From My Desk: Now I Know

Photo by Joel Darwin

It’s been a year and eight months since I resigned from my last day job and pursued my graphic design practice full time. My last day was on January 31, 2013. Then I celebrated my birthday the next day on February 1 (my birthday’s on the 3rd though). Because of how balanced the dates are, I will always remember when I first jumped off a cliff and trusted that I would come up with a flying contraption on the way down.

The last time I experienced such a feeling was when I agreed to get married at 25 with nothing to my name. Marriage has everything to do with my business because I wouldn’t have been able to make the jump if my co-pilot wasn’t there with me. Joel is my project coordinator — the Richard Hendricks to my Erlich Bachman. We’ve been using that metaphor too often and it’s causing a bit of an identity crisis because we function more like Jared and Richard, but I possess Erlich’s visionary and asshole qualities. (All my references point here; please watch it, it’s an amazing show) Don’t jump without any support!

I was beginning to lose track of how long we’ve flown solo and it’s good time to start jotting down some of the lessons I’ve learned about quitting your day job and working from home.

1. NO OVERTIME: A LIE
   I wanted to leave the office because I wanted to achieve this mythical idea of a work-life balance. I wanted to end work early everyday so that I can pursue the more relational aspects of my life. What I didn’t realize is that if you’re not yet savvy with hammering deadlines and being able to “pivot” (I love you, Silicon Valley) when things don’t go as planned, you will be working late into the night. Sometimes you’ll be working on weekends! Sometimes when you’re on vacation, you’ll still be thinking about your deadlines!

   The wonderful thing though is that when you’re doing overtime in your own house, you can work in the comfort of your pajamas and not worry about commuting home. Because you’re already home, boo yeah!

2. NO MORE COMMUTING: ENOUGH OF A REASON TO LEAVE YOUR DAY JOB
   I am horrified at the state of the MRT. With my last job, I used to take a jeep, then the MRT, then a trike to get to my office. It was already uncomfortable then, but I was able to bear it. Since I started working in Makati, I have never been stranded anywhere and I’ve been able to walk home from a lot of my meetings and presentations. Now that I’m realizing how much time commuting ate up, I will never come back to that. If you can telecommute, do it. If you have the option to live where business happens, do it.
3. WOW, I GOT STYLE, SOMEWHAT
   I used to think my aesthetic was all over the place, but working on my own allowed me to discover my taste and it helped me become more sure of my voice as a designer. I’ve been getting my inspiration from other creative fields like interior design, food, and fashion (and I used to hate fashion!) and it has given me a vocabulary. Developing your own voice will prevent you from drowning in trends and copying other designers (hey, admit it, we all start that way). While I’m not a total original and my environment influences what I do, I discovered that my voice is a quirky and playful one that likes to interact with clean, utilitarian frameworks.
4. WORKING WITH YOUR HUSBAND WILL BRING OUT YOUR WORST
   It’s not for everyone. Work adds another dimension to your relationship and it can get difficult dealing with your issues in a business scenario. I don’t know about everyone else, but it is in work where Joel’s and my insecurities and identity issues come out.

   It’s here where I saw clearly what my relationship towards money, society, and prestige are like — and if both of you are not looking at those three things in a compatible way, there will be fights. This is why it so important to decide on your values and what your roles are. For our family, accountability ends with Joel. With our business, accountability ends with me.

5. OUTSOURCING IS THE FUTURE
   I seriously thought that I could go on the way we were without accounting and lawyer services. I knew I was supposed to be filing taxes but it was a possibility that I put off as long as I could. When I couldn’t avoid it any longer, I bit the bullet. I knew there was no way we were going to read up and tackle the Philippine tax system on our own (Joel still tries, bless his heart), so we needed help.

   We already have a lot of fixed monthly expenses as it is (yes, believe it, everything adds up) and the idea of having another entity to siphon our meager resources was painful. I thought that we weren’t making enough to afford accounting services — but if you’re going to be in business, a lot of things require faith. Joel and I don’t come from wealthy backgrounds (no trust funds, no manas, no stocks, no rent-free apartments, etc.) so the stakes are even higher because everything we use is from what we earn. You know the feeling, right? We’re much more touchy when it’s our own stuff on the line.

   I wouldn’t believe me if I told Past Me that I pay for an accountant every month. Our earnings have been able to support the new additions and the crazy thing is, as you level up, so do the kinds of clients you get. We use Full Suite.

   My philosophy is that I want to keep my overhead as low as possible and that means outsourcing tasks as much as I can.

6. KNOW WHY YOU’RE IN THIS
   I got inspired to write this entry because one of our clients ended our meeting with her imparting business advice. She was stressing the importance of being grounded and avoiding debt as much as possible by identifying the things that are really important. There’s a lot of pressure in the design business to look and behave a certain way.

   This one year and a half of running our own business has taught us about who we are. I’m realizing that you don’t have to make yourself out to be a certain way to fit into an industry. The industry is big enough to handle a myriad of personalities so there’s no excuse not to let your freak flag fly. There will always be standards (good grasp of typography, knows grids, loves white space, lets culture and history inform the aesthetic) but we don’t have to subscribe to what culture expects of designers. Designers will attract the kind of client that jives with them, I’m a huge believer in that. Socialite designers attract socialite clients. Cool designers attract cool clients. Edgy designers attract edgy clients.

   I’m in this because I’m a competent designer and the other things I love in this world fit in nicely with what I do. e.g., I’m intuitive and I love to read people, so that gives my work a more human touch or I’m a big fat nerd, so you can count on my references to come out of nowhere and know that they will be just right. I think I’ll have a home office for a while because that’s just who I am. I haven’t exactly narrowed down into one word what kind of designer I am, but I’m hoping I’ll be attracting people who are good, authentic, articulate, and nerdy.

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