My Design Journey: Esti Heshin

An accidental discovery of New York's Premier Vision textile trade show set Esti Heshin on the fabric design career path. In this post she tells The Print School about her creative upbringing and the exact stepping stones that lead to her towards her dream design career.

Growing up in NY I have the best memories of my mom taking me shopping on Fifth Avenue on Sundays.

We would go to see the beautifully decorated department stores. She also an artist and loves floral prints and when we'd find a dress with a print we'd analyze it and we were very particular about what we liked. So I think this is actually where my journey began looking back.

After graduating college in 2017, I got an entry-level job at a local graphic design firm.

I photographed products and created catalogs but wound up designing packaging mostly. After about two years I felt I could do much more creative-wise. I always loved fashion and art and really wanted to pursue a job I where I wouldn't count the hours til end of day. So I said goodbye and took a half-day job at a children's center to shadow a  special needs carer. And the other half of the day I dedicated to learning about fashion.

I took lessons on how to sew and draft my own fashion sketches into garments.

I loved that but I still wasn't sure about where I was headed. A year later I got a call from the CEO of a leading food distributor, who said he remembered my work from my previous design job and offered me a job as an in-house packaging designer.

I started working there and it was pretty nice to be back in the designing space as opposed to working at a children's center. I started cranking out design after design, collaborating with buyers, sales team and sometimes the CEO himself. It was pretty thrilling. Soon enough I started seeing my products on supermarkets shelves and that was a great feeling. 

"I felt like telling people in the store, Hey do you know I designed that!"

 

Time went on and I couldn’t help it. I had these fashion and art ideas floating in my head all day and when I came home I was way too exhausted to do anything about it.

One day I was scrolling through Instagram and came across a post about a fashion trade show called Premier Vision.

I wasn’t exactly sure what it was but my parents encouraged me to go. Maybe I would meet people or get an idea of the textile industry. I was a bit skeptical but it was just a train ride away, so I bravely went. As soon as I arrived I was quickly swarmed by crowds of people speaking all different languages and people bustling around, I took a map guide and went through the sections.

I maneuvered my way from fabric, leather and embroidery vendors then I reached the studios selling textile designs. At first I was confused, not realizing what the studios sold.

Then it hit me that people actually use art for fabric design.

I was blown away at the idea! Once I arrived home I pulled out the map guide and went through the list of studios attended and started following them. This is how I discovered Longina Phillips Designs and The Print School courses. The first course I took is the illustration course and then I basically took all of them. Once I started taking them something in me lightened up! I was hooked it was the perfect combination of two things I love most fashion and art.

My favorite thing to paint is detailed and large florals. I love mixing digitally-painted roses with hand-illustrated pencil botanicals. I see myself selling my designs to exclusive women's wear markets. I think the thing I learned most from the The Print School, besides the techniques, is to follow a direction.

It's the foundation for a design for me. I have so many ideas that can go in so many directions it can get overwhelming. Knowing that I can have a trend board to rely on, as part of my Print Pattern Forecast subscription, keeps me on track.

I’m so happy I found Longina Phillips Designs and The Print School. It's a lovely team that keeps inspiring. I can't wait to see my designs out on party dresses giving people joy!

Hopefully one day I'll see them in the same stores I went to as a little girl. That would be a dream come true.

See more of Esti's work on Instagram.

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