Adam Pavloff and Your Co-branded Fitness Experience
A glimpse into the thought processes of a key designer responsible for enhancing our fitness content visually.
Hi there! Introduce yourself and let’s hear a bit on how you got your start in design.
Hi, I’m Adam Pavloff. I am a senior designer on the design team at Equinox Media.
So I first learned the Adobe suite back in high school. I always enjoyed visual arts as a hobby. My first experience was in an entry-level role as a graphic designer for a local sporting goods distributor. We designed uniforms and apparel for local high school and middle school sports teams.
It was there I realized, “Hey, there’s something here in this whole graphic design thing.” So I went to school for it and started studying design. Through other internships I fell in love with different mediums — like motion and UX and product design. I naturally took to more of the digital stuff, kept learning, and now made a career out of it.
Sounds like you’re living the dream! I noticed you freelanced for a bit, tell me about that experience.
It’s cool. I was fortunate to have really excellent projects come my way that I fully owned. You know, there’s no safety net of a larger team supporting you. So you get a lot of accountability, a lot of variety. It’s like equal parts design and starting a self-business.
Somehow we were able to pull you out of freelancing to Equinox Media… what attracted you here?
Yeah, I was freelancing as you said, a year ago when I got a message from the recruiting department. There were some people here I had worked with at an agency prior. They gave my name as a reference and was asked to come in. Everyone I knew that worked here was respected and talented so of course, I came in for the interview.
I knew the Equinox brand, but at that point, there wasn’t a lot of reading you could do about Equinox Media or Equinox+. So I didn’t know what I was getting into. But when I came in and saw the offering, saw the production quality taking place in the studios, and got a sense of what was happening — I fell in love pretty immediately and couldn’t sign the papers soon enough.
I’ve also always been interested in fitness and working out, so it was a no-brainer, really.
Wow, and now that you’re here, what’s one of your favorite aspects of the role?
I’ve always enjoyed startup culture — the sense of ownership and accountability that comes with it. And working such a talented group is an obvious benefit.
One thing that’s unique is working with all the different brand partners on the platform, giving you the variety you’d get at an agency or from freelancing. There are a ton of different graphic and product challenges we face every week. So things never have the chance of feeling stale.
What is your role in working with different brand partners?
Well, one thing we try to do is make the digital class experience as close to the in-real-life experience as possible. The content team does a great job of creating unique sets so it feels like being transported to one of their studios.
One of my responsibilities is to enhance the classes with branded graphics that both help bring out a brand’s personality and aid in mimicking the in-person experience digitally.
A good example of this is Rumble content. In a studio, they have LED banners showing specific moves sequences to guide attendees. At Media we use the same concept, adding punching bag graphics on the screen to plug the gaps for digital users.
Most of our partners already have an established aesthetic and we work very closely with each one to make sure we capture their personality graphically.
For example, TB12 has a clean, sporty look and their classes typically have smooth, steady pacing. So we took care to design complementary graphics that animate smoothly and steadily.
Rumble content, on the other hand, is energetic and explosive — we use a lot of glitches, flashes, and zany graphics.
We’ve done similar exercises for Precision Run and others.
I’m definitely going to pay way more attention to the feel of these graphics now! Are there brands you’ve worked with that don’t have such an established aesthetic?
Of course, sometimes we do have to build out more foundational pieces of their visual identity. Headstrong has been a cool project that’s a great example of this. We needed to create a system to represent their content at a thumbnail level, which involved building a color palette and even conducting a photoshoot.
We worked with them to produce images with a different style for the different subcategories of their meditations.
Seems like a lot to keep track of for each brand… would you consider yourself an organized person? How do you manage your to-do’s throughout the day?
I think I’m pretty organized (laughs). The way I stay organized as I work — discussing new projects, new scopes of work, or when timelines for existing ones change — is first to slack myself notes in my own personal channel.
Before the day starts I bring up those messages, organize them, and put together a weekly or daily to-do list. That keeps me on task and organized throughout the day.
I do the slack thing as well. Every single time I’m terrified of putting a really personal thought in the “general” channel by accident (laughs).
I have the exact same anxiety.
When not working, what do you most likely to be doing?
In a normal year, I am usually playing some recreational sport. I’m doing softball leagues, volleyball leagues, bowling leagues — those are the three that I’m most interested in.
I also like to go to museums and shows, Broadway and off-Broadway. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen so much, so I did a lot of running. I did a lot of cycling. I played a lot of tennis by myself against the cement wall.
Any activity to stay active and break outside of the four walls has been my escape for 2020.
I think that’s smart given the sedentary, desk-laden lifestyles we otherwise live.
Alright finally, a book, music, TV or movie recommendation?
This is tough because I consumed so much media in 2020. I want to recommend Ted Lasso. It’s a low-commitment, feel-good program that’s also quality content.
I think there are two seasons on Apple TV now. It’s lighthearted. But also about meeting challenges with positivity and succeeding with that mindset.
