Good Day. Two years into this trade, and I want to set down what has surprised me, because the surprises have been the real teachers.
What surprised me most is how hard it is to find freelance clients consistently. I have been in and out of work, a couple of years here, a few clients there. When it is good it is wonderful, and when it is hard it is genuinely hard, and the swing between the two is steeper than anyone warned me.
By the close of the year, the thing I am proudest of is simple. I am still a designer. I am still here, still standing in the trade, and after the lean stretches that is not nothing.
I am still insecure, too. The impostor feeling has not left me. I do not always trust that I have what it takes to stay on the cutting edge of web design as fast as it moves. I can feel myself at a crossroads, tempted to bifurcate, to lean hard into brand design and marketing strategy and let the web evolve on its own without me.
But the work ethic and the research ethic that brought me here are still very much alive, and I trust those more than I trust my doubts. They are the part of me that does not quit when the clients are scarce.
If I could speak to the version of me walking into 2008, I would keep it plain. Keep growing. Keep doing what you are doing. Keep reading the books, keep challenging yourself with design-a-thons, and keep pushing hard, because hard work pays off. I do not have proof of that yet. I have a conviction, and for now that will have to be enough.
Jonathan Ellis · Edmonton · December 2007