Reflecting On 2022: Studio Year in Review
Oh, what a year! 2022 looked like… A baby, boundaries, my best year yet, the lowest number of inquiries I have ever had, the highest revenue months I have ever had, a six month maternity leave, one of the strangest client experiences I have had in my entire life, lessons learned, and a handful of the coolest clients that I could never have even imagined working for in my wildest dreams.
From start to finish, 2022 was VERY interesting. Let’s walk through some highs and lows.
A few highlights:
Pregnancy and Maternity Leave: Didn’t know I was pregnant or had a baby? Hey, mission accomplished! If you have been following me for a while you know that I don’t share anything about my kids online. This very primal desire for privacy started when I was pregnant and 2018 and has never left! But from start to finish, this experience has been so much easier than my first go-around. I was more prepared for basically everything, including maternity leave. My goal was to have a “peaceful” maternity leave and I literally made lists of what I was going to do in order to accomplish that. But really when it came down to it, the only thing I really needed to do was… NOT do anything. I knew from my previous maternity leave that my emotional bandwidth for work postpartum was low, and it took a lot of self-restraint, but I somehow managed to not work for two months, then I did a total of about 3–5 projects before returning full-time in the fall. It was the perfect balance.
Returning Clients and Referrals: Because I was out of the office for six months this year, my inquiries took a hit. I know that isn’t unique, I have been hearing from people all across the industry that things are SLOW. And while, to be honest, I hadn’t really noticed until I looked it up about 10 minutes ago, it’s the kind of thing that will freak you out if you let it. The core of my work this year was returning clients and referrals. Almost all of the work I completed was for existing clients or a new client referred to me by an existing client. When I returned from maternity leave my design calendar was totally full – and I only worked with existing clients for four straight months from September – December! It was so affirming that the day in, day out work of serving people well and running a client-centered business is worth it. If you haven’t heard this story before – I have a post it note in my office that says “for the clients” - I scribbled it down after receiving a particularly frustrating email from a client that made me instantly agitated. In that moment I tried to reorient my mindset and really check myself. Why do I do this work? It’s for my clients. To serve them well, to build relationships, to deliver what I promise, to exceed their expectations, to help their businesses grow and thrive.
Licensing: I had a lot more licensing requests this year and have enjoyed dipping my toes into that category of work. A snippet of what to expect next year: pet products, notecards, calendars, textiles, children’s products! I am excited to share them with you guys. I am contemplating if I want to go the agency route, or just manage my own licensing, but for now I have just really loved learning more about what it means to license on a broader scale than I have in the past.
Children’s Book and First Word Flashcards: This was truly a highlight of my year. I launched a children’s book and set of first word flashcards – both of these things were gifts for my daughter that I then pitched to my publisher. You know when people say “I always dreamed of _________”? I don’t have a lot of those things in my life. My general MO is to sort of roll with the punches and take what comes and make the best of it. I try not to have things like a 5 year plan or huge complex goals… I am more of a month to month kinda gal. But… I always dreamed about publishing a children’s book. This is something that has been in the back of mind for my entire life. And now they’re here, and can be at your doorstep overnight with a qualifying purchase of $35.00 or more. Jokes! I hope that you purchase the books from your local bookseller. You will make their day – and mine! If you prefer to purchase them online for any number of reasons, you really can grab the book and flashcards on Amazon :)
Experimenting: I tried a few new things this year, including Design Intensives (single day design project) and Visual Branding Intensives (one week visual branding intensive) and would give them an A-. I really enjoyed the process, loved the deep dive intensity, but am not sure they are something I will continue to offer long-term. They are excellent value for clients, but they are INTENSE! At the end of the day what I really enjoyed was just trying new things. You don’t have to shout “I offer design intensives!!!!” at the top of your lungs in a crowded place, you can just quietly try it out with a few clients and see how you feel. Like it? Keep doing it. Don’t like it? Ditch it. Once you free yourself from that pressure, it’s much easier to enjoy experimenting with new offerings.
Design Retainer Bootcamp: DRB Launched in November and it has been so exciting to watch my students absolutely rock retainer offerings during this last quarter of the year! Retainers are such a great way to have sustainable, reliable, predictable revenue in your design business. I have used them for ages and am just so glad to have gotten this course out into the world so that I can share what I have learned about retainers with other designers looking to grow and diversify their businesses. I am extremely proud of this course!
Running Lean: My design business ran lean this year, with just me and some occasional project management help. I think I pulled in an illustrator 2-3 times over the course of the entire year? I knew my bandwidth would be low, and honestly it was… awesome. Every once in a while I missed having a more full-time project manager but I also loved not being responsible for ANYONE. Instead of paying employees in my design business, I was able to pay other individuals in my life that I have hired for various things, from childcare to housekeeping services. To be clear, I referred my clients to other creatives A LOT, but I just cut myself out of the equation. So instead of designing my client’s website, white labeling the design work, and pocketing 15% off the top, I just passed that client directly onto my website references. Same thing with illustrators, social media managers, SEO. I have a few people I trust, and I share their names with my clients. Then I quietly leave! It’s a win-win for everyone. I only share this because we hear a lot of glorifying of “growing a team” and “running an agency” and if that works for you, that is great. But if it doesn’t, that is okay too! Running lean means I can charge competitive rates, I only need to manage my own schedule, and I as I mentioned above, I can take those extra dollars I would have spent on internal employees and hire other people/invest in other businesses for tasks that are life-oriented rather than business oriented.
it wouldn’t be a year without a few lowlights, as well:
February–April, 2022: Before I went on maternity leave, things got a little out of hand. I took on soooooo much work. In an attempt to generate a year’s worth of revenue in a four month time period, I was saying yes to EVERYTHING and everyone. This resulted in two less than ideal situations.
1) A client refused to pay me (ghosted me) – this was the first time this has EVER happened to me in 12 years of being a professional designer. Ever! This client is a well-known brand and I should have seen the red flags right out of the gates. I technically still have to decide if I am going to pursue legal action, but at this point I think I am at peace with it. They have to live with the fact that they refused to pay me for the exact work that they asked me to complete. Every time I get riled up about it and start to type out an email to my attorney, I feel this little cosmic nudge to just let it go. But it was a big bummer at the time and took up a lot of my emotional bandwidth.
2) I had a bad, bad, bad client. You guys… it was bad. I have no clue how they slipped through the cracks, but I also do. I was in overdrive trying to generate funds before my maternity leave and I overlooked 1,500 big, billowing, red flags waving in the wind. I don’t need to go into the details of this project, because, with the help of my attorney, I was able to cut myself free, but mere days before my child was born I was navigating this person’s antics. Moral of the story: listen to your gut.
That’s it – only one low! It was generally such a beautiful year and I am overflowing with so much gratitude for my clients. It is such an honor to serve them every single day. Personally, it was a year of simplicity and slowness. When I was scrolling through my camera roll the other day, I felt myself thinking “Wow, we didn’t really do anything…” – but, we did everything! I literally grew a human, I survived major surgery, I booked the biggest clients of my life, I hit deadlines and did press checks and kissed owies and rocked sick babies to sleep. What this year lacked in glam, it made up for in that feeling you get when you look around and for a split second are so at peace, so overflowing with love, that your eyes instantly well up with tears. You know that one? This year was that. Over and over again.
What’s Next:
Studio-wise, I am looking forward to opening up my books to new clients in the coming year and continuing to serve my existing clients well. I have a few new products launching (a kids guided gratitude journal!) and plan to open Design Retainer Bootcamp again at the end of January!
Personally, I feel like I have recently crossed the starting line of the rest of my life. Not to be dramatic, but it is no small thing to have children, to surrender your body for literal years. Growing and raising babies has been the most fulfilling thing I have done in my life, but also I am so excited to be able to come home to myself as an athlete and prioritize health, fitness, training (for golf), and nutrition in the coming year.
Socially, I am wrestling with whether or not I want to open up more online. I enjoy the healthy boundaries I have in place now, sharing artwork and, well, basically nothing else. But I also love connecting with you guys and also every time I share anything personal, I am met with so many DMs from people who are either in the same boat, or grateful to have heard about my boat. I am just a regular old person with a pretty normal life and house.
Home-wise, one interesting thing of note is that I have been aggressively selling our excess belongings on Facebook Marketplace. I have gotten rid of about 90% of our toys, and am combing through our other possessions room by room. My hope is to arrive at a much more simplified and peaceful version of home in the coming months. So far the change has been dramatic!
Thank you for being here, for supporting my studio, for following along, for making it this far in a very long blog post. I am grateful for your enthusiasm, encouragement, and for every DM and email. Cheers to 2023!