We’re an insta generation so apparently life is about having a vision for the future, finding a way to smash out endless goals and live our best life (all of the time.) For most people, I doubt this is the case.
The only thing certain in this life, is that there is no certainty.
The Supposed ‘Plan’
When I left University, it was with the sole intention of becoming a teacher. Other than a fleeting desire to become a criminal psychologist, I don’t think I’d ever seriously considered doing anything else. Years of taking registers with my one-eyed dolls and tatty teddies had apparently cemented my future. Toby’s plan was pretty straightforward too. Leave uni with a graphic design degree, get a job in a design agency and build a career doing what he loved. Hoorah!
And so the years go by and you just plod on doing the thing (you think) you’re supposed to be doing. I found myself teaching in some really challenging schools and Toby’s dream of working in a creative studio wasn’t panning out. For me, burnout was rapidly on the horizon and despite learning loads, Toby’s job was also leaving him completely unfulfilled (with a soul possibly destroyed.) He’d reached the end of the line, and after many conversations about where to go next, he bravely jumped ship with no real plan other than, ‘we’ll figure it out.’
Time for a rethink?
I continued teaching whilst Toby was at home carving out a design business for himself. This was great, but I was frustrated that I couldn’t find it in me to leave my own job. Switching up a career at 40 wasn’t on the cards for me. It was something other people did whilst I secretly harboured feelings of envy and disproportionate loathing?! The fear of being stuck in something that I couldn’t get out of was overwhelming but after far too many anxiety fuelled months, the decision was pretty much made. If I didn’t leave I was going to put my health in jeopardy so I took the bull by the giant horns, handed in my notice and joined Toby in the business. Obviously we were both elated at the sense of freedom and what felt like the ultimate rebellion, but there were genuine concerns about how this was all going to work. Financially we were in the s*** and although we had some fuzzy sort of plan, we knew working together was going to be interesting. And it was.
Shock to the system
Taking the step away from teaching and starting a completely new career, didn’t come quite as easily as I’d thought. Moving from a frantic school environment to being plonked at home quietly on a laptop, was unnerving to say the least. I felt like I was skiving, totally out of my comfort zone and battling with imposter syndrome.
Unsurprisingly Toby had also become used to doing things his way. In the first year of running the studio together, we argued over processes, how I wanted things to run and I would interfere with stuff that I actually knew nothing about. I don’t do the whole ‘let’s just see’ thing and Toby’s laid-back philosophy to work wasn’t something I was used to.
Figuring It Out
We’ve had to do a lot of talking to get to the place we are now in our business. We’ve accepted that we’re both really good at really different things and not so good at others. I love the mentoring, meeting new people, dreaming up a vision and my years of teaching experience has also become intrinsic to the way we work. There’s a level of patience and understanding that comes from working with children and families which I’d always thought was totally irrelevant to the design world, but it’s become the foundation of what we do. Toby on the other hand has all the design expertise to take a vision out of my head, into the physical, which in our job is very handy! He sees things from a new perspective and draws on knowledge and experience that I don’t have. He’s just really clever at what he does and I do tell him that because I think it’s important.
There are days when we stomp about and get sick of the sound of each other’s voices. There are days when I try to explain my ideas and not always in the right way. There are also days when I think SURELY it would be easier to just have a job where you don’t have to worry about making your own money. This year, we also added to the stress by going through our own rebrand which brought about some heated debates and we’re soon to launch our Graduate Design Programme which has taken a lot of figuring out!
We love what we do though and bringing our experiences together has allowed us to offer something unique to the amazing people we work with. Over the years we’ve found ourselves working with creative founders and independent businesses that care deeply about what they do. It’s the people like this who are building something so thoughtful and it’s them that inspire us to be even better at what we do.
Running a studio together was never part of the plan but how can we ever really know what’s waiting for us or how life can flip in an instant? If you see an opportunity and it feels good (or vomit inducing ) then take it.
You might just love it.
