Well folks, I thought I’d just like to share my own personal story about what happened to me in this business.
First off, I love design. I can sit in photoshop, illustrator, inDesign for hours and create and layout stuff for just about anything. When I was a little kid I loved to draw, then it turned into a love for photoshop. So, I went to college to get an education that would ensure a more secure financial future. I got my BA in Graphic Design in 04,and have a really cool internship designing direct mail postcards for my college internship (paid well too). Then a few months later I landed a job working for a publisher of custom magazines. There I designed everything from soup to nuts that a small business needs, besides the advertisements and magazine covers/layouts. I learned so much on thisjob! I learned how to deal with clients in proofing, how to work along with the sales department. I was pretty bogged down with work, all 40hrs of every week. No breaks, no days where you can just play around onthe internet. Those are nice sometimes, other times they’re misery. But nonstop work isn’t good either, especially when you’re working for someone else. It just burns you out!
Next I decided to move along to something better (well, I thought). I got a job with a large national chain store as their head graphic designer in charge of the marketing for all 75 mall stores. There I designed signage, window posters, huge wall banners, billboard size stuff. Also a lot of postcards, handouts and doo dads. That job was the most stressful. They are insane in retail. Everything has to be done before they even ask you to do it. Maybe it was just the company I was in. I thought the first company was stressful, this place made that one look like heaven.
So then the economy gets real bad. The company is now in Chapter 11 and they went from 75 stores to 21. Now I’m out of a job, and what do I do?Well, thankfully I had a side business of selling stock graphics and vectors that I did on nights and weekends. I’m now doing that full time for a living, since May of last year. I work from my home office and enjoy every minute of it, spending time with my my wife when she’s not working, and my two dogs. I have no health insurance yet, and no benefits, but hey – we’re getting by. It’s a scary thing for losing your job, but if you guys can learn one thing from my story it’s this: have a backup plan. Don’t rely just on the unemployment checks you’llget for 6 months or so if you lose your job. Have another skill or trade, or even a freelancing strategy. It’s scary when you have a family that you have to support, rent or mortgage to pay, and no hope in sight.
Anyways, that’s why I’m no longer a “traditional” designer. I still design stuff all the time, but with stock it’s a heck of a lot more generic. I have to keep things simple, too, otherwise if it’s too specific it just won’t sell. Do I miss working with picky clients, working with a boss over my shoulder? Definitely not. I really don’t have any desire to ever work in a corporate setting again, either. It’s just too hectic, and too stressful compared to working on your own. I think I’d rather have less stress, even if it means making less money. Others might disagree. I turn away people approaching me all the time, because every business has a need for some type of design work. I just enjoy designing the generic way, through stock images. It gives me a relative amount of creative freedom (obviously you need to shoot or design concepts that people are going to be able to actually want) and the only time I have to deal with another human being is when I am doing a photoshoot or some kind of payment or account issue arises on one of my agencies. It’s really great! You can’t beat a microstock career.
Anyone else have a story similar to mine? I’m reaching out to see if I’m the only weird one…
