Sixteen insights from sixteen years of self-employment
My career-to-date as an Agent of Perspective
Sixteen years and around six months ago, during the spring of 1997, while working full time at Houghton Mifflin Company, I did a freelance project for a then-burgeoning start-up named IS Robotics (now iRobot). It was their corporate brochure. I did everything — refined copy, shot images from a borrowed camera, layout in QuarkXPress, revisions late at night when an idea came to me, inventive use of a translucent flysheet, and press supervision at 1am. It was an enthralling and exciting project.
A friend of the marketing director had referred me to the gig, so I knew I had to do right by both of them. But I was pretty green back then when it came to relationship development. It didn’t occur to me to ask where IS Robotics got their product ideas, their technology, or their funding, or to ask how Rod Brooks came to be chairman of their board. But the brochure delivered, the client was thrilled, and it must’ve naturally bubbled up.
Months later, I got a phone call. (Sometimes everything can change when the phone rings.) It was Rod’s assistant, Annika Pfluger. She’d seen the brochure and wanted me to do some work for MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, the parent company of IS Robotics. They needed an identity, business papers, a website (so early on!), a patch (yay geeks!), a recruitment poster, a fundraising brochure, and more. I distinctly recall hanging up from that call ever so slowly, surveying the cube farm and dimmed fluorescents of the 4th floor of 222 Berkeley Street and thinking: this is it… I am outta here. And: If not now, when?
Once I met with Annika and Rod, and understood the full scope of the project, I approached my boss. Now, I really liked my boss, and I think he knew I didn’t want to disappoint him. But I knew I couldn’t do everything. The MIT project was huge, and my Houghton contract had stipulated a minimum of 35 hours/week. Just as my work for Houghton ebbed and flowed, I asked him if there was any flexibility in it; I proposed dropping to 20 hours/week during the MIT project’s duration, then coming back to 35 once it ended. “All or nothing,” he said. I slept on it for one night; I gave my notice the next day.
So sixteen years ago on November 7, 1997, I worked my last day at Houghton, which I consider the first day of my focus shifting to Schwadesign. It was a regular day — save the Guinness at lunch with a co-worker. I cleaned off some files from my hard drive. I finished taking down the ephemera from my wall. I met a few friends and (former) co-workers for dinner at a Spanish restaurant — always a great context for celebration — and picked up the tab for tapas & lots of tinto.
The first few months were all about that MIT project. Lots and lots of meetings and learning and strategy. Lots of learning how to work while getting things done. I knew instinctively that I couldn’t do it all, and I knew rationally that I couldn’t do it all — so I hired my first design collaborator, Jill Lamere (also a former Houghton employee), and gave her art direction. It was fun, it was profitable, and it set the stage for what kinds of projects I could go after.
Meanwhile I networked, I met people, they suggested I meet other people. Independent designers with their own studios: Fritz Klaetke, Denise Korn, Paul Montie, Clif Stoltze, Samina Quraeshi. And agencies of various sizes and clientele: Tom Davis + Partners, Corey McPherson Nash, Philographica, Philip Johnson Associates, WGBH. I happily worked for Visual Dialogue on and off for a year; I learned some fantastic and valuable lessons from Fritz that I still use to this day. I picked up some freelance work from Paul; we enjoyed some bourbon by the fire one evening while watching his kids play. I met other independent freelancers and began to expand what could be delivered to clients with added expertise.
I saw the various modes of working, styles of communication, and models of businesses, and learned from them all. I wanted, above all else, to work with awesome people and do more awesomer things in teams when teams were needed. As I gained traction, I realized what made the most sense for me.
Schwadesign exists to bring people together to collaborate in a configuration of mutual interest and benefit. Whether it’s one of our Agents or 25 of us, a start-up or a Fortune 500, strategy only or soup to nuts, we nimbly deliver.
Although my role has necessarily evolved over the years, and collaborators have come and gone, here are some things that have always remained true:
1. Making connections makes me happy.
2. You absolutely gotta have fun along the way. Awesome people help with that.
3. No matter where you enter the process, follow the process.
4. Content (narrative, story, message) informs anything visual.
(Death to Lorem Ipsum! But not Bacon Ipsum, cos that’s just great.)
5. Being an optimist helps people see the good in themselves.
6. There’s a fine line between iteration and obliteration.
7. AIGA opens all doors. AIGA connects you to your heroes, to your next collaborator, or co-conspirator. Everyone I met in those early days had AIGA in common, and still do. Altruism benefits your local community, your chapter, the profession, and the world.
8. It’s easy to get distracted by style, but the narrative underneath — that’s the substance, the good stuff.
9. Everything free comes with a price.
Some things I have learned more recently:
10. A 15-minute self-assessment to start the day can help you focus proactively on what you wish to prioritize.
11. Success is a value of the body, not just of the mind or heart.
12. Do nothing reactive to negativity; do nothing negatively.
13. The first meeting reflects the relationship.
14. Everything resolves if you take the long view.
15. People appreciate openness, honesty, and transparency beyond what you might find comfortable.
16. Above all else, there’s been one unexpected pleasure of running my business as the nimbly configurable platform of independents that it is: I’ve encouraged others to make the same shift I did, from freelancing on the side to freelancing full-time. I’ve provided validation by example, hope and encouragement, and project budgets to spur and fund this evolution. Time and again I’ve helped others make the leap — and even today I hear they haven’t looked back.
