Introduction to Makenzie Jamias
Hey everyone and welcome to today’s show where we have Makenzie Jamias. Makenzie is a marketing wizard with a love for helping businesses grow through innovation and brand creative strategies.
As Design Director at Evolved Commerce, an Amazon e-commerce agency, she has tons of experience and knowledge to share. And that’s not all—Makenzie also teaches content marketing to students at Utah Valley University.
She has experience in photography, social media and even event planning.
When not working Makenzie can be found with her family, swimming, reading the latest novel and eating at local restaurants.
Table of Contents
- Who is Makenzie Jamias?
- Current Projects that Excite Makenzie
- Tactical and Strategic Design Advice from Makenzie
- Where Does Makenzie See the Future of Design Going?
- How to Get in Contact with Makenzie
- Additional Insights from Makenzie’s Journey
- Makenzie’s Recommended Resources
- Advice to Her Younger Self
- Books, Podcasts, Leaders
- Conclusion
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Who is Makenzie Jamias?
An Unconventional Upbringing
Makenzie’s journey to becoming a design and marketing expert began with an unconventional upbringing. Born in California, she grew up in a family of six, with three siblings. What set her childhood apart was the frequent moves her family made due to her father’s career in finance.
“We moved about every three years,” Makenzie recalls. This constant change shaped her ability to adapt to different situations, a skill that would prove invaluable in her future career.
A Creative in a Numbers Family
Coming from a family where both parents were sports enthusiasts and her father was deeply immersed in the world of numbers and spreadsheets, Makenzie stood out as the creative one. Her parents, while supportive, were initially unsure how to nurture her creative inclinations.
“They honestly did not know what to do with me,” Makenzie shares. “I think they saw different things that I did creatively and they genuinely didn’t know what to do to help me thrive in that.”
Discovering Graphic Design
Makenzie’s introduction to graphic design came during her high school years, thanks to a fortuitous encounter with a graphic designer named Melanie Bur. While Makenzie’s parents were away on a trip, Melanie, who had recently graduated college, came to watch over Makenzie and her siblings.
This experience opened Makenzie’s eyes to the world of graphic design:
“I had never even seen like a Mac computer. I wasn’t around them. I had never seen anything with the Adobe Suite before that. And I remember just sitting there and watching her do packaging design… I just was watching her work and I thought it was so, so cool.”
Melanie’s influence went beyond just showing Makenzie her work. She took the young Makenzie on a tour of the art department at BYU University in Provo, introducing her to the concept of graphic design as a career. This experience was pivotal for Makenzie, setting her on the path to becoming a graphic designer herself.
Educational Journey
Makenzie’s path to becoming a design expert wasn’t straightforward. Initially planning to pursue volleyball in college, an injury during her senior year of high school changed her trajectory. She applied to BYU at the last minute and was accepted into their pre-graphic design program.
However, her journey in college took an unexpected turn:
“I got rejected from the graphic design program. And at BYU they only let you apply twice and then if you apply a second time and you get rejected, they don’t let you apply again.”
This setback led Makenzie to pivot her strategy. She majored in Experience Design Management, which was part of the business school, and declared an art minor. This combination allowed her to take business core classes while still pursuing her passion for design.
Makenzie’s determination and resourcefulness shone through as she found ways to take graphic design courses despite not being a design major:
“I would show up to these classes the first week of school and I would tell the professors like I’m an art minor. I really wanna take your class. And all of them gave me ad codes.”
Through this innovative approach, Makenzie managed to take almost every graphic design course required for graduation, despite it not being her official major.
Current Projects that Excite Makenzie
Design Director at Evolved Commerce
Currently, Makenzie works as the Design Director at Evolved Commerce, an agency specializing in Amazon e-commerce marketing. This role allows her to combine her passion for design with her knowledge of marketing, particularly in the e-commerce space.
Teaching at Utah Valley University
In addition to her work at Evolved Commerce, Makenzie is also a content marketing instructor at Utah Valley University. This role allows her to share her expertise with students and stay connected to the academic world of marketing and design.
Tactical and Strategic Design Advice from Makenzie
Understanding Your Audience
One of the key pieces of advice Makenzie offers is the importance of understanding your audience. This applies to both design and marketing strategies:
“If you don’t understand who’s purchasing your product, it’s really hard to go from there. Especially even just starting on social media. Each platform has very specific demographics.”
Makenzie recommends using resources like Social Media Today, which provides yearly reports on the demographics of each social media platform. This information can help businesses choose the right platforms to reach their target audience.
Designing for Amazon
When it comes to designing for Amazon, Makenzie offers several key tips:
- Get Brand Registry: “The first thing you wanna do with a new Amazon account is get brand registry.” This unlocks additional content features and helps legitimize your brand in Amazon’s eyes.
- Understand Amazon’s Guidelines: “Amazon has a lot of restrictions on their content in terms of the size of the graphics. And there’s specific words like Eco-friendly that you’re just not allowed to use.” Familiarize yourself with these guidelines before creating content.
- Create Amazon-Specific Content: “You really can’t reuse other types of content like from your website or your Instagram on Amazon. You really have to start from scratch and create sizes specifically for Amazon.”
- Focus on Answering Customer Questions: “If you’re trying to get a customer to buy your product, it has to answer all their pain points. When you think of the customer journey, they have to understand, they have to see themselves in your product, and then that’s when they make a purchase.”
Social Media Strategy
For social media strategy, Makenzie emphasizes the importance of analyzing your own data:
“Everyone hates this answer, but genuinely you want to follow your analytics. You can look up any social media guru and follow exactly what they say down to the time to post, how often to post, and you could do that and not have success if that is not how your audience is engaging with your brand.”
She recommends:
- Trying different types of content (reels, stories, posts, carousel posts) to see what resonates with your audience
- Reevaluating your strategy on a monthly basis
- Being true to your brand and consistent with your brand guidelines
Where Does Makenzie See the Future of Design Going?
Makenzie is excited about the impact of AI on design:
“I think I was talking with a bunch of other professionals a couple weeks ago when we were talking about the impact of AI on design right now, and it’s been great. The Adobe Creative Suite, even Canva, even just any type of tool like Figma, they’re all implementing AI technologies that save us time.”
She sees AI as a tool to help with less meaningful tasks, allowing designers to focus on creating better designs. However, she also notes that while AI is great for generating ideas and visuals, the quality isn’t quite there yet for final deliverables.
Makenzie is particularly interested in the potential of AI in generating custom stock images, especially for e-commerce:
“Especially like in the Amazon space, being able to get a custom stock image of the background of what you need and then to be able to like, put your product in it, and you didn’t have to hire a photographer, you just needed to have custom stock. That would be pretty amazing.”
While she’s excited about these developments, Makenzie also acknowledges that it’s hard to predict exactly how AI will change the design industry in the long term.
How to Get in Contact with Makenzie
While the podcast transcript doesn’t provide direct contact information for Makenzie, interested listeners can likely reach out to her through her work at Evolved Commerce or Utah Valley University. Additionally, given her background in social media, she may have professional profiles on platforms like LinkedIn where she can be contacted.
Additional Insights from Makenzie’s Journey
The Importance of Networking
One piece of advice Makenzie would give to her younger self is to stay more connected with people she’s met throughout her life:
“I really wish I had stayed connected to people more. I think especially because I moved, I didn’t have that traditional hometown, and so I feel like I met a lot of people in a lot of different places we lived that I lost connection to.”
She emphasizes the importance of networking in today’s professional world, noting that “who you know is so important.”
Balancing Career and Family
Makenzie’s journey also highlights the changing expectations for women in the workforce. Coming from a family where her mother was a stay-at-home mom, Makenzie initially faced different expectations:
“The culture in my family, like how I grew up, there was really no expectation for me to continue to have a career being a woman.”
However, Makenzie’s determination to pursue a career has changed her family’s viewpoint:
“I think they’ve seen me thrive and they can see a different way of what they thought I would do later on in life.”
The Value of a Diverse Background
Makenzie’s diverse experiences – from graphic design to event planning to social media marketing – have all contributed to her success in her current role. This underscores the value of a varied skill set in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Adapting to Change
Throughout her career, Makenzie has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to change. From her frequent moves as a child to pivoting her college major to transitioning between different roles in her professional life, this adaptability has been a key factor in her success.
The Intersection of Design and Marketing
Makenzie’s career path highlights the growing intersection between design and marketing, particularly in the digital space. Her ability to bridge these two fields has been crucial to her success, especially in her current role focusing on Amazon e-commerce.
“There’s so much more to design than just pretty design,” Makenzie notes. “There’s a lot of marketing that goes into it, and a lot of thought process and decisions to be made with graphics that have to do with marketing and the user and putting your customer first.”
The Challenges and Rewards of Entrepreneurship
Makenzie’s experience running her own business with her husband provides valuable insights into the challenges of entrepreneurship:
“The more we grew, the more we did not like it anymore… There’s that breaking point where you’re putting in way more effort, you’re taking way more of your time. Everything is harder and you’re not getting paid more.”
This experience ultimately led them to close their business, but it provided valuable lessons and led Makenzie to her current role.
The Importance of Continuous Learning
Throughout her career, Makenzie has consistently sought out new learning opportunities. From teaching herself photography to participating in the Tech Moms program, this commitment to continuous learning has been a key factor in her professional growth.
Balancing Creativity and Business Acumen
Makenzie’s journey underscores the importance of balancing creative skills with business acumen. Her decision to major in Experience Design Management while minoring in art allowed her to develop both sets of skills, which has proven invaluable in her career.
Makenzie’s Recommended Resources
For those looking to further their knowledge in design and marketing, Makenzie recommends:
- The Nielsen Norman Group podcast: This podcast covers a wide range of topics related to design, user experience, and UX research.
- “Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown: Makenzie found this book “amazing” and recommends it for personal and professional development.
- “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown: While Makenzie had just started this book at the time of the podcast, she was excited about its potential insights.
Advice to Her Younger Self
What advice would she give to her younger self? “I wish I had stayed more connected. I think especially because I moved so much, I didn’t have that traditional hometown, and so I met a lot of people in a lot of different places we lived and lost connection to.”
She explained:
“Some of that was because we didn’t have social media growing up and the internet, but not being the same place that it is now. But even just people from college, I really wish I had stayed connected to them more. Actually, I remembered people’s names because networking is such a big deal now who you know is so important.”
This advice is all about building your professional network throughout your career.
Books, Podcasts, Leaders
When it comes to sources of inspiration and learning Makenzie shared:
- The Nielsen Norman Group podcast: Makenzie recommends this podcast saying “They have a great UX one that talks about a lot of different things within design and users and UX research and I find it really, really fascinating.”
- Brené Brown’s books: Makenzie is a fan of Brené Brown. She mentioned:
- “Daring Greatly”: Makenzie said this book is “amazing”
- “Dare to Lead”: At the time of the podcast Makenzie had just started this book and was looking forward to getting into it.
- Audiobooks: Makenzie said she listens to business books on audio, this is how she does ongoing learning and inspiration.
These resources show Makenzie’s commitment to ongoing learning in her specific design and UX field as well as broader personal and professional development. Her choices of resources are a balance of technical knowledge (Nielsen Norman Group podcast) and leadership/personal growth (Brené Brown’s books) which fits with her multi-faceted career in design, marketing and teaching.
Conclusion
Makenzie Jamias’s journey from a creative kid in a numbers family to design director and marketing instructor is proof that passion, adaptability and continuous learning can take you anywhere. Her experiences are helpful for anyone looking to bridge the gap between design and marketing especially in the ever changing digital world.
From her Amazon design and social media strategy tips to her thoughts on AI in design Makenzie has a ton of knowledge for both new and experienced professionals in the field. Her story is an inspiration for those looking to create their own path in the creative industries and proof that with hard work and innovation you can build a career that matches your passions and skills.
As the design and marketing world continues to change professionals like Makenzie Jamias will be at the forefront of it all. By staying true to their creative selves while embracing new tech and business strategies they’ll continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in design and marketing.
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