A diary of the pandemic

I’ve had a rough of this written since as far back as March 2021. Maybe this is just for me, but I wanted to share some of my reflections of my experience with the pandemic and how it impacted me and my work personally.

2020

At the start of 2020 things looked good, lovely interesting projects with interesting folks were on the horizon. Some age-friendly projects, maps on walls of coffee shops, theatre productions needing posters. All very nice lovely things I was looking forward to working on.

None of these things happened. The idea of getting older folks out and about would have been borderline criminal so the work on PlaceCal stalled. (I’m delighted to say that GFSC are back working on it in 2022 though.) Theatres closed, everywhere closed, everyone’s income dropped off.

My regular clients, who I do reports, brochures, posters, flyers, business cards, all of these vanished too. Everyone was taking in a sharp intake of breath, seeing if they could weather the pandemic. And I and many many other creatives found themselves without work.

It was quite frustrating, as I already work from a home studio, so was very able to carry on myself. But there was no work to do.

Some folks produced huge amounts of self promotional work, or created amazing personal creative pieces.

I basically played Animal Crossing and felt guilty. (I did design some lovely Starfleet uniforms for my characters in the game.)

The urge to create personal work didn’t appear for me. Despite having a few projects, I couldn’t find the energy for them.

I know a lot of folks struggled to be creative in this time too. It was a relief to see and talk with other creatives and realise we weren’t alone in it. I talk a lot about being kind to yourself, I’m not historically great at it! (I’m a lot better now.)

The other odd thing was that I came face to face with the privilege and awkwardness of my situation. I am not the sole earner of my household. My spouse’s work was not impacted other than moving to working from home.

It did hugely hit my sense of self worth though. I’m a lefty socialist and a huge believer in both the value of work, and having time to live. Striking a balance. A lot of people just didn’t have work, or support. And still had bills to pay. I was also covered by the UK Government’s self employment support scheme thankfully. A lot of friends and colleagues in the creative industry were not.

I had financial support, an employed partner, a roof over my head, and Animal Crossing to play.

My self worth still plummeted. I missed using my skills, problem solving, the satisfaction of a design coming together. And after a certain amount of time away from it, you start to forget you’re a skilled professional. The imposter syndrome really kicks it up a notch.

But some good things did happen.

Queer Design Club

I discovered the Queer Design Club by chance. Which was wonderful. I didn’t realise I was missing something like it until I found it.

I have found my industry pretty laddish. Not being one of the lads, or one of the girls I was often just sort of on the outside. So I kept to myself.

Finding a whole host of queer design folk — you can breathe out. In a way that you didn’t realise you were holding your breath in. I can talk about nail polish, about colourful clothes, about my wedding or honeymoon without second guessing the reaction.

This is why I reference my queerness quite often. On one level it’s a bit of defiance. Mostly it’s for every up and coming queer kid who didn’t know another LGBTQ+ person in the workplace or industry. At least they can go “Oh he’s queer, maybe I can belong here”.

I’ve mentioned it before, but our industry is a bit crap at being a diverse and welcoming place. It’s getting better, but there’s a way to go.

T-shirts!

I got some t-shirts printed! I was really proud of that, and loved seeing all my friends in them. And I’m still pleased with the design. Need to do more!

Mentoring

I started mentoring again with 1MM. I had the time, and have lots of experience so hoped to be useful to some folks getting started.

Squid!

I relaunched Squid, and I’m still two years later really happy with it, though it needs some new work adding. It was really well received, and though it’s not a designers for designers site, it’s really not meant to be. It’s very me, and makes me smile.

Change of title

Titles are a bit weird when you’re a one person band. Some folks stick with designer, some folks go for creative director. I felt none of that sat quite right for me. I’ve changed my approach, on realising how much I value the conversation. Thinking how important that step is I felt calling myself a designer didn’t communicate it clearly enough to my clients. So currently it’s “branding and design consultant”. (I’d say most designers value the conversation and process — but I felt my clients often didn’t expect that.)

Work started to pick up

Towards the end of 2020 quite a lot of work inquiries came in. A small branding project I worked on in late 2020 helped get two lovely people get hired. They sent me a lovely bottle of fizz to thank me 😀

I started to find my voice

Partly through therapy, partly through getting older I’ve decided to accept myself a lot more as a queer person. To stop worrying about whether I seemed like what I thought a proper designer should be like.

I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not. I probably never had to, but I felt I should.

So, the colourful hair and nail polish is here to stay. I’ve never felt more confident before than I did in a meeting before the pandemic. Sat there in gold nail polish and ahem, disagreeing with a client because I thought I could help.

So that’s 2020, 2021 was very different, and 2022 is shaping up to be different again. It’s interesting (for me at least!) to reflect how much I’ve developed and changed in the last few years.

I often end these posts with great intentions, but I am booking time in my calendar to write updates. So I do hope to have some updates sooner than later. Fingers crossed!