We were lucky to catch up with KaJay Rooke recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi KaJay, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

In short – yes! I’m very happy as an artist/creative; sure, I have my days where imposter syndrome sets in and it can be challenging to push it away or have creative block when staring at a blank page but I think most people in general can struggle with those things on occasion.

For me, I really enjoy learning new things which is part of why starting my own design business was so appealing to me. It was a healthy challenge where I had to push myself to use my own free time to learn proper bookkeeping, taxes, copyrighting, government forms, invoicing, how to find & win clients etc. All things that weren’t necessarily creative but I had to learn them to make my end goal possible and looking back it’s been a learning experience I wouldn’t trade for anything.

With that said, usually on the harder days or when work is slow, I definitely daydream about what it would be like to have a regular job. I think about how much I could do with all the income I miss not having a steady 9-5 but then I also am reminded of all the opportunities I have had taking on the freelance path. That’s the joy of working for yourself though, right? I really can decide what, when, and who I work with and I can also decide to pause that and go work virtually any job I want just to see if it sparks some new passion or if I just want to experience something new.

Like, if I woke up tomorrow (barring any existing contracts in mind and not leaving anyone out to dry) and decided I wanted to work at a doggy daycare to spend more time with some animals and work a physically more active job, I could!

KaJay, 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?

How to sum up an entire career (thus far) into a few paragraphs that is still engaging for you (my readers) to comb through; let’s give this a try!

I was able to crack into the creative industry thanks to a mandatory internship I did while in college. Though it wasn’t necessarily the world’s most glamorous design gig, it was a job in my profession that led to continued work with that company after graduation (score!). I’d also think it’s safe to say that my internship turned full-time job was crucial to the solid foundation of opportunities that followed & my career today. I was able to grow from that first job and move to the big city working for a classic, fast-paced, global agency that was an eye-opening few years.

After deciding that I wanted to be a full-time designer instead of a production person, I explored the avenue of being self-employed and contracting myself around; Since early 2019 I haven’t looked back. Along this journey, I’ve had the pleasure of dabbling in production work and creative projects for more than 25 companies big and small.

The coolest thing for me to look at as something that sets me apart from other designers is I have had the pleasure of reverse engineering the creative flow. What I mean by that is I started out as a fabricator, printing and building tradeshow booths and signage; understanding how inks worked and how to maintenance a variety of large-format printers. From there I moved into pre-press and building mechanical layouts for those printers which I was now better at because I know how the printers worked. I had a great understanding of substrates (i.e. what cool combinations I could explore or needed to stray away from) and I was able to grasp how those files needed to translate after printing onto the material to give the client the desired end result.

Since my days in Boston, I have taken my knowledge of pre-press, fabrication, collaborative environments and many other skills with me into my current freelancing graphic design. Melting together my past and present experience, I have very organized files, they are built to the right print spec, I can suggest unique print opportunities to clients that will make them stand out, and I can be a creative who designs eye-catching visuals for print or digital applications – most designers these days can’t say that.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I have been exposed to some of the most popular freelancers that are out there today and a few things I wish to emulate from their careers. The first, and debatable the most important for me right now, is their flexibility. Obviously a busy freelancer is still a busy person but there are so many perks to working from a remote location. Which, leads me into the other quality that really drives me to earn success as a freelancer: being remote. If it weren’t for remote work being more popular since Covid, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of working with some dream clients.

I would say both the flexibility in choosing who/what projects I work on and the ability to work from places outside of an office (even my home office) are enormous goals for me.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Seeing that project or design live. Living in such a digital age where I design so much on this 15″ screen, it’s nice to be reminded that these designs are real and are (in most cases) tangible. It can be as simple as seeing a printed mug or cup come to life as a giveaway item to something as intricate as a tradeshow space with over 100,000 square feet of structures covered in graphics, signage etc.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kajaydesigns.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kajay.designs

Image Credits
Jumping Jeep & keychain photos by Hannah Sourbeer, Thunderstruck award photo by MacKenzie Hennessey, Bike jumping & close up with Wicked beanie photos by Kerstin Holster, Profile portrait by Alex Christensen