profile: graeme montgomery

If fourth-year professional communication student Graeme Montgomery had to describe himself in three words he would say: driven, classic and fair.

Having joined Ryerson Art+Design Magazine (RADmag) ― a publication showcasing the creative work of Ryerson students ― in his second year, Montgomery has worked his way up from graphic designer to event director, managing director and now editor in chief. "What I really love doing is leading a team and creating something artistic or creative. I'm not the most amazing photographer. I'm not the most amazing stylist. I know there are people better than me at that but I'm really good at creating a team and making it all happen," says Montgomery.

As the current editor in chief of RADmag, Montgomery stresses that creative collaboration comes before content. "It's all about supporting the creatives within our team and within the Ryerson community," he says. Not only is he in favour of supporting Ryerson students, but also budding creatives in industries like photography, makeup, hairstyling and styling. "Even though someone might not have a hundred editorials under their belt, they're still producing amazing content that looks very professional," he says.

"It's just been really rewarding to go from the initial emails to the initial contact with a student designer and say, 'I love your collection, have you shot it yet? If you haven't shot it please let me shoot it.' all the way going to seeing it printed in our magazine and on bookshelves where you can buy it."

Montgomery is responsible for overseeing the production of issue six and seven of the bi-annual magazine. He recounts the launch party of issue six on January 26 of this year as his proudest moment at RADmag. The magazine partnered with Best Practice, a Ryerson School of Media podcast and online zine supporting female creatives in Toronto, Montreal and New York for a live panel podcast. The team's aim of expanding the RADmag brand into Toronto was welcomed by hundreds of students and creatives as they arrived at the launch venue, Free ―  a creator studio for #TheCreatorClass.

For Montgomery the entire experience has been surreal. "I think it'll be even crazier when I am able to go to our stockists and see our magazine on a shelf and have my name in it," he says.

Montgomery grew up in Portland, Oregon, a city on the West Coast of the United States where he immersed himself within the local fashion scene by volunteering at fashion events. "I love fashion, I love the art behind it, I love the creative people behind it," he says.

As early as high school, he was handling guest relations and press for FashioNXT — Portland’s fashion week, ranked by Time Magazine as the number one fashion week in the U.S. outside of New York Fashion Week. Over time he became familiar with the community of fashion insiders at shows and began handling VIP guest relations.

Having helped produce multiple events over the years, Montgomery is no stranger to a well-orchestrated event-turned-crisis. "This past RADmag event that we threw, our speakers didn't work and our DJ couldn't set up," he says. "Producing an event is a lot more work than people realize. There are so many logistics and things always go wrong. You have to rely on so many different people to get things done." Montgomery says that instead of making a big deal of a bad situation, it's important to weigh out the fastest and best solution, efficiency is key. To resolve the speaker situation at the RADmag event, the team resorted to Uber to get an extra set of speakers in.

For the past year, Montgomery has been working with marketing and events promotion company No Name Events as an event promoter for F-Stop Bar. "It's not something I want to do with my career necessarily because I think club culture isn't the most amazing, but it's been really fun as a university experience and it has a lot to do with marketing."

After an intense day on set or in school, Montgomery can always rely on "trashy reality" shows to de-stress. He says he's most likely seen every episode of The Real Housewives television series. "I'm so happy that The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is back," he says. To pamper himself, Montgomery enjoys cooking elaborate meals like risotto, kale salad, avocado toast and vegetable noodles made from his spiralizer. "I try to be healthy," he admits with a chuckle.

Although one of Montgomery's New Year's resolutions for 2017 is to eat out less, it was precisely this activity that led him to discover his passion for hospitality. "I love that in the past, any restaurant with good food would succeed. But today with the internet and social media, you have to have a very aesthetically branded company that has a good online presence," he says.

Having recently developed an interest in hospitality and restaurant branding, Montgomery looks up to establishments like Soho House, an exclusive club for people in creative industries that takes form as an A-list hotspot during the annual Toronto International Film Festival. "That is a company I would love to work for because their branding is so on point and they do such different things around the world."

With six years of graphic design experience, Montgomery has also worked on projects in branding, promotional design and web design. "I feel like I've always had a more minimal, clean approach to my design but I like playing with new colours and new layouts," he says.

Montgomery initially started working with graphic design in the tenth grade for his high school yearbook. The 360 page full colour yearbook was designed entirely using Adobe Suite and won national yearbook competitions annually. "In my grade 12 year, I was the layout editor of the yearbook, so I designed every single page and was able to come up with the concept for the yearbook which kind of was a great pre-cursor to RADmag," he says.

Though he admits he's not a seasoned pro with formal training, his knowledge of graphic design has helped him when communicating with RADmag's graphic designers and art director. "It's an asset to be able to understand design and understand design concepts like page composition, the difference between an inch and a pica," he says.

Montgomery's Instagram is both a portfolio piece and a glimpse into his aesthetic lifestyle. With an eye for composition and a knack for photography he shares food, travels and mood board-worthy shots on his Instagram feed. He says the personal growth of his style is reflected in the content he shares on social media as he aims for a classic, clean and structural look. He adds that Instagram is a community of its own, "I'm friends with people who have really contrasting aesthetics of creating. I definitely take a lot of inspiration from my friends and the content they're creating but I try to make it my own."

"I look up to different people for different reasons," says Montgomery. He speaks of his admiration of designer Tom Ford's passion for routine and consistency in life before reciting the resume of Stefano Tonchi off the top of his head. Tonchi, the current editor in chief of W Magazine has previously held titles such as editor in chief of the New York Times Style Magazine and artistic director at J.Crew, all while having a family of his own: a husband and two kids which Montgomery thinks is, "awesome". "I look up to anyone who's able to express their creativity, be successful and have an ease of life about them."

"My advice almost always: never be afraid to reach out to someone that you want to work with or someone that you want help or advice from," says Montgomery. He owes most of his career connections to taking risks and reaching out to people whether it's to shoot someone whose aesthetic he admires or going to an event just to meet its producer. "I also find that in the creative field ― especially in Toronto ― it's such a small community and it's such a young community that everyone is open to collaborate."

In ten years' time, Montgomery says that though he doesn't know exactly what city he'll be in, he plans on putting his dual-citizenship to good use. "I'm hoping to either be working at a really awesome creative content agency, marketing agency or doing internal communications for a company that I've fallen in love with."