This excerpt is from #IdeaInsider by Summer Suleiman, Blackstone Content Correspondent
Justin Shiels is working on the next issue of GoInvade, his creative lifestyle magazine, at a bare and exposed studio space in the budding central city neighborhood of New Orleans.
Working alongside him are creative companies Bats on Tees, a line of fashion friendly and clear purses created to meet the guidelines for entry into NFL games, and Matter Inc, an industrial design and consulting studio most known for creating black and white bird shaped soaps that represent the infamous 2010 Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil spill.
Below, the sounds of hammers pounding on the walls carries through the rustic, exposed space.Zeitgeist, an independent theater that comprises the first floor of the building is in the midst of reconstructing their stage. Coffee shop goers gather nearby at Church Alley Coffee Bar a shop that feels inviting enough to make you want to reach for a throw and cozy up on the slightly tattered sofa.
A graphic designer by trade, Shiels, started the magazine in 2009, at a time when he says the city was seeing an influx of transplants eager to join in the rebuilding efforts post-K.
Shiels says there was a large group of people interested in social justice, doing creative projects and trying to grow their own small businesses, but many of them had difficulty breaking into the local media circuit.
“I foolishly decided that I was the person that could try to help build some media options around local, young professionals, specifically, creative businesses,” Shiels said.
Foolish or not, Shiels shares this sentiment with many of his millennial peers—a group that have been both lauded and criticized for a number of reasons.