Carlisle took the shoe craft very seriously and ended up with an elaborate design, which she posted a picture of on Facebook. She received many likes, and just like that, a business was born.
After her shoes generated a positive response, Carlisle said, she started her own business out of her dorm room during her freshman year of college at IU.
Six months and more than 600 Facebook likes later, Carlisle had profited about $3,000 from her shoe business, Kicks By Blair, before deciding to take a break.
“Even though I decided to not keep doing the business, it was the motivation that I needed,” Carlisle said. “Everyone believed in my ability and reassured me that art was the place I needed to be, and that I could still be a little entrepreneur.”
This wasn’t her only business and art venture. Carlisle, who will graduate with a graphic design major in the spring, said she continues to mix her creative talents with her business mindset.
Carlisle said she struggled internally about the choice between art and business for quite some time before realizing her potential to combine both talents.
She began her career at IU in the Kelley Living Learning Center and with the Women In Business Club, but decided to put business aside and pursue her artistic passions with a major in graphic design.
She wanted to help businesses market themselves through graphic design, she said, and that is why she continued her involvement with Women In Business as the marketing director.
Her marketing experience grew as she interned with Girl Scouts of America in Chicago and worked on campus with IU Student Foundation.
“It was a great match of the creative juice in me to help businesses,” Carlisle said.
She always focuses on getting a message across before she focuses on how the design looks, she said.
“If you don’t have a clear message, then the design means nothing,” Carlisle said.
This past summer, Carlisle discovered a new passion in creative writing through her advertising internship as a copywriter for Geometry Global in Chicago, the career she now wants to pursue.
“I think very visually,” Carlisle said.
She said she will use her design abilities to see how her copy will fit into the advertising and branding of a company.
In addition to her talent of combinining art with business, Carlisle said she does art just for enjoyment.
Her favorite thing to draw is the human body, she said.
“It’s interesting to me because not one body is the same, and it’s constantly changing,” Carlisle said. “I think doing that has helped me see my art as ever evolving and ever changing.”
Art has become a reflection of how Carlisle sees things in the world, she said, and a reflection of her development as a person.
She added that her art also reflects her unique perspective and how she can think about promoting a brand outside of the design.
“Although I think and draw realistically, I want to show people what I see,” Carlisle said. “I think it’s a really cool way to look at something through someone else’s eyes.”
