Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sierra Houk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sierra, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

I’ve experienced a variety of work environments, from a few different teams at Amazon to a mid-sized ad agency to non-profit to now working on my own as a freelancer. Maybe the most important lesson I’ve learned is how to create an environment where I personally can be creative. For me that looks like working alone in private where I don’t feel like I have to perform or present a certain way. Offices just aren’t set up for my flavor of neurodivergence and in them I felt like I was spending all of my energy fitting into the environment—plus the energy of actual doing the work. In those situations it doesn’t matter how much I like the work, I’ll eventually get burned out.

Freelancing has been a great fit for me because I have more control over my communication preferences (mostly email with written requests or feedback vs. meetings, calls or video chats) and have fewer interruptions. For me, those accommodations have made up for the downsides of freelancing like less creative collaboration or having to do everything as a sole proprietor/business owner.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a freelance visual designer, the majority of the stuff I make is digital—social content, banner ads, gifs, emails… Every so often a print project like posters, trade fair graphics or merch. I love whenever I get to create my own illustrations for projects (that’s also when I feel the most impostor syndrome lol). On the side I like to make any kind of wearable art like jewelry and t-shirts and will occasionally sell those kinds of things at flea markets or craft fairs under the name Eye Boogers.

As a freelance designer I feel like I’ve found my niche in the social justice/non-profit world. I’m very proud that I get to make stuff for organizations like Planned Parenthood, National Women’s Law Center, even the Sierra Club (which always feels very special to me as a Sierra!) through one of the agencies that I freelance for. Doing work that aligns with my values has just gotten more and more important to me throughout my career.

How did you build your audience on social media?

For a long time I struggled to decide whether to build a social page that’s just for my business and keep a personal one separately OR just have a personal page where I talk about what I work on. It seems like what you’re *supposed* to do as an Artist is have your social accounts for your business and then not only make your art, but make content about you making your art. No matter how motivated I get to start a social account like that, I always run out of steam. I have also always struggled to stick to one artistic style or just one medium, which doesn’t lend itself well to creating a consistent brand on social.

So, what has worked best for me is just keeping up my personal social presence and occasionally talking about work stuff on there. Instead of being Sierra Houk Design I’m just Sierra Houk. I don’t think about a posting schedule or showing off every single thing I’m working on during the day, so I’m also not too focused on constantly growing that audience. Instead, the audience I have really knows me and the causes I care about.

Social media ends up being less of a place for me to attract new clients, but more to share with the people who already follow me, remind them every so often that I’m a freelance designer and am open to work, and occasionally that will lead to a referral from a follower. I love a referral over someone just finding me out of the blue—it feels like the relationship begins with them trusting me instead of having to prove myself to them.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Making the switch to freelancing full-time was a very conscious pivot away from the career path that I felt like I was on either as an in-house designer or at an ad agency. The more “successful” I was in that world, the more meetings I was put in and the less time I spent actually designing. I have no interest in managing other people, and after getting to the art director level it felt like the opportunities those jobs had would pull me away from actually creating art. I didn’t want to become a creative director who never opens Photoshop and spends all day in meetings with non-creative people talking about budgets.

Freelancing lets me be specific about what skills I offer out to the world. As a non-employee, people are generally more sensitive to how they’re using my time and services, so I’m not called into unnecessary meetings. I’m not pressured to “climb the ladder” in their company and take on responsibilities that have nothing to do with my areas of interest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sierrahouk.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sierrahouk
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/sierrahouk