While most of my ongoing clients are based in the United States, living here in the Baku area has still been able to lead to different projects and opportunities. Here’s a list of projects I’ve been able to have connected to my experience living here in Azerbaijan:
1. Featured Artist in NARGIS Magazine
NARGIS is a trilingual fashion and lifestyle magazine based in Baku. I was contacted about creating 6 pages of art. Each composition was based off a different fashion design who spanned different cultures, part of the month’s theme of “immigrant”.
2. Interview with “La Ruta de Baku”
Bilingual radio show and podcast (Spanish and English) based in Warsaw, sharing stories to connect Azerbaijan and Latin America. They asked me to speak about my experience as a remote designer, being resident of Azerbaijan, and my involvement with the Baku chapter of Ladies Wine & Design.
3. Ladies Wine & Design, Baku chapter
Ladies Wine & Design is a global community started by designer Jessica Walsh to encourage diversifying the creative industry after seeing how few women designers were in positions of leadership. This has expanded into a general space open to anyone who feels they’d benefit from the space. While living in Rome I actually learned about this organization and wished to attend, however I was not confident enough in my Italian to figure things out. However here in Azerbaijan, many people are fluent in English and Baku did not yet have a chapter. (There are about 285 chapters worldwide currently). I made a call out asking for designers who might be interested.
To keep things inclusive we try to post bilingually in English and Azerbaijani, as some Azerbaijanis might not know English, however also some Azerbaijanis might not know Azerbaijani! (Some schools and communities are Russian/English based). Either way, either group benefits from seeing content in both languages to better learn. The Baku chapter is run my Khadija Izabakarova, Parvana Isgandarova, and myself. As I write this we are in the beginning stage, building up a presence on Instagram through educational content that aims to provide a platform for Azerbaijani designers and artists to be seen and inspired.
4. Post-war charity collection social graphics
Donations were being collected in Baku for families who were displaced during the 44-day war in October 2020. This was for the organization Biz Birlikde. I created some custom graphics they could use on Instagram and Facebook in English for collecting supplies and funds.
5. The Caspian Post Branding
Through living in Azerbaijan I was connected with people associated with the The Caspian Post and ended up developing their branding for them. This included some consulting for web and social styling in collaboration with others. See more images here.
