Navigating career:
Balancing client and personal work
Balancing client and personal work
Personal projects beyond client work provide crucial creative outlets for designers. These stories explore motivations that sparked meaningful side pursuits.
Personal projects beyond client work provide crucial creative outlets for designers. These stories explore motivations that sparked meaningful side pursuits.
Side projects are crucial for us at Hey—the store, the podcast. They’re not just about design, but are about building community, like spotlighting women in our podcast. The store lets people experience design culture through workshops too. These extensions keep us engaged with thinking beyond pure client work. We make whatever we want organically—no one tells us to create a poster or a podcast. When COVID prevented in-person events, we pivoted our women’s workshop idea into a podcast—again, organic evolution. My team embraced side projects, so managing them doesn’t feel like extra effort.
Side projects are crucial for us at Hey—the store, the podcast. They’re not just about design, but are about building community, like spotlighting women in our podcast. The store lets people experience design culture through workshops too. These extensions keep us engaged with thinking beyond pure client work. We make whatever we want organically—no one tells us to create a poster or a podcast. When COVID prevented in-person events, we pivoted our women’s workshop idea into a podcast—again, organic evolution. My team embraced side projects, so managing them doesn’t feel like extra effort.
Verònica Fuerte:
Speaker, Lecturer, and Mentor; Founder & Creative Directress of Hey studio. She views side projects as crucial for sustaining passion beyond client work.
Verònica Fuerte:
Speaker, Lecturer, and Mentor; Founder & Creative Directress of Hey studio. She views side projects as crucial for sustaining passion beyond client work.
We shifted to turn our side hustle into our main focus. To keep things fresh, we constantly seek new ideas and ways to push boundaries. We went from taking most client work to being very selective based on available time and interesting projects. This lets us do more meaningful cultural work while satisfying our creative urges. Now we’re stretched thin, so we devote all energy to our own projects and audiences rather than stretching ourselves thin. Our 30,000 Brand New subscribers and 2,000+ annual conference attendees give me all the professional and creative fulfillment we need. The audience reaction and the partnerships formed are what matter most.
Making side projects sustainable to support our real lives has been a learning curve. We make a profit but aren’t greedy—keeping conference prices affordable is our priority. I don’t need to get $5 million in the bank by overcharging. My goal is maximum accessibility for solo and small firm designers just starting out, so we watch every penny—it’s a balance between covering costs and keeping experiences as open as possible. We struggle to raise prices even when needed, but ultimately, it’s about finding a middle ground, not maximizing personal revenue. As long as we keep creating and serving our community, I don’t need to nickel and dime.
We shifted to turn our side hustle into our main focus. To keep things fresh, we constantly seek new ideas and ways to push boundaries. We went from taking most client work to being very selective based on available time and interesting projects. This lets us do more meaningful cultural work while satisfying our creative urges. Now we’re stretched thin, so we devote all energy to our own projects and audiences rather than stretching ourselves thin. Our 30,000 Brand New subscribers and 2,000+ annual conference attendees give me all the professional and creative fulfillment we need. The audience reaction and the partnerships formed are what matter most.
Making side projects sustainable to support our real lives has been a learning curve. We make a profit but aren’t greedy—keeping conference prices affordable is our priority. I don’t need to get $5 million in the bank by overcharging. My goal is maximum accessibility for solo and small firm designers just starting out, so we watch every penny—it’s a balance between covering costs and keeping experiences as open as possible. We struggle to raise prices even when needed, but ultimately, it’s about finding a middle ground, not maximizing personal revenue. As long as we keep creating and serving our community, I don’t need to nickel and dime.
Bryony Gomez-Palacio:
Designer and Co-founder of the UnderConsideration graphic design firm and the Brand New Conference. She shifted a side hustle into the main professional focus.
Bryony Gomez-Palacio:
Designer and Co-founder of the UnderConsideration graphic design firm and the Brand New Conference. She shifted a side hustle into the main professional focus.
I usually like to use side projects as a way of balancing out the skills I may not be using during my day job. For instance, my side project at my previous job as a design manager was purely playful and creative, like my Self Portrait project—no business motives, just an opportunity to learn some new creative skills. I’ve always tried having one main focus professionally, with side things for fun, not profit. But when I started prototyping read.cv, I was looking for my next career move, and it was a first step and validating a real business idea.
Pulling from personal needs is great for testing ideas. Sometimes it goes nowhere, but sometimes it takes off. I was at a point of needing to validate this idea to see if I could build something of my own. That personal origin let me start small while creating a possible business direction.
Andy Chung:
Founder and Designer at read.cv, a ‘show, don't tell’ professional network. He turned a personal solution into a business direction.
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