Timeline » Turning Point

In 2005, I registered a freelance graphic design business which I intended to run on the side, while working full-time designing travel brochures.

In 2006, I decided everyone who I worked for was either a slave driver or a moron, quit my job, and went full-time on my business. Thanks to some existing clients, I managed to replaced my income from day 1 and remained steady for a good while.

In 2007, one of my first clients – a whale – vanished due to a legal issue. Work dropped sharply, and I didn’t have the answers, so I swallowed my pride and went back to work.

I took a part time design contract for a magazine publisher, so was able to continue with freelance clients a couple days a week.

That contract soon offered me a full-time role as Art Director, which I accepted after negotiating some decent flexibility, allowing me to still continue working with my freelance clients.

I had a lot of fun, learned a bunch about publishing and made a stack of friends, but after 4 years despite the great setup and flexibility, I decided to move on in 2011.

I didn’t want to make the same mistake of going unprepared into full-time self-employment again, so I got a role at a 2-person boutique branding agency, with the intention of learning more about business before trying the full-time solo thing again.

I did that, as well as learn a lot about branding and became specialised in large corporate rebranding projects (I didn’t fully lean into this until a few years later, coming up).

A year later in 2012, out of the blue, an opportunity to do a marathon in Greenland popped up, so my (now) wife and I decided to both sign up for it, and use that as a launching pad for moving to London. I reluctantly resigned from the branding agency, put the idea of running a business on pause, and after the marathon (and finishing dead last) we moved to London and took on short contracts around the UK so we could explore Europe.

Between 2013 & 2015 – despite previously thinking everyone I worked for was a slave-driver – I ended up working for the most belittling, chauvinistic ad agency I could ever have imagined. Completely driven by money and egos, blindly wasteful, and a very open and honest hierarchy that literally classed people over the 6 floors of the building – most important people at the top, least important at the bottom. Not my words, they actually said stuff like this in town halls and internal communications.

☆ Turning Point: This experience burned me. It made me believe that all advertising was evil, and I wanted out of the industry entirely… not just advertising – but out of design, creative, the whole lot. I couldn’t see many ways to use it for good I didn’t care anymore. I saw people being treated badly and wastefulness being bragged about like it was honourable, and I was done using my design skills to make money for people like that. I wanted to get out, reset, and start working on fixing bigger problems.

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This ran longer than I expected so I’ll wrap it tomorrow. If this back-story stuff isn’t your cup of tea I get that – maybe just skip a day… because obviously you read every email right 😜 ❤️ 🙏