Alumni

Jenna Nase Hired as Footwear Designer on the East Coast

Jenna Nase graduated from FIDM with degrees Footwear Design & Development and Merchandise Product Development. Originally from the East Coast, she jumped at the chance to move back when New Jersey based LJO, Inc. offered her a job four months ago as a Junior Footwear Designer working with clients including Skechers, Meijer, and Everlast. In just a few months, she’ll be traveling to China on a factory visit. We caught up with her to find out more about this talented designer.

What are your responsibilities? I sketch, CAD, color my materials, and pick out my own materials from our materials library, and do trend research as well as my own tech pacs and spec sheets. Most other companies have their own product development team that handles only tech packs or only CADS. Here we do it all. Also, not only did I complete the Footwear Design program at FIDM, but did the Merchandise Product Development program as well, which helps a lot here having that under my belt!

Tell us about the company: At LJO, we design, develop, and source for other brands. We are a team of seven designers, and we all do the same jobs, no matter the length of time that you have or haven’t been in the industry, which is cool. We work closely with and design for brands such as Skechers, Wolverine, Shaquille O’Neal, Rawlings, Lotto, Meijer, Haband, Academy, Everlast, Shoe Sensation, Tony Little (sold on HSN & QVC), Sears, Kmart, Shoe Show, Shoe Department, Walmart, SDI, Slazenger—just to name a few.

How did you find out about the job opportunity at LJO? I was looking on LinkedIn, Indeed, Zip Recruiter, the FIDM Career Center, working with my teachers etc., and I was applying to honestly, everything and anything! I think I found LJO on Linkedin and they reached out to me a couple of days after I applied.

What happened next? I was still out in LA at the time and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity, so I quickly packed up my apartment, made the decision to leave LA again, and prayed the interview would go well. BOOM, I’ve been here for four months! It’s great I’ve learned so much, it’s unbelievable!

What’s coming up for you? I will be going to China in a couple of months to oversee the factories we have and to check out my samples I have made. Over the last four months I have gotten three styles bought by Tony Little (QVC & HSN), ten from SDI, six from Meijer (expect those to pop up in Midwest stores next spring), a bunch bought by UK companies, and a handful picked up by Skechers!! We are actually on a deadline right now for Skechers and we are finishing up our last color stories and specs to send to China for our China meeting in August with the Skechers team.