We recently connected with Nichole Wileczek and have shared our conversation below.

Nichole, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Each creative business owner’s story on how they made their passion into a career is wildly different, but with other creatives as my own clients, I’ve learned that it is our passion in creativity that connects each and every one of us.

As such, like many, I grew up with an inclination for the arts; from writing, to painting, to photography, and of course, to graphic design. In college I pursued photography as a “side hustle” and even had a best friend who had already created a full-time career from photography. Still, I didn’t see photography as a realistic career for myself (partially due to a lack of true passion in photography specifically, and partially due to my parents’ and society’s expectations). So, after graduating college, I snagged a corporate job in survey methodology (nope, no passion there). Unfortunately, that job took a huge toll on my mental health, mostly due to its toxic environment rather than the life of a 9-5. It was this downward spiral that I attribute as the catalyst to my brand and web design career today.

I eventually realized it was up to me to combat the stress and anxiety that my corporate job was causing, and so, with my handy-dandy 2014 iPad 2, I started designing small graphics as a creative outlet. Luck, and maybe the universe, was on my side, because within a couple weeks of posting these graphics on Instagram (with no goal in mind), a friend reached out and asked if I designed websites. That was when I first saw my digital creative skills and an opportunity beyond a hobby. While I had only ever made websites for myself, I said yes (also letting her know my minimal experience) and made my first $100 designing her bookstagram website. From there, I had a few more friends with creative hobbies to careers reach out for logos and websites as well, and so another creative side hustle bloomed.

It was the pure joy and excitement from designing logos and websites for friends and mutuals that made me realize that I wanted to turn this side-hustle into something more serious, but naturally, I still had doubts and fears. As my skills developed, so did my passion and commitment to graphic design. Within a year and a half, I went part-time at my corporate job, with the goal to eventually make graphic design my full-time career. At the end of 2021, I made my decision, gave my corporate job a 2 month notice, and have been a full-time designer since Feb 2022.

In short, creativity has always been a part of my personality, but it wasn’t until I hit a block in my career path that I realized that I could turn that passion into a career. While it was my outside environment that served as my push to pursue design professionally, I took those opportunities and turned it into a reality.

Nichole, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi everyone, I’m Nichole and in short, I’m a brand and web designer, cat mom of two, (new) Miami resident, wife to a loud Italian, and book lover.

I have always been someone with creative hobbies, and even dabbled in photography from high-school through college! As much as I still love photography, it was more of an enjoyable hobby than a passion, and so it never grew from the side hustle it was in college. In 2019, I started exploring digital art as a creative outlet when my corporate job at the time was a big stressor in my life. With luck and opportunities, my enjoyment of digital design pretty quickly turned into a passion, and in 2020, I officially started designing logo suites and websites for other creatives professionally. If you’re interested in more deets around exactly how my hobby turned into a career, I dive deeper into my journey in another prompt :)

Today I design brands and websites for fellow creative service providers, namely photographers and videographers, as my own background in photography allows me to understand the base structure of their businesses, that unique eye and talent that each photographer or videographer has, and their goal to tell a story of emotions, connections, love, growth, etc. in their own artistic niche. Working with creatives truly brings me so much joy and purpose; not only do I get to learn about each individual’s own journey and the struggles and achievements they’ve made along the way, I simply find so much fulfillment in being a partner in growth with fellow creative business owners. While my offerings have developed through finding what has the biggest impact for creatives, I believe that the process my clients go through provides so much more than a professionally designed logo suite and website. The first endeavor that ALL of my clients go through is defining their brand identity. Together, my clients and I dive deep and answer the hard questions about their beliefs, values, and goals and how their personal life connects to their business journey. We comb through who they’ve worked with to determine exactly who their target audience is, so that we can take those values and goals and talk directly to those dream clients through intentional design and messaging. This foundation not only allows me to create a brand and website design suite that is authentic to my clients and their business, but time and time again, has proved to provide my clients clarity and confidence in their journey towards success.

On a day to day basis when I’m not in the world of design, 65% of the time you can find me reading a fantasy book next two my two kitties. That last 35% is comprised of re-organizing my furniture and decor, hanging out with my husband and friends, playing video games, and watching TV (I am a homebody for sure). I am thankful that my career as a business owner allows me to actually have a work-life balance; yes, some work weeks are busy as crap, but I get my social time, alone time, and 9 hours of sleep pretty consistently. If you follow me on social media, you’ll also see there is somehow always something outside of my work and daily routine going on; from getting married in 2022, to one of my cats getting diagnosed with asthma and diabetes (meaning he now has to get an insulin shot at 7am and 7pm everyday), to moving from Washington D.C. to Miami (and then moving from one Miami apartment to another within 4 months), life of a young adult is crazy, which I know so many of you can attest to. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking next month will chill out, but I don’t think life really ever chills out; so here’s to living a life of passion and being surrounded by love and joy, even in a life of never ending surprises.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

As a young creative business owner, you also have to learn to be a content creator and marketer on social media, whether that be Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, etc. In my industry, Instagram is the ticket, and to be transparent, I have had a not-so-pretty journey with it.

In the beginning, I didn’t think too much about what I posted on my business Instagram, I just shared the content I created. Once I started getting more serious in my business, I naturally started to care more about the number of followers I had and the number of views and likes I was getting, so I started putting more time into how I was presenting my work. When that effort did not result in an influx of followers and likes, I grew extremely frustrated, and would often go MIA on social media for weeks at a time. Eventually, I accepted that social media was not my expertise, and so I hired a virtual assistant; I posted more consistently, posted more than just my content (e.g., about me, BTS, tips & tricks, etc.), and engaged more with my audience. This did have a significant impact on the followers and likes coming in, but it took SO MUCH TIME out of my day, even with a virtual assistant. I’ll spare you the rest of the journey, because it follows a similar path of ups and down in effort and audience growth, but in the end, I eventually learned that my relationship with Instagram was never going to get better unless I first changed my perspective of it.

Instagram’s algorithm is never going to be your friend and you have to accept that; it’s a constantly evolving equation around your frequency of posts, types of posts, tending sounds, etc.. Some people work with that equation and do find success in growing their audience. You have to decide if the time and effort plus the mix of failures and successes is worth it to you, and it’s okay if it’s not. It was when I accepted that it was not worth it for me that I realized that regardless of the number of followers I had, my business was successful. I took a step back and asked how it was successful when the large majority of my inquiries came from social media and I didn’t have a large following – it’s because my audience is filled with supportive fellow creatives and my own clients who share my work and recommend me to others in honesty. Once I was able to change my perspective of Instagram, I was able to find the balance of effort put into my engagement and posting. That balance stems from being honest with myself and also presenting my content honest to my style of design. This has lead to a gradual audience growth, and I am okay with that!

In short, I am still growing my audience on Instagram, but I also have also changed my view of social media – your audience is important, but the number of followers is less important than having a community that genuinely recommends your business to their own audience. And as a final reminder, BE YOUR DANG SELF.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

EDUCATION!!!!!!! I will always recommend that other creatives and business owners take educational opportunities. I took way too long to start looking for resources that would help me improve my skills as a designer and business owner – as soon as I did take those opportunities, I saw so much growth. The two variables that stopped me from using these resources were the investment and simply finding them.

Determining if you can afford education is difficult, because most of the time, new business owners can’t. I both found a way to make it work and took a financial risk. Everyone that I have personally talked to who took a financial risk to invest in education, said it paid off. While I can’t guarantee that, I do agree that investment in education is worth the risk, you just have to have a backup plan (which looks different for everyone, for me, it was my own personal bank).

Finding the resources is difficult if you don’t have fellow creatives in your industry pointing you in the right direction. My suggestion is to both search on Instagram for educators in your industry, and joining Facebook communities for business owners/creatives. When I posted on a Facebook community for recommendation for a graphic/web designer course, people were SO happy to help and provided me so many recommendations!!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cocoscatalog.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocoscatalog/

Image Credits
Headshot – Ashton Sotiro