We recently connected with Zoë Spring and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Zoë, thanks for joining us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today.

I’m someone who likes to move quickly, and one of my biggest lessons has been learning to let my career unfold at its own (sometimes maddeningly slow) pace.

I arrived at graphic design after a few false starts. Coming out of college, I wanted to be a freelance writer, but when the going got tough I had to acknowledge that I lacked the sense of vocation needed to overcome the lonely, steep barriers to entry. Having set that dream aside and needing to earn money, I  learned how to code and spent some time as a front-end developer and project manager at a web agency. It was there, collaborating with amazing design firms, that I realized I was on the wrong team. I went back to school for graphic design at age 30, and ever since have had the feeling of playing catch up with all the creatives who studied design as undergraduates.

It’s easy to think that I should have embraced my artistic side early and applied to a design program right out of high school. But that would be to wish I had a completely different life. I’d never heard of graphic design in high school, and every inch of me was excited to move to New York City and study literature at NYU. It’s where I met my husband. It’s the reason I live where I live, with the family I have. By the time I realized that design was the right work for me, I was several life decisions away from a traditional career track in the field. Sometimes I’m susceptible to “what ifs”, but I find it more productive to trust this lateral journey and appreciate the gifts I’ve received along the way. I truly believe that my undergraduate studies, my writing experience, and my web and project management chops have made me a more versatile designer and given me the tools I need to run my own business.

To people looking for a quicker way to arrive at their goals, I would say that speed is great if you can achieve it, but trusting in your own intuition and the wisdom of the process is probably, counterintuitively, the most efficient way forward.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a graphic designer and illustrator, but I did not arrive here by a direct road. I studied literature and languages as an undergad, and I worked in writing, web development, and project management before I discovered the craft I could devote my life to. The throughline in this varied career path is an enthusiasm for people, ideas, and storytelling, and a tendency towards the eclectic. The illustrator Tom Froese, mostly joking but also not, defined the motives of a graphic designer as wanting “to make the coolest, most culturally significant thing ever,” and those of an illustrator as wanting “to draw whatever the hell I want.” I identify with both of these. Maybe that’s why it took me a while to find a line of work big enough to hold them all.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

During COVID I gave myself a loan and took a work sabbatical to focus on self-initiated projects and to make art in an open-ended way. I began drawing more and explored different techniques for collage and portraiture. At a certain point I started making portraits for friends and family members which allowed me to earn a little money on the side. Adding those projects to my portfolio helped me land illustration gigs when I reopened my commercial design practice and has attracted new kinds of opportunities. I had one graphic design client tell me recently that he hired me not because of any particular design project I’d made but for the way I drew people’s faces. Portrait and collage are not my main hustle now, but they are completely intertwined with my business and clientele and I love the variation and fresh inspiration they bring to my paid work.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My career has been so full of pivots that I think of it as a rhythmic process, each phase lasting for a few years before necessity demands a change. When I went back to school for design, I was working part-time as a project manager. Once I finished my program, I left the agency where I had been working, struck out as a freelancer, and spent 18 months doing IA, wireframes, design, and project management for my clients. I eventually took a full-time position on the marketing design team of a publishing company. Four years later, when my second son was about to arrive, it became clear from a logistical perspective that I couldn’t keep the same schedule I’d had before. Leaving my job wasn’t my first choice, but it was what I needed to do for my growing family, and I entered another phase of freelancing. I was all prepared to relaunch myself on the job market in May of 2020, but then March of 2020 happened, and my full-time job became caring for a 1 and a 4-year-old in isolation. I’d never planned to stay at home, but in the end I was deeply grateful for that forced pause. It’s the reason I took my sabbatical. Now I’m emerging from almost four years of time outside of a traditional office environment and I’m ready to get back in. Looking back, I see phases of expansion and contraction, strategic shifts, and valuable detours. There are no models for this kind of career track. I was just doing what I needed to do when I was called to do it, and trying to keep growing creatively throughout.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://zoespring.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoetropism/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zo%C3%AB-spring-a162a44a/