Too Much Jill of All Trades

Buckling down and focusing on communicating what my design or art is about for the next 30 days

A downloadable printout I created to keep track of my 30 day challenges

Many motivational talks for designers and creatives trying to build their business start with one thing - niche down. Which to be fair is difficult as a designer or creative. Just imagine being an artist and wanting to paint the skies and the birds and the clouds in it and the talk telling you, please just focus on one?

As a designer and illustrator and artist I have struggled with this nicheing down subject. As an artist I paint landscapes or creatures that are nature inspired. As an illustrator I paint elegant designs or quirky adorable characters or create editorial illustrations for books. As a designer I create book layouts for publishing, elegant logos for small businesses, paper goods designed for small creatives and print or web designs for small businesses.

That is actually a lot. No wonder my own mother has absolutely no clue what I do.

Then there is the flip side where my friends ask me for anything art or design related and I say, “Yes, I can do that.” It’s why they are also confused about my niche.

The problem solver in me loves the challenge that my clients present me with, and I love blowing their socks off with the curated design that is specific for their brand. However, the recent years has seen me recognise the need to be closer to my artistic side too.

The pivot to branding design was because I recognised colour was what was inherently wrong with the brands I worked with. They would come up with different colours when they wanted a design done. With the advent of Canva, they created with the different colours.

Writing these thoughts down I realise that I never actually mentioned any of this to anyone.

My family, friends or my clients. They know how creative I am, so they are stumped when it comes to knowing what I do exactly. Mostly because I do not communicate what I actually do.

So this is going to be the start of my 30 day plan of communicating my design and art to my family and friends. Because while it is fun to be the Jill of all trades, it is more special to be able to have people laud me for my work and what I do specifically. Because the problem solver in me likes colour, likes organising and likes colour that it is heavily involved in my art and design work. Edit: this challenge has started and failed so many times, I've had to restart this again, and so far, I'm seeing a change in the way I show up with my work.