MY JOURNEY TO STARTING A DESIGN STUDIO.
One thing I love, is hearing people’s stories on how they transitioned from a full-time corporate job to working for themselves. So I thought I would share my journey from the very beginning. Hang in there it’s a long story, but I promise it’s all important.
1. UNI DAYS
Let’s wind back the clock to 2014. I had arrived back in Australia after travelling around Europe for roughly two years; and had no idea of what I wanted to do with my career. I thought that after travelling around Europe I would “find myself” as people say you do. Before I went to Europe I had completed a diploma in interior design, and worked for a furniture company and an architect firm, however I found it a tough industry to break into. I knew I loved design, and wanted to continue down that path, so I started looking at University degrees. Within a few months I started a Bachelor of Digital Media. While studying, I decided to gain some REAL WORLD industry experience. After 6 months, I found a job working for free one day a week at a design studio. They gave me small projects to work on like, designing emails in Mailchimp, photoshopping and logo designs. They were able to guide me through projects, give me tips on my work and show me behind the scenes of the printing process. Yes, I was working for free but I was also gaining experience; and the best thing was, it provided me with my first graphic design job for my resume. To this day I still do freelance work for the studio when they have overflow work. Who would've thought that an unpaid design job while at uni would end up being a paying freelance client 7 years later in my own design studio? During my time at university, I got another design job working for a nutrition/health food company designing their packaging and marketing collateral. These two jobs allowed me to have real world experience in the design industry by the time I graduated. When my degree came to an end, I felt as though I still wasn’t ready to go out into the workforce completely, so I decided to do honours in graphic design & animation (1 more year at uni), I know I'm crazy aren’t I? I'm so glad I chose to do honours as now I am able to offer logo animations to my clients. While doing honours I picked up a part-time graphic design job working for City Beach, Australia in the menswear department. My job was to design clothing patterns, labels, shirt logos and marketing collateral. When the year came to an end, I was ready to move from part-time to full-time work.
2. CORPORATE JOBS
NOW, here is where the good stuff begins. I had finally finished my degree and was heading out into the real world. I started applying for jobs and one popped up that appealed to me. Next minute I was working at Lorna Jane as a graphic designer, I couldn’t believe it…. My first real world full-time job as a designer would be working for a global fitness brand. All of my hard work had finally paid off. I found myself working alongside six other designers (who are still some of my closest friends). We were designing for over five countries around the world. Creating anything from EDMs (Electronic Direct Marketing), website banners, social media tiles, in-store banners, brochures, e-booklets, flyers and so much more. One of my biggest achievements while working there was being chosen to design their new fitness app. I absolutely loved the process and my design is still the current Lorna Jane Living app today. After a few years working there, I decided my time had come to an end. Side note: One Saturday morning about 6 months prior to leaving this job I decided to post on my personal facebook asking if anyone had any design work they needed done. I thought it would be a good idea to earn a little extra income on the side. I instantly got a few replies, and little did I know, but this would be the start of my freelance career. Now back to the story…..I started applying for design jobs, and I saw that a new entertainment and lifestyle precinct was being built in Brisbane called Howard Smith Wharves and they were looking for a designer. The advertised role was to design branding, websites, menu designs, social media posts, event advertising and wedding brochures for the new and upcoming restaurants and bars. I immediately applied as this sounded like everything that I wanted. I got a call when I was snowboarding down a mountain in New Zealand, and two weeks later I started the job. This was a fast paced and high energy role. I thrived in this environment. I was working on multiple projects across various businesses a day (this role definitely prepared me for working for myself). I worked closely with a range of stakeholders from Head Chefs, Wine Sommeliers, Event Directors, CEOS and Logistic Managers. The atmosphere was buzzing and electric. I would walk out of the office every afternoon to see the precinct filled with families on the lawns, weddings in event houses and bars filled with people drinking spritz. This was an exciting time in my career.
3. FREELANCING
The year that will never be forgotten [2020] came and the hospitality industry was the first to go. I was one of over 500 people in the company to be made redundant in March of 2020. This came to a big shock to me as it did to everyone else. The world and my life was about to change forever. There I was one month after my 30th birthday. I had just put down my dog of 7 years and was unemployed for the first time in years. Not what I thought my first year of my thirties would look like. Luckily over the past three years I had slowly been building up my design side hustle, so I was now able to focus solely on AndiDesign as my full-time job. Six weeks into freelancing I was contacted over instagram to see if I would be interested in a full-time design role for another hospitality business. I thought this was crazy? Everyone was closing down and I was being offered a full-time design position in hospitality? I couldn’t resist the offer and took it. After a few months working there, I received a phone call and was offered a two month full-time freelance contract role working for a marketing and PR agency. Working for an agency was something I always wanted to experience and it was the direction I wanted my career to head. So I quit my full-time design role for a two month contract (Crazy I know!). When an opportunity like this comes your way, you take the leap. Luckily, I did have freelance work to fallback on, which is what helped me make the hard decision. During this time I was roughly doing 2-3 hours of freelance work every night. So once I completed my two month contract with the agency, I was back to running my design studio full-time.
A few weeks after finishing up at the agency, my partner and I found out we had to move out of our rental property as the owners were selling due to hardship from covid. So now I was freelancing again, but this time with nowhere to live. Like lots of people during covid. It has made a lot of us slow down and think about what we really want in life. For some, maybe it’s move to the country? Move closer to family? Live a more balanced life? Be at home with your kids more? For my partner and I, we wanted to live by the beach, move to somewhere where housing was more affordable and start a new chapter. Change is healthy and good for the soul. This place for us was Perth. We had visited Perth on a holiday a few years ago and loved it. We thought why not make the move? It’s the perfect time, I have no job, my partner's work contract was coming to an end, and we had nothing holding us down (rental, mortgage, kids, jobs). So there I was packing up my life and getting ready for the big move. During this time my freelance work slowly picked up; people were contacting me out of the blue as they knew I had more time on my hands. Then the day came when we started our drive from BRISBANE, QLD to PERTH, WA. For those who don’t understand how big of a drive this is, the drive is longer than the distance across most of Europe. Not only were we doing the drive across the country, we were doing the drive in my Toyota Yaris with our dog (Charlie), all of our life packed into the car, while freelancing during a pandemic. The only restrictions were the borders between each state (couldn’t be that hard right?). After 2 months, we completed the journey across Australia and made it too Perth. I freelanced the whole way and by the time we made it to Perth I was working a few days a week consistently. (I will write another blog about freelancing while travelling).
4. MY OWN DESIGN STUDIO
If you had told me a year ago I would be living in Perth. I would have believed you. But I would have thought I would be working full-time for a design agency. However, because of my journey over the last year (due to covid), and being pushed out of my comfort zone I was able to achieve what I was wanting all along - working for myself in my own design studio. Wind forward a few months and I have now been running AndiDesign full-time for 11 months, and I am absolutely loving it. I have been working with local and international brands, small challengers and start-ups from a variety of disciplines. Specifically, our portfolio includes more than 70 unique brands over the last three years, spanning health & fitness, lifestyle, hospitality, retail and more. Some of our clients include: Code B, The Boundary Hotel, Tiny Sprout, Destination Scenic Rim, TradeMutt, Snap Fitness and many more. I am now ready to head into my second year running AndiDesign full-time.
Nine top tips for starting your side hustle and expanding it into your full-time job.
Reach out to old/current design jobs and see if you can freelance for them
Make a profile on “Loop” https://www.theloop.com.au/ it’s a great design job platform for people to advertise design roles. There may be full-time, part time, contract or even freelance roles. This is a great way to apply for freelance jobs if you are looking to get started and build up your business. It can be anything from graphic design, photography, illustration, art direction, copy writing and more. (I actually found one of my full-time corporate jobs through this site - not everyone advertises on seek).
Tell all of your friends and family that you are starting up your freelance business or are thinking of going full-time freelance and see if they or anyone they know needs work. The best ways to get business is through word of mouth, recommendations from previous clients, friends, previous jobs and repeat business.
Change your LinkedIn profile to “open to opportunities/jobs”. This can be risky if your current job sees this as they may know you are looking. So possibly do this once you have left. This is a great way for people to reach out to you for job opportunities.
If you’re still in uni, look for a design internship or send emails to companies that you would like to work for and see if you can do some free or paid work experience. I found one of my paid design jobs on my universities website (so checkout your uni/tafes job portal).
Don’t leave your full-time gig until you have consistent weekly work; which is enough to pay your bills and still have some left over to save.
Make sure you have 3-6 months of salary in savings just in case freelancing doesn’t work out or takes longer than you think to build up.
Create passion projects for yourself which you can use to expand your portfolio and socials while also attracting potential clients with the work you love doing and are good at.
Be social on social media. Reply to DMs, Start conversations on posts, comment on stories, show behind the scenes & share your knowledge and experience.
