Working Theories with Jasmine Gallagher

Tell us who you are.

Hello! My name is Jasmine and i’m the co-founder of After Hours, a branding and design studio I run with my partner Shy out of NYC. We work mostly with founders and culture-led brands across fashion, lifestyle, and health/wellness.

I’ve coined myself Head of Everything because its been 6+ years at the studio and I still don’t have a defined role. One day I might be working on a brand strategy, the next I’m building out an art direction doc, another day I’m designing a website. Or if I’m feeling really wild, I’m firing up the studio Substack. I get bored easily, so constantly context-switching suits me ;)

What’s getting me out of bed in the morning? Well the shiny answer is that I love what we do and who we do it with. We’ve managed to build a job where we have so much fun every day so getting out of bed isn’t hard. The real answer? Client feedback …. my people pleasing tendencies mean i’m anxious to resolve my inbox. We have a global client base which means that we’re receiving emails 24/7 so there’s always something spicy to wake up to. Funnily enough, my inbox is yet to be resolved.

What’s a working theory you hold right now about the industry, culture, or creativity?

My working theory is that the faster you rise, the quicker you fall… whether you are a brand, a creator/influencer or even a studio. Now more than ever we’re fed this narrative that it’s all about speed, about going big quickly, but speed is the strategy for getting noticed, not for being remembered. The ones who get catapulted up too fast usually can’t hold it and eventually disappear. My thinking here is that when you rise on a trend, you’re borrowing an identity from the moment instead of building your own. You skip the slow part, building the good product, the actual sense of who you are and what you stand for. So when the trend passes, there’s nothing underneath to hold you up.

I’m a much bigger advocate for steady yet strong growth, the kind that lets you move with the market while staying true to yourself. Viral moments are absolutely icing on the cake, but you’d better hope the cake batter is strong !! (sorry I’m not known for my analogies). Attention is cheap now, but identity still takes years to build, and it’s the thing that compounds. From my pov, the brands/creators who grew steadily, with the viral spikes along the way, always outlast the ones who blew up overnight. Funnily enough, same with studios… there was a period where a bunch of studios came out of nowhere and dominated the market for a season…. and now don’t exist? Newness gets you noticed for sure, but having those foundations already worked out is what keeps you around.

What’s a belief or assumption in your field that you think is overdue for a rethink?

Two thoughts here. One on process, and then another on showing process.

On process, the way we all work with clients is going to have to change majorly. Currently in our process, there’s quite a few written points - be it onboarding questionnaires or even feedback docs. Right now, the responses we’re getting from clients are overwhelmingly written by ai which means we’re either wading through 45 paragraphs of nothing, or the answers are extremely emotionless and soulless. I think we’re going to hit the point where we need to include audio in the process - whether it be the ability to leave voice notes or it’s pushing everything to live syncs. The tonality of someone saying something will tell me more than those 45 paragraphs ever could!

On showing process, here I think we’re going to have to rethink how we present the work. It’s become too easy to assume something was made with ai. I even catch looking at a new brand on socials, or a paste-up in the street and thinking… is this even real? Are they just using an ai model!? I think we’re heading somewhere strange, where we’ll have to prove the process, the thinking and the mechanics behind it, just to prove the work is real and has impact.

What’s your favourite dumb thing you’ve seen on the internet recently?

I'm such a sucker for meme culture. I've got a whole board of them saved and no matter how many times I see them, they still get me.

What are your absolute go-to cultural resources?

People!! I’m a big believer in just going out into the world and talking to strangers. It brings new perspectives, new conversations, people who challenge how you think or completely change how you see something. Even 5 mins while waiting for a coffee, or that time before the subway comes can produce little micro-conversations with people who’d never otherwise land in my orbit.

Beyond that, I’m very into anything editorial, especially magazines like Interview, Vanity Fair, Self Service, i-D, Rolling Stone, but the 80s or 90s issues. They were this incredible mix of writing, photography, illustration, art direction and design. Back when publishing had really juicy budgets…

And then more trad answer such as Substack, BOF, NY Times, reddits, etc.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken in work—and what did it teach you?

Jump before you’re ready. I like to put us in very challenging environments/situations just to push us (whether it was starting the studio, moving countries, or even saying yes to things that perhaps were too big). I hate myself (as does Shy) during that very uncomfortable period, but it always works out. If I don't jump, I almost always regret it… blind naivety has served us surprisingly well! I like to think life isn't getting any longer, and you won’t be rewarded for your lack of action.

What’s a brand or cultural moment you keep thinking about lately?

How ai is changing language. Case in point: if you use an em dash now, people assume it’s written by ai. I saw an Instagram post that had pics of an email thread from 2015 where the sender had used an em dash, and the comments were literally just people saying, “this is fake, this is AI”. Because it had the em dash!! Nineteenth-century literature eroded by suspicion of the em dash lol. I’ve even started removing words that I used all the time in fear that people think my work is written by ai. Had to let go of “so naturally”, “genuinely”, “quietly”. RIP! What else is ai going to take from me!?

At the same time, it’s now considered better to leave in spelling mistakes and drop the grammar so your writing reads as more human. I’m a horrific editor so in some ways this suits my writing style but i do have my concerns about what this means for us as a society.

You can find Jasmine on LinkedIn and Instagram.