Trust

It's been a good while since I last blogged a thought.

I’ve been doing this freelance thing about 1.5-2 months now, and every week is a new adventure for me. I think for some, the instability would be a killer, but I’ve been thriving off of the opportunities that have been given to me. I’m grateful and feel underserving of the work that I get to have.

Hustling is no longer part of the business plan as of now. I’m not good at it and boy, am I happy about that. It’s just not personal to me and that really affects the way I view work. I’ve extended the ‘good design is good business’ phrase to ‘good business is personal.’ And I mean that in the sense of: if you’ve ever felt like a local, welcomed, or cared for, business becomes a pleasure, so much so that tipping or investing is no longer one-sided, but actually turns into a relationship of continued support.

I’ve been given the luxury of working with people I genuinely care for and that has allowed me to do better work. By no means is some the stuff that I do sexy, but because I’m in the trenches with people, I’m not isolated in this space of anger or frustration. It’s when I remove people from the work I do, that I get these ideas of terrible clients. 

When I was younger, I used to want to be an art director, a senior-something, or creative-whatever. But reassessing that, I don’t really care for those titles. I honestly think titles are kinda dumb, it creates rigidity that disallows people from flexibility (EDIT: sometimes). I thought I wanted control, but as I’m maturing and experiencing these new perspectives of work, that wouldn’t solve a thing. Control does not equate to happiness. I’m in the reality of having absolute control over what I want to do when I want to do it, but it doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things.

What I’m striving for nowadays is trust. Give me whatever title you want, doesn’t really matter to me, but as long I have your trust, we can work together and make something awesome. Control doesn’t mean thing if people don’t trust your concept or vision. Same thing with business and personality; you may have the best service or product but if you’re an unpleasant person to work with, no one wants it (or they’ll just complain a lot, I’m not really into that).

I have the crazy opportunity to say no when it comes to work and to give people something that isn’t me would be disingenuous of myself. If they don’t want me for me, they can take their business elsewhere. It’s definitely scary since the platform I work off is Khuong Pham, but for the time-being, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

I like that I get to send funny gifs in otherwise straightforward emails, I like chatting about Marvel movies before we talk about logo concepts; I like that I get to build trust and talk to people as people and not as clients. When I’m able to be myself, I think people see that and it allows us to both do things that we care about and do a good job doing it, if that makes any sense. 

All this to say: I like treating people as people, that’s the angle I work off of. There’s no ulterior motive or plan, if you think that we could make something cool together, well let’s work together.