We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carly Mack a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carly, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

What has led me to the most success in my career is genuinely having fun with what I do and ignoring all the noise from other people telling me what to do. Most of the time, the path to success feels scary and unknown. A couple months ago, I was let go from my stable 9-5 job weeks before moving out of my parents house and was placed in one of the most difficult situations of my life. At that point, my only other income was my design commissions, but it was far from being enough to support myself. I had the realization that this was 100% meant to be and would push me harder than ever to actually pursue my goals to be a freelance designer. Two months later, I still haven’t gotten a “real job” like my family suggested, but I’m fully supporting myself on commissions and social media marketing. It’s a scary time to work for yourself and not always know when you’ll be paid, but I believe this is the path that was meant for me and I work hard every day to make it.

Carly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a self taught graphic designer from Dallas, Texas. I accidentally stumbled into this passion during college, where I took a design elective on accident (thanks TSU!) Once I had to lock myself up in my apartment during the pandemic, I began to realize how much fun Photoshop could be. Two years, one unrelated Bachelor’s degree, and thousands of hours of practice later, I’m now somehow working for myself and getting to create art with talented musicians from all over the world. My passion has always lied in music, but I’m now looking to expand my design services to businesses.

As a designer, I always focused on learning everything I could, and be a jack of all trades. Now that I have that experience under my belt, I feel like it’s time for me to niche down and be known for a certain style. My clients come to me knowing that I will always deliver a retro-inspired, highly textured, and eye-catching design that will stand out every single time.

It’s always an incredible feeling when a client trusts me enough to say “you have full creative freedom, do what you want!” I take a huge responsibility in making sure that their expectations are exceeded every single time and that I design exactly what they’re envisioning. Most of my clients are word of mouth, so I’m confident that I achieve that. I would literally be living on the streets if it weren’t for the clients that give me work or recommendations, so it’s my responsibility that I give them the best work possible.

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

I’m not going to lie, I kind of hate the expectation for artists to be “content creators” for social media in order to get clients. I wanted to answer this question for anyone who struggles with this, because you’re certainly not alone. When I started my design account, I just posted whatever I made with no expectations. I began to follow designers who inspired me and got connected with the community. My biggest growth tip is to engage with content you love, give compliments, and talk to people. Once social media distracts from your art, you’ve lost the plot.

On a more technical aspect, social media is pivoting to video content, and us designers are struggling to incorporate that into our work. Most of us don’t have national recognition where we can just stop posting and still be successful, so we have to adjust and keep posting “content” associated with our art. I begrudgingly make TikToks and Reels to engage people outside of my network and it seems to be somewhat successful.

Overall, we all struggle with comparison and trying to be better than everyone else. It’s almost soul crushing to see a new account shoot up to 50k followers in the time it took you to hit 2k. In order to be a successful artist and simultaneously on social media, you have to block out the noise of others and do you. You never know what path someone is on their artistic journey, and quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. Every design I’ve made where I try to be like someone else fails. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but at the end of the day you have to create for your own satisfaction.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

As much as I dislike social media sometimes, my short answer to this question is: social media! I follow and keep in touch with all of my clients and have developed a friendship with many of them. I comment, share, and engage with them on a regular basis because I genuinely care, and also want them to keep me in mind if they have a design need. The clients I work with the most even have my phone number and just casually text me for work.

I also find that being myself on social media shows that I’m not just a machine that pumps out cool posters a few times a week. I love to share random thoughts on my Instagram stories or even just a funny picture of my pets. It brings out the human side of me, and lets people see another aspect of my personality.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cmackmadeit.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cmackmadeit/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlymackmgmt/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cmackmadeit
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@cmackmadeit