Angeles, London, Paris and Milan. I accepted BOTH internships, and moved in with my friend, actress Rosalie in Hollywood and started the job hunt. I split my time between WREN and Brian Lichtenberg, interning got a job working weekends and weeknights at night venue BLVD 3 on Sunset Blvd. to make money while I interned.
A month in, I was drawn to the graphic design side of fashion from website design to social media and began requesting to take on those similar small tasks at my internships. I learned Photoshop and Illustrator in my free time, and a few months into my internship at WREN. Over the next month, I put together a portfolio in an attempt to drop an internship and get a paying design job. Phoebe Dahl, the granddaughter of Roald Dahl, was hiring for a Design Assistant in Echo Park on Craigslist, to take over both fashion production tasks and graphic design for her new booming label FAIRCLOTH & SUPPLY. Sold only in high-end boutiques, recently featured in Vogue and the ZOE Report, with a B-line sold at Urban Outfitters, I saw the opportunity to apply AND showed up at her pop-up shop to sell myself. I landed the position, left my Brian Licthenberg internship and BLVD3 and began developing my graphic design/branding career. Working 40-60 hours a week I advanced in photography, product design, graphic design, and branding across digital and print while still interning at WREN.
In 2014 I left WREN as I focused on pursuing bigger opportunities. I started to land higher design offers and contracts with a wider range of design firms from luxury lifestyle brands, celebrity order service application platforms to jewelry lines, fitness brands, etc. leaving Faircloth to further develop my portfolio. As I advanced my skillset, the world of UX was becoming a hot topic and design need in my digital career experience and app design and with developers for big Los Angeles clients, I was contacted by GUESS? Inc. International for a new, design position for their international rebranding team that consisted of one of the company CEO’s, and 3 other lead designers. I had designed across digital, print, product, fashion, and able to fuse all my talents into a creative concept pumping machine for GUESS? USA, Asia, Europe as well as Guess Factory, G by Guess, and Marciano. At Guess? I became a branding expert for their international rebranding initiative for 2017 (I was hired in 2016). I was part of the development of new collection ideas, product line and Gift-with-Purchase ideas, logos, packaging, displays, creative directed product photography shoots, and a few of my designs had been featured in social media, on the company website, even used in music videos.
Around Guess? I maintained my connections with other design firms and co-workers, who used me as their designer for marketing and design purposes, even referring other clients to me, building my independent client design business. Weekends and nights were spent on my client design business and designing at Guess? Was my full-time Monday through Friday job. Traffic to and from Guess? Was insane and working a job and a business, led to burnout. I wanted to work less be paid more. Friends in animation, UX Design, and other more advanced design modalities were making 6 figures, working from home most days, having a much better work-life balance than I was and their lives had more FREEDOM than mine with less work. I didn’t know how my skills could cross over quite yet to achieve that sweet work-life balance I saw but knew I wanted it. My ability to brand, think from a target consumer’s perspective and adapt to a variety of industries and aesthetics, seemed to fit User Experience design which paid more, was in higher demand and a realistic crossover for me in pursuit of a better life – this was some long-term thinking. While at Guess? Time freedom and life-work balance were not an option, I was unfulfilled, and my health started to decline. Against friend and family objections, I left, focusing on my client design business figuring out whatever I didn’t know, while throwing myself into smaller UX/UI design projects charging less than experienced UX Designers would charge since these clients had smaller UX budgets but were willing to work with me on these projects with the lower rate since I was a novice in this design modality.
Working with developers, coders, photographers, etc. I tackled a wide range of projects from creative design, content creation and design to all the business and administrative side of things from billing, accounting, and contracts. It seemed awesome SOME DAYS, but other days I was just beyond burned out to function worse than I’d ever experienced before. My higher-paying clients we’re asking for complex app and web development design that was UX or UI based but I was at max bandwidth at that point with little mental or physical capacity to deliver. It was time to take a few steps back and re-evaluate what I was doing, either grow my current business and hire a partner or develop my missing strengths or skillset in UX/UI – SOMETHING! Feeling unfulfilled and experiencing extreme fatigue and chronic illness, I had to make another change.
From Hollywood to Echo Park to West Hollywood over 6 years and felt I had reached a pretty great place by the time I hit 30! Living in a gorgeous huge 2 bed 2 bath in a private WeHo neighborhood, working from home as a 1-person agency with a variety of clients. But, I was in over my head every day and had to change something. Frequent trips back to San Diego were much needed to decompress and the energetic shift from high strung, non-stop adrenaline survival mode creative business owner in LA to relaxed, uplifting and balanced nature vibes in San Diego, soon showed me that I was back in a deficit of life. I still had a horrible work-life balance and was excited by the work I was doing, but too exhausted to ever enjoy my life and burnt out. I decided I can always come back to Los Angeles but I may NEVER get this small window of opportunity to advance in a skillset that was holding me back – UX design – and this would be the chance to do that! I decided I’d move back to San Diego, take a mental and physical break from the non-stop design train I’d been on in LA, live a little more, spend more time in nature, take a few less demanding clients with me and go back to school at UCSD to hone in on this UX. I saw I could charge A LOT more for this skillset, focus on delivering UX and visual design projects to clients for LESS work and MORE money while maintaining, a creative work-life balance. Now it’s been a year and a half since I moved back to San Diego, working only with a few select clients and in my last semester of the UX Design certificate program at UCSD. I have entered a completely new world of digital and interactive design, which is HUGE today and will be essential in my future in my career as well as HIGHLY requested by all my clients. During this San Diego return, I studied the power of nutraceuticals (opposite of pharmaceuticals) rejuvenating my immune system and energy levels, which has now turned into an additional side business.
Helping to improve the lives of others has been incredibly fulfilling along with one of my passion charity projects that helps to feed and rebuild third world communities and children – I’m now planning to go on a mission trip sometime in 2020 to give back to these communities in the field. Using this time of resetting my life, I’ve also been in Personal Development courses with life coaches and mentors to enhance my relationships in business and life. Will I launch a full-on creative design agency in San Diego after my certificate program? Will I design product lines on the side and only deliver high-end UX projects and experiences to clients? I have no idea what’s next in the cards but today I am much happier AND fulfilled while maintaining an LA-based client design business working remotely in San Diego and gearing up for big things in 2020. One thing for sure is that gut-feeling risks you take won’t be easy – you will have to leave your comfort zone – but that’s where success, happiness, and fulfillment are waiting for you.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Fear and objections from others! Friends and family care the most but fear the most when you make drastic changes. I had people tell me I was crazy to drop my stable job and life in San Diego to start a whole new life and career in the competitive fashion industry. Some friends had a full-on intervention with me about making these choices!
I still chose what I wanted with little support from others. Navigating the world of fashion so “late” in the game was intimidating, but the power of your mindset to get what you want, and your belief against all odds by staying strong and positive (while taking action!), landed me amazing opportunities. After “making it” landing an exclusive design position at Guess? naysayers back home were my biggest fans. People looked up to me, reached out to me how I got to where I was and how I could help them. After deciding to leave Guess? and being a full-time fashion industry person, I was AGAIN faced with a lot of objection.
My supervisor and one of the CEOs at Guess?, Isaiah Kincaid, freaked out and told me I’m making one of the worst decisions of my life that people were DYING to get into my position and I was throwing it all away. I felt guilty, as though I was a brat not wanting this huge gift of a position at a global company when other people were fighting to break into Guess? Friends and family AGAIN were telling me I was getting too old to be making career changes again. So just like I had done years ago, I still make the choice to leave and had no support or love about it. I feel like I literally boggled people’s minds and had to explain in extreme detail to people close to me why exactly I made this horrible choice. Then I started to develop my own business, which was new, scary and lonely!
Today, I’m really happy and content with what I’m doing and have big plans for the future. My Guess? and fashion industry past follow me – it’s still a commonly asked question “Why did you leave the fashion industry/LA when you were doing so well?” My answer isn’t satisfying to everyone. I do whatever feels right, which has worked every time allowing me to trust myself, so the judgment, disappointment, and opinions of others don’t impact my choices. It doesn’t make it easier though – it sucks to have others doubt you a lot and people voice why whatever you’re doing is a bad idea when they aren’t even taking risks – that part is a drag. that part and that’s always going to be hard. But every time I win or succeed at the goal or risk I take, it’s taught me to accept and glaze over.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I deliver branding, marketing, and digital design solutions – from websites and apps to marketing – for clients in the luxury lifestyle, real estate or medical service industries. I’m known for making unsexy businesses or services look sexy through a complete rebrand and improved, elevated experience through new content, web and social media design, influenced by my fashion design and branding background.
I’m most proud for taking risks along the way to hop on digital design campaigns to really improve my graphic design skills, throwing myself into creative directing roles, learning photography on my own and just figuring things out without asking anyone for permission to be a photographer, website designer, creative director, etc. I gave myself those experiences and titles.
I wouldn’t say I’m different or set apart from others like me – at the end of the day I’d say I’m one of many in this day and age that want to create our future and identity doing whatever it takes to learn, grow and create the ideal version of ourselves in work and life. With Tony Robbins and Gary Vaynerchuck’s in our world today saturating media, I’m surprised MORE of us aren’t already doing it since this is the future and school isn’t always the answer. School for me for a particular skill I want to perfect is a different story. If I HAD to choose SOMETHING that sets me apart, it would probably be that no public media coverage, exposure or amount of follower or money would be fulfilling to me overall. It’s a little to narcissistic to me and selfish – if I’m always winning or achieving in my life and showing off or blowing my own horn of awesomeness while others around the world struggle, suffer and lack hope and I can’t contribute to that in some way, then none of my talents, gifts or achievements are really worth it to me. If I can be successful, inspirational to others, and give back through my business and personal successes, etc. as a result of higher levels of achievement, then that is what will matter most to me and maybe that would set me apart.
What were you like growing up?
I grew up drawing and sketching since I was two years old, took painting and sculpting classes as a child, I played sports like soccer, junior lifeguards, tennis, track, cross country and surfed. I am half Hawaiian so I spent a lot of time in the North Shore of Oahu and the other half in San Diego. I also grew up playing violin and acting and singing in paid professional musical theater. I was always creative, outdoorsy and independent. I took an art class, painting specifically and my teacher told me to develop my techniques so I taught myself to paint and learned to love acrylic. I painted mainly girls drinking cocktails or surfer chicks running to the waves with shortboards.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.alexnoelani.com
- Email: noelanialex@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexnoelani/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alex.noelani
Image Credit:
the two girls in black I styled for photographer Mikhail Goldenberg and he shot that image.
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