We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Caleb Quire. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Caleb below.
Caleb, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
First step is to define what success means to you. And then hammer in the tenacity to keep going and give it your healthy all. I used to have the “suck it up. get it done”, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”, “If you’re not hustling 24/7, you’re wrong” kind of mentality and for the beginning part of my career I believe it was necessary. I needed to build the drive to push through the hard times with no wiggle room for excuses. However, I saw success as big figures, a strong team, lots of respect, and an influx of work just waiting at my front door. Every small victory was a tiny stepping stone to the larger goal and nothing too big enough to enjoy. So victories started to feel fake and useless. I never felt successful; so I ground my teeth and went harder. No quarter.
This mentality wasn’t healthy long term and I quickly burned out and crashed in my own creative flames. In a few years, I had managed to get to the point where I was solely working my design job to live and pay bills; but all that hustle and forced work made it hard to be creative. I started struggling every day with an identity issue because if I couldn’t create anymore then who was I? I would stare at a blank screen trying to squeeze out any juice I had. It wasn’t until this year that I changed my perception and goal of “success” to simply having the opportunity to let my creative brain loose with moments of peaceful living. Success is a simplistic formula but by no means an easy one when your starting point is low; but if you refuse to give up, you’ll make it. Just be careful of pushing yourself so hard you aren’t able to enjoy your life.
Caleb, 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?
Oh man, we could go for hours on this topic there’s so much to say. That’s probably not the worst way to start this, actually. There isn’t a better way to say it than: I LOVE CREATING! Not just graphic design but so many different art and non art related things. I like having a vision in my head and executing it. I want to see it in my hands! This goes back to my longest love relationship with drawing and watercolor. I’ve been drawing since I was a wee lad but picked up watercolors when I was around 23 and found I could lose hours working away. At the time I was going to school to be a nurse and luckily that fell through. I took a couple classes of graphic design and had a friendly push to get into the industry so I started with people I knew. Eventually I had made pizza boxes, t-shirts, logos, banners, stickers, etc. Just skimming by with barely a penny to squeeze for anything aside from the basic survival needs. Those were some hard years. I have a picture of coins tossed out on my bed for gas to go to a job so I could hopefully pay my phone bill in a week. I never gave up, though. Hell, I wanted to so many times but I never could actually do it. Luckily, those years of constant hard work shone on some people and I was given opportunities for jobs that opened doors for me.
A local brewery took me under their wing to help with lots of designs and content creation which then allowed me to stretch my creative wings and grow my business. I got a good amount of work in the craft barbecue industry for a bit from all over the United States which opened my eyes more to the power of social media. These days I still work with Oak Road Brewery creating more than designs as I’ve gotten into videography, photography, skits, and absolute shenanigans.
My love of creating is stronger more than ever now that I have more tools at my disposal. To name a handful of stuff I enjoy doing outside of design: block printing, 3D printing, videography, photography, teaching art classes (with beer), making resin dice, and this one wraps all of those things into one: illustrating, writing, and curating a Dungeons & Dragons campaign/show,
What I’m most proud of, would be the clients I get to work with. I have a handful of consistent people that are fantastic and give me the opportunity to create for them and I’m never empty of excitement for the next project. So, if you’re curious about hiring me, just know that I’m very excited to see what we can create together!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Before Covid, I had a small studio in a local coffee shop, Coastal Coffee Roasters, and funny enough at the time I wasn’t getting any jobs for graphic design. I spent my days peddling watercolors and trying to generate commissions. They were the few projects that actually delivered money. I didn’t have much graphic design experience yet. Time progressed and the pandemic hit which means nobody was spending money on watercolor paintings. Small businesses were desperately trying to pivot on their own which opened up a small groove for me to do digital illustrations and designs for them. Here and there I started getting more jobs in design and stopped watercolors (almost completely). I focused on the new direction and it paid off. It was easier to help someone when they benefitted from my art than convincing someone this painting on their wall was a good investment.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I’ve got two: contracts & communication. Contracts can be a pain and I work with small businesses so a lot of my clients aren’t expecting one but it’s so necessary in certain situations. I’m not the best with following up with my clients after a job is done or even sometimes between emails during a job. The contract sets in stone what is expected of both parties but also forces everyone to kind of be on their better behavior. I’ve had horror jobs where the client wouldn’t respond for months and then pop up out of the blue like nothing happened. I’ve had one guy threaten to sue me because he refused to pay me money to keep working if he already gave me a tiny deposit a year ago. And the opposite, I’ve lost clients because I didn’t communicate well enough and they weren’t sold on working with me. It doesn’t take much to send a quick update but it helps keeps the working relationship golden.
Get a contract to cover everyone’s ass!
Contact Info:
- Website: Thecqworks.com
- Instagram: CQWorks or BakedCatStudio
- Youtube: Casting Fate
Image Credits
All taken by me like 3 min ago