So here I am, sitting here wondering what to write for my first blog. Right at this moment, I’m still not entirely sure but I’ll give it whirl…

I guess could harp on about the 6 things to consider when choosing a graphic designer, what makes a good logo, what emotions different colours will conjure up or how the words “I don’t know what I want, you’re the designer… come up with something with oomph” can make even the most hardened designer throw a tantrum on the inside that’d put my 4 year old to shame.

That’s not to say I’ll never talk about all those things…because undoubtedly, as a potential client, they’re things you’ll need to know to prevent my inside tantrums becoming outside ones.

What I really want to get across is what being a graphic designer means to me. What is it about it that I love so much and why do I do it?

I know it’s a bit cliched but it’s not all about the money. If it was, I would have given up years ago. That much I can tell you…

To me, there’s nothing better than working with a client and seeing their eyes light up with excitement when we’ve presented them with their final logo or a new website. When they’ve always had an idea for a business and finally, after hours of agonising over a name, writing marketing plans and questioning themselves about whether their dreams of being a successful business owner will ever come to fruition, there it is. A tangible, visual representation of who they are and what they do. Now it’s real.

I guess I was fortunate enough to know at 18 what I wanted to be when I grew up and that some day, I wanted to run my own business. After realising 23% in School C Maths would probably mean I would never be an accountant (and the fact the mere mention of words like Gross Profit Margin still make my eyes glaze over)…the only thing I really liked to do was art.

To be entirely honest, I wasn’t even that good at that. There were always people more talented than me. Those annoying people at school who exceeded in every subject, who could make the most amazing detailed drawings with a ballpoint pen on paper napkins… or pull an all nighter to present their sopping wet oil paintings for our final exam and still manage to pull an A.

That was not me.

I still did ok but I was no natural genius. Call it stubborness (I can categorically confirm that was a large part of it) or just the fact I was more crap at everything else but I persevered and learnt what I needed to know. Another big part of it was the realisation that I didn’t have to get up to my elbows in paint and ink and wait until I died to make any money from my work. Photoshop would do it all for me! Brilliant! Okay, so that part was possibly laziness but whatever.

Thanks to the understanding and support of my lovely, wonderful parents who had just paid my tech fees for the year, I left art school (wondering why they suddenly appeared to lose all their hair), started a computer graphic design course and realised I wasn’t so bad afterall. I had found my passion. To this day, it hasn’t changed and I haven’t looked back.

So I guess my point is, you don’t have to be the best at what you do but if you have good support, passion, a bit of perseverance, a lot of resilience and know WHY you’re doing it, you can’t do anything but succeed.

What I love about what I do is I feel like I’m supporting and helping other people to succeed and realise their own dreams. While running a business can be exhausting, stressful and some days you wonder why the hell you don’t just get a job, the reward always far outweighs the sacrifice.

The reward for me is helping people take their own message to the world and creating something they can be proud of…and that is my why.