What’s an about page without a good story to help you get to know more about someone before you decide to work with them? So, get comfy, grab a coffee (and a snack, probably) because here’s my story and it’s not short.
We all have deep, dark secrets so I’m going to start this by sharing 2 of mine with you and how they have helped me succeed as a graphic designer and brand consultant.
Firstly, the biggest personal challenge I’ve had to overcome in life and as an independent designer in business is that I’m a chronic introvert. Since I was little, my parents had problems just getting me to say ‘hello’ to visitors, and I think most of my school teachers didn’t even know I was in their class. My school reports always had the comments ‘quiet, reserved, needs to participate more in class discussions’. (Although my hubby would beg to differ. Haha!) As a typical INTJ-A personality type, I’m extremely reserved but also infinitely curious.
So, have I overcome my introversion tendencies? Nope. And that’s not likely to change. But I’ve learned to work with being this way and actually found it to have a number of advantages in being a successful designer.
Spending all those hours on my own, immersed in creative activities for ages has given me great focus and I can really get into a project completely without being distracted by outside stuff (excluding cats).
I’m also more of an observer than a participator, which really helps in design projects I undertake because I am OCD about attention to detail and find it easy to consider all angles of an idea. This helps with proof-reading and checking for errors in my work, too.
Plus, Introversion has made me a good listener and able to understand and take into consideration ideas that clients have and want me to include in their work. It’s made me more intuitive, like a mind-reader (almost). HeHe!
My second deep, dark secret is that I don’t have a design degree or any formal qualification in design (gasp!). Yep. I am 100% self-taught. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college but luckily I was employed by a prominent art store catering to top local artists, and also apprenticed at a couple of printing companies where I learned the lost art of manual print layout, paste-up, and typesetting, and dabbled in the dark-room (woohoohoo).
Working for printers, I learned things they don’t teach you in design school, like understanding, first-hand how to (and how not to) run a successful business. Most qualified design graduates today end up in 9 to 5 jobs they hate because they aren’t taught how to succeed in the world of self-employment.
Besides learning how to be super fast and accurate, as a self-taught designer I’ve also developed the habit of always researching and learning the latest trends and best ways of doing things, something I still do. I have an honorary degree in Googling.
Because I couldn’t rely on a qualification to secure projects, skill and my portfolio were all that I had to prove my worth to clients – along with word-of-mouth referrals from happy clients. No laurel-resting here.
The last print company I worked at (all the way back in 1997) refused to upgrade their equipment which made it impossible for me to keep up with their growing design needs and print output. So I quit!
When I first started out on my own, there was no such thing as independent or freelance designers. As soon as other printing companies caught on to what I was doing, I got a lot of work from many of them, including the one I had resigned from – at double what they had been paying me before. Haha! Karma is a bitch.
Since the eradication of our apartheid government in 1994, declining employment in South Africa has forced many citizens to start their own businesses, resulting in a demand for brand development, especially in the small-businesses sector. Freelancers didn’t exist back then and small businesses couldn’t (and still can’t) afford agency rates so I was a very busy girl. (AKA I have a LOT of logo design and brand development experience.)
This lead me to dabble in book design which fast became a new skill. And I found myself signing book design deals with prominent publishing houses and also with a bevy of self-publishing authors. And yes, I prefer to work with authors one-on-one than with big companies. If you need to get your book onto Amazon, then I’m your gal.
Today, more and more small business owners are opting for online advertising or downloadable brochures rather than printed ones. So, naturally my work has veered in that direction and I make time every week to research the latest online marketing trends.
Social media marketing relies heavily on great images. So photography – iPhone photography specifically – has been added to my list of skills and helps me ensure that images I use in my designs are totally unique and custom created for each project as I take and edit most of them myself. (Visit my Instagram account for an idea of my style). Want to learn how to take great product and creative pics with your phone? Read this post, or sign up for one-on-one iPhone classes with me. (PS – all the images you see here in my website were taken with my iPhone – for real.)
To make your life easier, I’ve combined all my skills into a comprehensive offering where I guide savvy business owners, like yourself, through the entire process of rebranding and upscaling their existing business. We start by looking at your checklist, followed by a brand audit, and create a customised plan just for you and based on your needs. Then we work through it together at your own pace. By the time we’re done, your business will have had an effective makeover, and you’ll have a set of brand new skills to use to keep it working like a well-oiled machine.
[These numbers are are on the lower side of approximate.]