For more than eight years I have had a steady job with a regular income, assured healthcare coverage, and varyingly satisfying bonuses at the end of the year. From my early days as a 1-in-11,000 employee earning $35,000-a-year I have climbed the creative ladder (as well as the United States, geographically speaking, from Atlanta to New York) with stops at Norman Design in Chicago, Decker Design in New York, and, until last Thursday, September 27th, at Pentagram in New York. An evolution climactically leading up to my next move: A 2-person, 1-baby, 2-cat design firm in our own unheatable basement in Brooklyn, with an irregular income, unconfirmed healthcare coverage (as of this writing), and no bonus in sight come December. But, as co-owner with Bryony, I couldn’t be more excited about the undetermined future of the recently, officially and eagerly incorporated UnderConsideration LLC.
Until now — that is, before the arrival of our lovely 5-month-old Maya — I had been able to balance highly demanding full-time jobs with weeknights and weekends spent on Speak Up. And in the last year I somehow survived Pentagram, plus Speak Up, plus Brand New, plus Quipsologies, plus (not nearly as much as I would have liked) The Design Encyclopedia, plus The Word It Book. As hard as I worked, and as many sunny weekends as I have missed, it always paid off when someone would ask how I did it all, and I would briskly shrug my shoulders and (perhaps not-so) modestly accept my own inexplicable ability to manage it all. But in August, as I returned to work from a generous paternity leave, I quickly realized that the answer to how I did it all was becoming “I don’t, and I can’t”. Not enough energy, not enough time and an unavoidable urge to spend my free time with my girl(s) made it hard to keep up with the demand. So this proved to be the tipping point, and Reason #1, that would flicker Bryony and I into making the decision we always thought we would make but were never quite ready: Start our own design firm.
In preparation for this moment, Bryony had left her previous job — which until now had put us in the very comfortable category of New York DINKs (Double Income, No Kids) — two Aprils ago to start setting up shop (and, yes, nest). On the other hand, I had the unbelievably good fortune of working with Michael Bierut at Pentagram — a job that anyone in their right mind would not think about leaving — that, besides providing a monthly paycheck, proved to be the most illuminating design education I have received. Needless to say, I had no reason or urge to leave — it was a sweet situation with great work, great clients and great people to sit with day in and day out. They say having kids changes your priorities and perspectives, and I always dismissed that notion as sentimental BS. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Seeing Maya for 20 minutes in the morning and an hour at most in the evening turned out to be, well, lame. So, as Reason #2, having the possibility of being home instead of sitting in a crowded, stinky and loud subway for up to two hours a day, and sharing lunch with the family, was more impetus.
Reason #3 is finally the one that concerned our financial and professional situation: Can we produce a large percentage of our income from blogging? Can we afford healthcare, mortgage and diapers? Can we win new clients? Can we find balance between business and pleasure? Can we work together? We are finally at a place where the four sites of UnderConsideration generate enough traffic to attract serious advertising partnerships — we hereby invite you to consider our advertisers’ services first : ) — that could allow us to focus much more energy and time into them. Because we have fostered healthy and friendly relationships with our employers we can count on referrals from them to win new clients or support old ones. And, because for Bryony and I, business and pleasure have always been intertwined and we have worked successfully on a variety of projects we are somewhat confident that we will not scratch each other’s eyes out. We can’t vouch for our cats’ though.
So what does this mean for Speak Up and the rest of UnderConsideration? Well, we hope to infuse all four web sites with much more input, content and variety. UnderConsideration, which has long caused confusion to everyone, even us, is now officially the parent company, and our legal and financial entity. Through it we will publish online as we’ve done so far, and if this Fall is any indication, we will be able to create more content off-line as we will be publishing two books in 2008 — The Women of Design, with HOW Books, a look at their great work and legacy; and Graphic Design, Referenced, a 400-page, visually-driven reference guide for all the things you should know about our profession with Rockport. As we settle on our schedule we will look to revive our live seriouSeries events (fingers crossed!) in New York and, mayhaps, across the U.S. And, most excitingly, through our Department of Design we will serve clients as well as our own publications and efforts. The ideas and endeavors we want to pursue are ambitious and numerous, and, even at the risk of finding ourselves in the “how do we do it all?” conundrum again, we hope to be able to enrich the design profession through our work and energy — your simple appreciation and involvement will be our year-end bonus. And we couldn’t ask for more.
Congrats!
Autonomy is priceless (but tiring)
On Oct.02.2007 at 05:25 PM