Working Hard
or hardly working? Finding my measure of success after starting my own creative business.
Since having my second child, I haven’t been able to work in the capacity I used to work in, but does that mean I am failing?
Unaffordable childcare means that I need to work flexibly around my children. I had to quit my job at the end of last year as the cost of childcare far exceeded my salary (even with Government funding). I look after them for the most part 4 days a week, which means I am able to work one full day, in the evenings or at weekends. This hasn’t proven to be very useful for the type of work I used to do as a senior designer with branding & packaging agencies, but it has meant I have been able to initiate my own creative business.
It would be fair to say in my last job I had lost my design mojo. It could have been due to many reasons. I rarely got tasked with any juicy design work and was used for the little jobs, picking up loose ends and design tweaks, which they thought I was good at and because I needed to leave on time to pick my son up from childcare, I didn’t give much back in order for them to believe I could be much good at anything more. I was bored but fast forward to now and I have just completed my fourth solo “proper” project for a real life client and I am feeling pretty good about it.
When it came to preparing for my maternity leave with my second son, I knew I wouldn’t be able to come back to my job so I started to gather work for my portfolio - except I realised I basically didn’t have anything new to add. The time between my first and second maternity leave, which was around 14 months, was barren of anything creative. Anything I had designed, I wasn’t proud of and if I was proud of it, it hadn’t made it through the hurdles of various stages of client feedback and with the agency’s insistence on passing the work from one designer to another, and then another it had become unrecognisable as my own.
But looking back at the last few months working with my very own clients, I can say I have designed, and even better than that I can say that I am super proud of everything I have worked on. I’d say that was a success and here is why:
I have learned a lot.
It has been a real learning curve for me, having never worked client side before, but it has been much more rewarding working this way from a design perspective. I know that those in receipt of client emails would sometimes pass on positive comments, but more often than not it was the negative ones we heard and that doesn’t do wonders for your self esteem. I have had great feedback from my clients so far and I hope that continues.
I can finally show what I am capable of.
Working in big London agencies often means working as part of a large team and unless you are a real superstar designer, you rarely get to hold the reigns on the design for long. A finished project will never be your own and so it has been a real pleasure to work directly with the client to create something that I feel truly represents what I can do. I have been much more comfortable showing this work off than some of the other work in my professional portfolio.
My portfolio has grown.
I have taken to Instagram to promote my work in the hope that owners of small business may be lurking there looking for a designer to work with. Of course it is saturated and posting on Instagram doesn’t guarantee people will even see it unless the algorithms are your friend, and it seems Instagram hates me - but I am choosing to see it as a digital portfolio. One that I can feel proud of.
I only work one day a week.
I am hardly working if you were to compare the hours I spend on my design work to my previous full time role. I do work hard, if I have a client booked in, I usually work some of the weekend and evenings when the children haven’t worn me out completely but I only have one uninterrupted full day of work. I am limited as to how much work I can take on and in a way I don’t think this is a bad thing. I spend most of the week watching my children grow up, which despite my complaints, I am so grateful to be able to do.
I haven’t killed my career.
When I decided to quit my job in the Winter, I thought I was giving up my career - but I haven’t - if anything I have done more for my design career in the last couple of months than I had in the previous couple of years.
I finally enjoy work.
Looking after children is boring and I never signed up to be a stay-at-home mum. Design work is keeping me sane and I appreciate it now more than I ever have. I haven’t made the money yet, I am barely covering the cost of one child to be in nursery the day I work - but this is an investment; I am investing in myself. I am learning every day and I am growing and developing as a designer. This design business has got me my design mojo back and reignited the fire in my belly to do great work and really I can’t ask for much more than that.
What has ignited the fire in your belly recently?
How do you find working flexibly around your children?
Did your career change after having kids?
I’d love to hear your stories.
In case you missed the links check out my work at khyphena.co.uk, or my Instagram @khyphena to see what I have been up to.