Every designer has their own story of how they started doing what they do. For some it was falling into design after years of doing fine art. For others it was coming from the technical side and learning to put design with the websites or applications they built. For me, it was never a question, I’ve always been a designer.
My background in design
I do love the technical aspect of building sites, however. Back when connecting to the internet meant funny sounds and slowwww speeds, I was teaching myself to build sites using Tripod. I can’t believe they’re still around, actually.
The site I built revolved around my hobbies of photography, art and cycling. 12 years later, nothing much has changed. I still love art, practice photography when I travel and cycle regularly, with a lot of my personal design projects related to my hobbies.
My first introduction to what graphic design really was happened in high school with a project where we designed an abstract piece on the computer, and then painted it. Granted this was pre-Photoshop and on archaic computers, but this sticks in my mind as when I first connected the dots between computers and art.
When I started college I declared my major as soon as I was able. My goal was to get a degree in graphic design though I had already been working with clients through my former company, Redd-Design. For awhile this was my only source of income, taking on logo and website designs as well as miscellaneous print projects. While I felt like a teacher’s assistant in my single web development class, I learned a ton about print design and ended up working my first design job for a print designer.
Losing my way
When I started working for HubSpot I stopped taking on new client work and only worked with current clients. After a promotion and then eventual job change, I felt like I had lost my way with design. I had no motivation to work with clients outside of my day job, or even to fire up InDesign to play with some layouts. Though my day job let me tackle technical problems, it was a long time before I had any interest in design.
Finally, the opportunity to move overseas presented itself, and a year later I feel more creative and productive than ever. I’m putting 100% into the business, my client service and the design and development projects I’m thankful to work on.
Why I do it now
Design is always changing. It causes me to learn new ideas and skillsets, to pay attention to detail and not just say things are good enough. Designing and building sites is technically challenging whether I’m setting up a new database for a site, or figuring out how best to display a lot of text in a small area.
At the end of the day my real passion is solving problems. I work both sides of the brain to solve technical and marketing challenges for businesses around the globe and I aim to be doing it for a long time.
Your turn
What’s your real passion? How are you implementing that into your everyday work life?
I empower businesses and marketers to create automated content systems that elevate sales and delight customers. Here’s how it works.
