Ideas, art and tech: Emmett Shine of Gin Lane Media
Emmett Shine is the founder and president of Gin Lane Media. I asked him a whole lot of questions about creating innovative media content and the best conditions for generating ideas.
Emmett grew up in South Hampton, Long Island, with an artist mum who encouraged him to be creative. He began studying photography at NYU in 2002 just as the ‘whole industry transformed’ and ‘digital cameras started outselling traditional cameras’.
Emmett was struggling to pay his way through college and realized he could use these new digital platforms to make money. ‘I was doing photography, design work, interning, I had my own T-shirt skateboarding line, just entrepreneurially doing whatever I could do’.
After college Emmett was doing a lot of freelance graphic design, photo shoots and websites, but he was struggling to get paid. He invented a company named Gin Lane, after the richest street in the Hamptons, and added media at the end because it ‘sounded legit’.
After that people took him more seriously and paid on time, ‘so I kept the guise going’.
Emmett ‘got introduced to a lot of artists and photographers that had needs for web presences. We would work with a lot of people who were talented but may not know how to run a website. We'd build simple systems.'
Jobs with Adidas and Stella McCartney followed.
The company has now evolved into 'helping product-centric start up brands that want to disrupt pre-set verticals or industries’.
‘I less like working with traditional fashion houses,' Emmett says. 'They'll want us to come in, make something cool and innovative, but they have all these legacies and systems and they're like closed box solutions.’
‘I'd rather work with the Bonobos Group or Warby Parker or some of the Venture Capitals in New York that have incredible start ups in their portfolio that are trying to do the most innovative and progressive, best experience work.’
‘A lot of times we're working with early to mid-stage brands. They've built a product, they have it vetted, they've got some funding or capital, and they'll come to us.’
Currently Gin Lane has 22 full time employees, a large proportion of which are engineers and designers. As well as their Manhattan office, they have a studio in Brooklyn where they shoot web content to be interactive.
The company has a design aesthetic which Emmett describes as, ‘minimal, clean and simple’. He says with this style, ‘it can last a lot longer and be more approachable and useable’ than an interface that’s overly complex or technology-driven.
Transitioning from founder to leader of the company has meant an evolution of sorts for Emmett.
He believes the number one thing employees value is the culture and the people they work with, and says they always ‘try to take in projects where we think we can learn a lot’.
'The best businesses and technologies come from the people who can collaborate the best'.
'You have to have confidence to persevere into the unknown. You have to be extremely thoughtful and agile on your feet, because it's going to change many times'.
'I really like focusing on the innovation and the creative parts of the work'.
