Meet Elyn Kazarian | Creative Director | Designer | Broadcaster

We had the good fortune of connecting with Elyn Kazarian and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elyn, how do you think about risk?
The way that I think about taking risks is no different than when I think about how I would feel if I don’t try something new that I’m interested in; Would I regret it if I don’t try? Even if the outcome doesn’t go my way, would I ask myself in the future, “what if”? Ultimately, I would much rather live with the failure of having tried, than the regret of having not tried. And who knows, maybe you actually don’t end up failing and finding something that you’re actually good at!

One way that risk has played a role in my career is when I started shesaid.so Radio LA without any prior experience or knowledge in radio. It initially had started as a podcast idea, and even then, I had no clue how to start a podcast, how to edit episodes, etc. I was just listening to podcasts on a daily basis for years at that point. After having gone to the shesaid.so volunteer meeting in 2017 which led me to asking the founder of the organization (Andreea Magdalina) whether they had thought about creating a podcast to highlight women working across the music industry, did she write my name down as the person who would spearhead it. That was the moment where I went, “oh god, what have I gotten myself into”. You know those moments where you want something really badly for a long time, but then when it happens, you’re like, “oh crap, it’s happening!”? It was thrilling, but also horrifying. And so, the journey began.

Long story short, after finding out that one of the other shesaid.so members had a connection with dublab, an online radio platform, we were able to pitch the idea to them, and they gave us a trial period to test the waters. The show was started by a group of us women who had all decided to volunteer with the organization, and we launched the first episode in May of 2018. I remember stepping into the dublab studio on the day of our launch and feeling so incredibly nervous. Before going on-air to host the show alongside the two other hosts, I kept telling myself, “Elyn, just remember why you’re doing this. You love music and listening to people share their experiences. Forget the rest. Forget the lack of technical knowledge you have in radio. Forget the fact that you might actually suck at this and make a number of mistakes. Just remember what this means for you and why you’re doing it. Everything else will be gained through trial and error”. And that truly is how things turned out. It has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my career, in that it not only allowed me to push myself beyond what I thought my limits were, but I also learned that I’m actually quite good at being a radio host. This goes back to how I think about risk; I never thought I’d be able to do something like this, something so outside of my comfort zone, but I did it anyway, because I knew that if I didn’t try, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My career as a creative director and designer has been anything but easy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way because of how much it’s allowed me to grow in ways I wouldn’t have if it was easy. When I was preparing to graduate from Art Center College of Design in 2013, I made the decision to work in the music industry as a designer. I wanted to be able to design album artwork mostly, and anything else pertaining to an artist’s visual needs. Overtime, and with acquired knowledge, I began to realize how much I loved coming up with the entire visual story for an artist, and how to help it translate to various mediums. That’s when becoming a creative director was a no-brainer. I not only enjoyed collaborating with artists and coming up with the ideas for their album campaigns, but executing upon them, and ensuring that I was bringing all of the appropriate creative talent on board to make the vision come to life.

When I look back on the last ten years of my career, the journey has been anything but linear. I have had wonderful highs, but also an awful lot more lows. The idea of working somewhere for years just wasn’t becoming a reality for me. Instead, it was setbacks, rejections, personal difficulties, and feeling like nothing would ever work out. When I look at all of those experiences in hindsight however, I see how many times those setbacks or rejections were actually protecting me. Of course at the time it was hard to even think about it that way because I wanted certain things to work out so badly. But I now realize how much better off I am for certain opportunities not materializing. Every opportunity unfolded in the way that it had to and continues to do, and that’s not something I can explain or even comprehend, but I do believe that as long as I set clear intentions, take things one day at a time, and just show up, that ultimately everything I’m setting myself to achieve, will happen in time. I feel like we oftentimes think we need to be at a certain place in our lives by a certain age, and that’s simply not true. Our society makes us believe that if something doesn’t work out by a certain time, then it’s worthless. Things NEED to take time to grow, WE need time to grow. There’s no secret to success, and there’s no rush in attaining whatever success means for you. You really just have to show up every single day, and do the things that may seem annoying, boring, or time-consuming in the moment. Everything else will fall into place eventually.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If you were visiting Los Angeles, and I was going to be your guide, this is how I would plan things out: For breakfast, we would go to All Time or Home in Los Feliz, then take a stroll around the neighborhood and hit up Skylight Books. You can’t come to LA and not see the Griffith Observatory, so we’d go there next to take in the views of the city and the Hollywood sign. Next we’d grab lunch at Millie’s in Silver Lake, spend some time afterwards walking around the neighborhood, and call it a day by going to a museum like The Broad or to the Marciano Art Foundation. If there was an interesting concert, maybe hit up The Echo or Echo Plex. For another day during the week, I’d suggest going to The Getty, The Huntington, The Arboretum, Descanso Gardens, Amoeba, The Last Bookstore, Arcana Books, or Gardens of the World.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are many people that I want to thank and give a shoutout to. Here goes!

Everyone at RCA Records, including Derrick Aroh, Tonianne Tartaro, John Fleckenstein, Val Pensa, Nick Robespierre, Adonis Sutherlin, Em Argiro, Gina Messeri, Tyler Morgan, Ari Abdul, Trevor Daniel, Paravi, Barbara Doza, MASN. My friends of 14 years, Arpi Gaifedjian and Julie Yeo. OVO Sound, Mr. Morgan, Shug Ritzer, dvsn and their team Lo, Ricki, Meg and Bryan for treating me like family. The whole Women in Visuals team and its founder Emily Simon. shesaid.so. Andreea Magdalina, Shannon Murphy, Monica Heidt, Jasmine Salvino, Sarah-Wynne Argain, Cindy Lin, Lottie Moore, Gillian Jean. Dublab, Rachel Day, Ale Cohen, Bryan Younce, Mark “Frosty” McNeill. Max Geistfeld, Gabriela Gironas, Tony Stackhouse, Fernando Carbonell, Cheyenne Shannon, Livia Piomelli, Chelsea Balan, Owen Danoff, Mac Ayres, James Bahman, Gabrielle Roussos, Joshua Bassett, Lennon Cihak, Danielle Durman, Jada, Zalma, Andrea Samuels, Michelle Siouty, Izzy Eveleigh.

Website: https://elynkazarian.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elynkazarian/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elynkazarian/

Other: shesaid.so Radio on dublab: https://www.dublab.com/shows/shesaid-so-la Women in Visuals: https://www.womeninvisuals.com/meet-our-team

Image Credits
Brianna Alysse Jamie Webster Joshua Will Othello Grey Bryan Brock Oswaldo Cepeda