Today we’d like to introduce you to Isabel Heuer. Isabel is the Editor-in-Chief of Strike Magazine Nashville. She is a 20 year old sophomore at MTSU majoring in fashion design.
Strike Magazine is a fashion and lifestyle publication that aims to cultivate creative communities on college campuses allowing students to gain 360° professional experience in all facets of content production. Strike is a place for students to network, collaborate, and build their portfolios. Our staff is filled with a diverse set of 75+ Nashville students who are the next generation of the editorial, digital media, public relations, styling, beauty, graphic design, advertising, journalism, and business industries.
Isabel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
It was in 2020 when I first heard about Strike Magazine. One of my close friends, Sage, worked as a stylist at one of our branches in Miami. I remember her telling me over FaceTime all about the cool projects she was currently working on for Strike. With my interest in fashion and a background in film, I loved Strike before I was even a part of it.
During this time, I had recently gotten home from a year of traveling and was living at home with my dad and three brothers. I had just begun my first semester of university but because of the pandemic, it was completely online. I would finish my homework a week before it was due and I filled my free time with random fashion-related projects. Never in my life have I had so much free time. I grew up doing lots of extracurriculars, I played two sports, put a lot of effort into school, and was a member of a few clubs. When the pandemic first began, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. This is funny to reflect on now, as it seems I do not have enough hours in the day for everything I want to do. That winter, I put together a fundraiser for the orphanage I worked for during my gap year. I created a homemade screen printer in my garage, drew up designs on procreate, and made t-shirts to raise money for the orphanage’s current needs. From start to finish, I handled all of the printing, marketing, and delivering individually. (To be fair – thanks dad for helping me build the frames for the printing press!). From what I remember, this was my first all-solo creative project. It is still an important memory for me because it introduced me to the type of work I really enjoy doing – creating and directing art, mixed with a little bit of business.
That December, I saw that Strike Magazine had a new branch founded at Vanderbilt and it was open to students attending various Nashville universities. I immediately applied.
My first semester at Strike, I worked as a stylist and content team member. Being a fashion major, my eyes were set on a stylist position, but by the end of my first semester, I had fallen in love with the content division. I enjoyed planning the creative direction for shoots and managing all the moving parts that make a photoshoot as good as it can be.
From there, things sped up very quickly. In June of 2021, applications opened for the Editor-in-Chief position and I was recommended to apply. I went through the application process, and by July, I became the Editor-in-Chief of Strike Magazine Nashville. As a sophomore at the local state school, I was very intimidated to lead a group of 50 people, mostly upperclassmen, mostly Vanderbilt students. It wasn’t until this point in my life did I realize how type-A I truly am. I immediately started organizing a google drive for all of the various teams at Strike, I created reference documents for our branch’s new structure, and spent all of my time preparing for a fast-paced semester of production.
My first semester as Editor-in-Chief was wonderful. I loved every second of it and feel so lucky to be in the position I am. I had been ready to dedicate my time and passion into something I cared about, and holding a leadership role at Strike was the best thing I could have asked for. Fall of 2021, Strike Nashville published their Issue 03! And today we are in the production process for our Issue 04 which is set to launch April 29, 2022.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have an incredible group of people working with me at Strike. They are ridiculously talented individuals, but most importantly have such genuine personalities. I feel outstandingly lucky to spend my days alongside such a wonderful group of people. That being said, my team and I don’t work our asses off for me to say we have only had smooth journeys. The majority of my team is made up of students who balance a lot of responsibilities. We all have a large workload due to our education commitments alone. On top of schooling, most of us have jobs and/or internships, are present in other student organizations and do our best to uphold our personal hobbies, social lives, and mental health. With all of this already on our plate, we still dedicate our time and energy to Strike. I work around 20 hours a week for Strike, and most of my directors are working around 7-12 hours a week. It is safe to say, our sleep schedules are neglected. Of course, we do it because we love it, but after months of back-to-back meetings and photoshoots every weekend, it is an exhausting process. My team is full of people who love to do everything with 110% and when this is the case, there is no cutting corners or easy fixes. When I first became Editor-in-Chief, we had less than $50 in our bank account and little engagement on social media. We had no business connections, and I hadn’t even met my team in real life before. I’m not saying that money and followers are the most important factors, but you have to be somewhat business-minded when you create work that is meant for an audience. It took a lot of consistent, concentrated, and tedious work for us to have grown as much and as quickly as we have.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At Strike, we have grown a beautiful community full of creative individuals. We are gaining experience within the fashion industry, while simultaneously building our portfolios and resumes. We are all doing exactly what we came to Strike to do.
Each semester at Strike, our branch creates a physical and digital copy of our fashion and lifestyle magazine. On a day-to-day basis, our various teams work on relevant projects relating to their individual specialties. Currently, our creative division is in the production season for our Issue 04 magazine, while our business division is hosting marketing events, local collaborations, and preparing for our launch in April. I am always hopping between team meetings, photoshoots, fittings, check-ins for different business accounts, and event planning appointments. We essentially work as a small-scale version of a real fashion publication.
When you ask me what I am most proud of in regards to Strike, I have three answers: a material answer, an Editor-in-Chief answer, and a personal answer.
On a material level- I will always treasure the moment that I opened our Issue 03 magazine for the first time. It was an extremely humbling experience to turn the physical pages of the magazine that I had watched come to life from initial PowerPoints and Pinterest boards to photoshoots and InDesign files, until after months of progress, it assumed its final form.
On an Editor-in-Chief level- I am proud of the fact that my staff is filled with genuine team players. At the end of the day, we are a broke fashion publication, completely run by students who have the heart to produce content because they simply love to create.
On a personal level- Throughout the past (almost) year as a leader at Strike, I have seen so many of my teammates grow into themselves. I watch as their confidence expands, career aspirations change, and skills develop. I know that with people my age, there is a tremendous amount of stress revolving around our futures, whether it be our careers, the state of the world, or even living up to the older generations’ definition of success. But spending so much time with this group of people has taught me that even though it seems we are living during trying times, there are admirable perspectives all around us. I am proud to be a part of something that is much more than just a resume filler.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
A final message I would like to share to other young creatives is, you are no better or worse than anyone else. Treat everyone with kindness, including yourself. You are capable of great things, so don’t sell yourself short! Thank you for your time getting to know myself and Strike. We hope you check out our latest issue and stick around for our upcoming one! Thank you, Nashville Voyager, for this opportunity, we appreciate everything you do for the local creative community.
Pricing:
- 1/2 page photo ad included in our magazine- $100
- 1/4 page photo ad included in our magazine- $75
- 1/8 page photo ad included in our magazine- $50
- 1 Business Uplift Instagram Feed Post- $50
- 1 Blog Post (Uplifting Interview/Article)- $100
Contact Info:
- Email: eic.strike.vanderbilt@
gmail.com - Website: https://www.
strikemagazines.com/ - Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/ strikemagazinenashville/ - Other: https://open.spotify.
com/user/ ra9gw4sa3ji7g99f0fn66kg2k
Image Credits
Jeremy Aguirre
Strike Magazine Nashville
