GRAPHIC DESIGN to MAKEUP ARTIST

Ashley Rubell: What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Rika Shimada: Well, I was always into the arts. When I was kid I used to read a lot of cartoon books and I would say, ‘I want to be a cartoonist! Or a comic book artist!’ I was always drawing and coloring all these characters, so it was always something art-based, you know?

AR: Knowing that you were interested in art and illustrations, did that sort of set you up for what you decided you’d study in college?
RS: Yeah, in eleventh grade, when people start applying to schools and what not, I applied to only one school. It was the School of Visual Arts in New York. And yeah. I applied to SVA and I got in. That was it. I was just too lazy to do anything else you know, haha. Writing essays and stuff? No, but I had my art book ready. In high school and middle school I was always in art classes. I was always in the art room, drawing and crafting and making things.

My mom and my aunt were both crafty people too. They were always sewing things and making stuff. They weren’t painters or anything like that, but they were makers. Always knitting and what not. So I was exposed to all of that growing up as well.

AR: Do you remember what kind of things were in your art portfolio that you submitted for college? Did you feel proud of it?
RS: Yeah, I felt like it was my identity, you know? There were the jocks and the cheerleaders… I was the weirdo going to raves, listening to Nine Inch Nails… I was the rebel without a cause kid always hanging out in the art room.

I think I had a couple of photos, and a couple of weird drawings. It wasn’t even anything good. It would just be a drawing of some face, like melting or something, haha. Some weird self portrait or whatever, but it was better than the other kids at my school. So I would think, ‘oh I actually have some talent.’ So yeah, I was proud of it.

AR: When you applied to art school, did you know at that time that graphic design was the medium you wanted to pursue? Or was it just about getting into an art school?
RS: Yeah, so when I first got into SVA, any major ends up having to take these basic courses like figure drawing and english and..

AR: … your general ed.?
RS: Yes, general ed. And in the mix of those there’s photography, drawing, oil painting, sculpture… there’re different mediums that you touch on that first year. So that first year I went into school not knowing what I was going to really major in. I was majoring in Fine Art. There were some kids in school who already knew what they wanted to do, who’d be like, ‘I want to be a photographer’ or whatever, majoring in photo or majoring in film. But I was just in Fine Art because I didn’t know. I realized that first year that I’m really not a great fine artist. I saw all these kids who could paint crazy murals and were super talented. I was not that. I thought, ‘well, what am I going to do??’ I still wanted to work within the arts, but I hadn’t found the medium I wanted to work with.

Luckily, SVA had this great graphic design program. And I thought, ‘you know what, working from the computer and still working by hand, that’s a great skill to have. Painting is not me. Sculpting is not me. Photography is not me. And film I have no interest in. So, I’m going to go into graphic design.’

I went into it blindly. That second year I started learning photoshop, illustrator… just learning the basics. It wasn’t that I ever thought I wanted to be a graphic designer, but that first year really showed me that the other options were not my mediums.

AR: Essentially like a process of elimination.
RS: Yeah! Exactly. After graduating with a BFA in Graphic Design I realized there were sooo many realms that I could get into with it. You could do editorial design, package design, logos and branding, marketing and advertising… A lot of people at my school got hooked up with jobs through their professors. One of my friends got in with this big MTV guy that way and he still works at MTV all these years later! So you know, there were certain paths that people sort of had handed to them. My friend was good with logos and he got that job working at MTV creating logos. When I was done at school, I still didn’t know what I wanted to get into, but I also had an interest in fashion. Not like Vogue-fashion, but..

AR: But fashion as an expression.
RS: Right. It wasn’t an interest in couture but in the grunge moment, you know? Luckily, I got into a major publishing house and was working there at age 23 for four and a half years, and was riding those elevators with fashion elite. I was working at a big magazine at the time, in sales. So there was editorial graphic design and there was sales design where we would make all the store signage, or invitations to events and parties, mailers, posters...

AR: Did you have any mentors or teachers that had inspired you or encouraged you around this time?
RS: Well, the boss I had at the magazine was really an amazing manager. She was very hands on with me and she had her own style already figured out. She taught me what she knew. She told me which fonts were the best ones to use for the company, and which design style to stay within. Rather than deconstructing things, she taught me to focus on staying clean and focused in my designs. She was my mentor. She definitely molded me while I was there.  

While I was working there, there were a lot of women who were in their late thirties/early forties and I was in my early twenties. They would say to me, ‘We’ve been in this publishing world for years. If you want to do Graphic Design Publishing you’re going to end up getting stuck in this category of design. You’re still young and if you want to see what else is out there as a graphic designer, you need to see what’s out there… unless you want to stay in publishing forever.’  

That really freaked me out! So I started contacting my friends and looking around for something new. I ended up getting a job at an apparel company as a freelancer and I started doing apparel graphics. So I made the switch from print graphics to apparel graphics. I was making tee-shirt graphics or prints for fabric.

AR: Did you like that more than what you were doing before?
RS: Yeahhh… it was more organic. I liked that there were less rules. Print design was great, but apparel design was more free-form. They knew what they wanted, but you could still play around with it. And because I saw my mom and my aunt do so much knitting and sewing and crafting, I liked that I could incorporate things like stitch designs from the computer. I really liked playing around with that sort of stuff.

AR: That’s pretty cool.
RS: Yeah so I did that for about five years.

AR: And then how did you then jump into doing makeup? I know you told me when I first met you that you had been a manicurist first, right?
RS: Right. So while all of this was happening, my girls and I were on the sidelines getting our acrylic nails and playing around with nail art. It was something I started doing as a hobby on the side.

AR: Oh wow!
RS: Yeah . And one of my girl friends had a magazine out then so she would reach out to me and be like, ‘let’s do a nail story!’ and so I would do nails for the magazine but it was always just as a hobby.

AR: So which of these things was fueling your creativity? Were you feeling more inspired to “create” in your apparel designs or in doing nail art?
RS: Definitely at the clothing company. It was great. I  was making such good money there. I was creative.  I was never dreading showing up for work. It was always art - related. Even in publishing, it was all typography and fonts, and then when I moved over to apparel it was more creative drawing, illustrations, stitching. That was fun. And outside of that I was just hanging out with these downtown kids, doing nails, having fun. It was just a fulfilling life that I was living. Both of those communities were very fulfilling.

One day, my friend Alicia - who is still a manicurist today - needed an assistant on a shoot. So one day I went in for her. And it was super easy. It was a fashion campaign that was being shot by one of the most renowned fashion photographers.

AR: Oh my GOSH. Wow.
RS: Yeah. So I go in and am doing the nails or whatever, and I meet this super talented makeup artist who was working with that photographer a lot back then.  It was just a typical set day, you know? And the makeup artist was talking about how he needs to find an assistant because his first assistant was going to leave soon, and I was like, ‘I’ll be your first assistant!’ and he asked me if I did makeup and I said, ‘well, not really, but I mean, I know how to do makeup.’ And he was all, ‘well yeah sure, if you want to.’  

AR: I can’t believe that.
RS: It was like a freak-of-nature thing. Everything after that just sort of lined up basically.

AR: Did you quit working in apparel right away once that happened?
RS: No I don’t think I was with them anymore at that point. I was just freelancing for other apparel brands, looking for another full-time gig, and I landed this spot working for this major retailer making like 120k a year, but still, it wasn't "cool". The work was so easy. Everything was made for mass market. I wasn’t really designing, I mean I was, but not to the same extent that I was doing in apparel. It was fine. It was great. I loved the people I worked with there actually. But in my head, I thought that my career was sort of going downhill. I started at this prestigous publishing house and now I was at a mass retailer.   Apparel was cute. But you know when you meet people and they ask, ‘oh what do you do for work?’ and I would say, I work in graphic design for mass retail? That’s not cute.

It was bumming me out, you know? Even though I was making a great salary and the people I was working with were such amazing people. Also, before I met that big-time makeup artist on set, I ended up randomly taking this makeup course at MUD Makeup. It was a night course I took for two or three weeks. Just a basic makeup class.

AR: What was your intention in taking the course? Why makeup?
RS: There was this financial guru named Susie Orman, do you remember that show? She had this program called something like, “Can You Afford It Or Not” and I called in to her show and said, ‘This is how much I have in my bank. I want to change careers. I want to take this course that’s like $4,000 for three weeks. Should I do it Susie?!’ And after reviewing my finances, she was like “You can do it! You’re approved!”

So I took this night course because I think while I was doing nails, I considered transitioning into makeup. I mean I was good at nails already so I didn’t want to go to a Nail Tech school, but I wanted to do something more artsy and painterly so I thought about makeup like painting faces, you know? Nails were painting too, but it was just so small. So I did this course and I learned the foundations of how to do makeup.

I also somehow had met this girl who was working on commercial fashion shoots that I would assist sometimes. By time I got the job for that retailer, this girl would call me up to assist her on shoots and I started calling out of work sick to do those jobs. She called me up one time and said “We’re going to Russia for five days for a shoot” and I was like “okay, I’m coming!” Eventually I knew I had to find a way to transition out of my job and that I couldn’t keep calling out sick like that. I think in the midst of all of that was when I met everyone on the big campaign shoot. And there was a transition period too for his first assistant to leave his role, so it didn’t all happen right away.

Then, the company I was working for decided to close their design offices in New York. At that point I had only worked there for nine months or something, but when they closed they gave out a severance package to everyone and the amount was insane. I think I ended up walking out of there with like $60,000 or something?

So I knew then that it was my time. I had money in my bank. I would use that time to assist as much as I can instead of going out and finding another job. I would assist full-time and move on from graphic design.

AR: Did you notice the parallels right away? Between all those experiences you had before and this new medium of doing makeup? Were you able to apply any of the same skill sets?
RS: Yeah, I mean, I was still painting. Picking different colors for different tones of skin. You can’t use the same colors on just anyone. You have to understand the undertones and how that dictates what you use. If there’s blue in the undereye then you have to conceal it with blue’s opposite color. There was a lot of corrective painting and color theory happening, and that was very fun to work with.

AR: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced jumping into a brand new job as a makeup artist?
RS:  Well, the whole thing was an assisting gig. And I knew the etiquette already a bit. But moving from commercial fashion to high fashion… all those really big people in the industry… seeing the way things shifted was sort of a weird challenge? Also, I was assisting. I wasn’t doing makeup. I was carrying bags and laying the makeup out. And I was having to do all of this at the age of thirty-one. That was really hard. But I knew I wanted to do it. It was a weird transition. There were so many cool people around, but nobody was friendly. Some people won’t even look at you when you’re an assistant.

That was a shitty transition, experiencing lack of humanity or whatever. But then my boss was super cool. That made up for it.

AR: I totally understand all of that. What do you think has been one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from freelancing?
RS: Ummm…. Well, because I had a full-time job for ten years before I made my transition into freelancing, the security was gone. My 401k, my health benefits, my guaranteed paychecks every two weeks was gone. That was scary. Although it was also exciting because I wasn’t stuck in front of the computer.

AR: Did you know how to set yourself up for those financial securities going into freelancing?
RS: Well, I had my severance pay.

AR: Do you think you would recommend that people save up a certain amount of money for those things before they try to freelance?
RS: I mean, if you’re young, I say just go for it. You’re not going to know the difference really. But I was accustomed to a certain type of lifestyle at that point. I was accustomed to having savings and putting money away into my future every year.

I’ve been doing makeup for nine or ten years now, and you know, everybody’s past is different, but I’m finally at a point now where I feel more comfortable with my money again. It took me a while, you know?

AR: Yeah. I do.
RS: Sometimes I was only working for a $100 day rate, or $250, $300. That’s the max amount you make when you’re an assistant. The transition of going from assisting to being on my own was a whole different transition I had to go through. That was really, really hard.

People have to just do things. You can’t be scared of doing something. For people who are a little more reserved or worried about their future monetary wise, I don’t know if this is such a financially savvy thing to do?

AR: Yeah, it’s a risk. What advice would you give to someone who wants to enter into the beauty industry?
RS: Well, now it’s a completely different ballgame, isn’t it? With instagram and all that other jazz. There are so many different ways that you can make money in the beauty industry. I think our fields are a really small part of what the beauty industry has to offer. You can always get a corporate job that will give you a salary and whatnot. You can start doing things on YouTube and gain a following on your way to being a makeup artist. Then there’s people like us. Even then, there are the people who work more in high-fashion or commercial or television… there’s a lot of different routes.

AR: How do you feel about social media’s role on our industry right now?
RS: It’s interesting. I personally missed that moment in a way because I’m a little bit older.  But if I was a teenager in today’s day and age, I would probably be sitting there making videos and content on how to do nails or whatever. But I think I missed that whole era. I meet people who are even just a little bit younger than I am and have blown themselves up on Instagram. Good for them. I don’t personally have the guts to sit there and put my selfies up. It makes me feel weird. I’m not that person. I don’t want to be in front of a camera. But good for them.

My advice is just do it. Have no shame in the game. Do it and see where it takes you. If you keep doing it, you’re going to get somewhere in your craft. If you’ve gone on with something for like, ten years let’s say, and no one’s recognizing what you’re doing, then maybe it’s time to do something different or you’re clearly not doing well. Even with me, I’m a certain type of makeup artist and I can only hope that people are going to be into what it is that I’m doing.  

AR: What is something that you consider yourself better at than other people? Where did it come from and how did you learn it?
RS: I am really good with clean, natural makeup. I personally think I’m very light handed. I don’t like heavily caked-on makeup, so I just don’t do it. I know I could be, I should be, more adventurous with makeup, but that’s not my aesthetic.

AR: Is that a reflection of your preference or what you learned...?
RS: Yeah, with every artist I assisted I took a little bit from all of them. Some artists really like good lashes, other artists are fine just doing mascara, or some will focus more on filling the brows in, or defining them to that person’s individual shape… everyone has their thing. I picked up all the things that I thought would be good for my own craft and my own aesthetic. I have a ‘less is more’ mentality. I’m not gutsy enough to paint someone’s face green at a test shoot, you know? Some people are good at that, but that’s not me. I can’t even compare myself to those people. We’re just in different categories of our art. I like doing cool, clean makeup. That’s why I’m better off doing the commercial work, I think.

AR: Yeah, you know your niche. Do you think you’ll ever try some other craft professionally in your lifetime, aside from makeup?
RS: Well, they do say that people change careers three times in life.

AR: Really? I’ve never heard that.
RS: Yeah, yeah. In their adult life. Three times. I don’t know. I think when I get older, I might get into interior design or decorating?

AR: Ooo. Do you think that there’s a change of lifestyle that comes along with something like that?
RS: I think it’s a change of lifestyle that comes as a result of that change. You know, as I get older, I want to move somewhere a little more remote than the city. My next goal is to save up money so I can afford a mortgage on an upstate home. And I would love to renovate and design that home. Maybe it won’t be a profession, but a hobby that I get to do. Another creative outlet. I’d love to keep doing makeup as long as I can, but I feel like our industry kind of has an age limit.

AR: What do you think that age is?
RS: I don’t know. But I know they don’t want a seventy year old lady doing a seventeen year old’s makeup. My dad is a bar/restaurant owner in Japan and he’s had it for years, and he can keep doing it. You can’t do that with something like makeup.

AR: Yeah. It does seem like a bit of a transitive thing. You are sort of in the prime of your job when you’re at a particular prime of your age.
RS: Yeah. That’s why people make their own product lines and things like that. They know it’s not going to last forever. But I have no interest in something like that.

AR: No other facet of beauty?
RS: I don’t think so.

AR: You’re from Japan? Would you ever go back there?
RS: Umm, yeah, maybe. I’m from Tokyo. It’s sort of like New York on steroids.

AR: That sounds really scary, haha.
RS: It’s intense. I already get social anxiety and stressed out around crowds of people, so like, Japan just wasn’t a fit for me. But I do love the culture. I would love to move there one day. I don’t know if that will ever happen though. Culturally, it’s so much richer there. The love for culture, flavor, aesthetic.. it just runs deeper.

AR: What advice would you give yourself 10 years ago?
RS: Ten years ago? Stop using your credit card! Haha, stop buying unnecessary stuff! You know how it is. We don’t get paid every two weeks. We have to be smart about our money in this business. Sometimes you don’t get paid for five months. So, be smarter with your money, but don’t be afraid to go after what your heart desires.

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xo