Andrew Gomez

EARN TRUST

I had a client that is pretty notable graph/muralist from Seattle come to me as a referral from a mutual friend to help them with their merch/design logitistics. He had expressed that a couple other print shops burned him in the past with things that shouldn’t of been looked over (color matching off, bad impression/pick up traces on merch, merch count off, etc). And it was not a difficult road to get to a place where I earned his trust on handling his print work. But it was a long one. Now he just sends me his art, and I prep it and make adjustments to it to make for a better print, most decisions in that part of the process I don’t have to relay to him cause we are at that level now that I know what will work and not work for him.

Insist on the Highest Standards

So this is pretty much been a hindrance on why I don’t get consistent, easy work. Cause I just won’t “throw stuff together” for a client. Even if they are telling me to do it I find it hard to let go of things in a project that I know that can be improved. Like to a fault. I have found myself garnering a smaller clientele over the years that keep coming back to me cause they know when I hand over deliverables, they are going to be on time and they are coming correct. Cause at the end of the day my name is attached to it. Who knows who’s going to see anything I touched in the wild. Not worth the risk.

Frugality

Story of my life. I HATE spending money when I don’t have to. And the same for anyone I work with. If I can find a way to shave off costs where its a waste of budget I am going to bring it up. I think there is a different between paying for things and labour for a fair price. But paying for something that is not creating any meaningful impact on something, it needs to go.

Learn and Be Curious

This one has been hard for me over the last few years. It wasn’t until this year where I took a hard look at myself and reflected on where I was at in my life, and what I really wanted to do with myself. And I realized when it has come to design, drawing, and the tchnology and techniques evolving around that currently I have been pretty shut off from that. A lot of that from my own doing. I mean, thats why I am here, to unlearn that type of thinking and to learn more about the things I want to aspire to. Not sit on the sidelines and watch “what could’ve of been” pass me by.

So I had a experience as of late where I did say yes to a job I wasn’t, or didn’t feel as ready to take on. But it was a opportunity that doesn’t come by often. I have a friend that works in the music industry, more on the side of merchandising and online store fulfillment. His shop designs merch and limited pop up shops for some of the biggest names in music right now. And he hit me up out of the blue to see if I would be interested in helping out his design team come up with a fresh merchline for Lana Del Rey’s seminal album “Born to Die”‘s 10th anniversary, which was coming up at the time.

I immediately said yes for up until this point all my clientele as far as music has been in the realm of more independent artists ranging in metal, punk, and other related sub genres.

Half the time through the project I was learning on the fly. I think towards the end the other designers realized I was a little green behind the ears as far as some foundational stuff, and just general culture and language you come to possess over working in the professional field. I got my work done, met my deadlines, learned a crap ton on how to navigate through certain processes, and more importantly I made life long friendships with those designers from that team. Should have I said yes at the time? Maybe not. I struggled the first couple weeks on that project, stressed myself out to no end. But I don’t regret it. It was a good learning experience for me. It was a opportunity I would say yes to a million times over cause those pieces I made garnered me more business shortly after.

This speaker talked about some real affirming things I have come to learn working in design as a freelancer over the years. It does come down to not what you’re schooling is per se, but what you can bring to the table and how impactful it will be to a project.

I worked on smaller branding projects for restaurants, bakeries, breweries, record labels to venture capital groups and bigger non profits. At the end of the day I realized I have no idea where I want to land on “what I want to work in” when I get out of this program. I know I want to know more than I do now when it comes to my trade. That I know for sure.

I think if I am forced to think on it, ideally I like to work in a space where creative is not as constrained by so much budget, but my mistrust from the client. Not often, but sometimes I get into situations where it really does feel like the client hired you with the best intentions to give you agency, but in the end they want to design it themselves. I like to reach a space where there is mutual trust and empathy between the creative, the management, and the clients I work with. Everyone working in tandem to produce meaningful work, work that will be impactful to everyone involved.

Also this might come off as mere nativity or mere enthusiasm, but I like to work at a place where it doesn’t feel like I am designing solely to produce profit for someone. I worked with non profits before and I liked the feeling from that, but they are usually more times than not a client that limits your creativity due to budget constraints. A nice sweet spot between the two I would be content with.