We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Vanessa Dinh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Vanessa below.
Vanessa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
Honestly, this is something I have been thinking about more recently after graduation and freelancing for over a year at this point. Ultimately, I am happy to be a creative, but I acknowledge that there will be times I will have to work harder than others with regular jobs to make ends meet. My current job(s) are freelance graphic designer and part-time hostess at a restaurant that I also design print materials for. The way I found this job was because I was experiencing frustrations in the job market, applying to dozens of jobs every day and not getting much contact after. Getting that first entry level position to get your foot in the door is challenging. While I had some freelance work going on, it wasn’t stable enough by itself and I applied for a job for a restaurant that was opening in the following months. I didn’t expect to talk much about my design work, but my boss ended up hiring me as both a part-time hostess and his main in-house designer for menus and other printed material. I’m very thankful for this opportunity, but even with this job, the freelance checks are not as consistent on a week to week basis like my normal paycheck from hosting, because I’m not always working on design work for the restaurant. It really depends on the season and what events they have going on, or if they decide to change things with the menu. That being said, I didn’t want to limit myself to just working with one establishment, so I try to keep myself open to other opportunities. I’m still trying to use my degree, y’know! I still get outside freelance projects, but I also acknowledge that if I worked more hosting shifts, I would probably have more stable income, but less time to pursue my creative career goals and make personal art for myself. Hospitality is a natural strength of mine, and I have 5 years of experience in this industry, but it simply is not where I want to grow. I recognize that it’s an industry that never lacks work, so the consistency and stability is appealing. Sometimes work is just work, but over time it can be exhausting if you know you aren’t trying to move up within your job. But it pays the bills! So I am always at a cross roads trying to figure out how to move in the direction I want to go while also navigating adulthood and paying student loans. I’m happy that with my current employment, I am still able to have enough time during my week to still make personal art and work on my freelance projects, and I’m not struggling too much with my cost of living.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I got into graphic design because I knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied doing just one thing for the rest of my career, and I felt that it was more flexible in terms of the different areas of work to pursue. I mainly specialize in websites, branding, and print design, but I have dabbled in motion graphics and animations as well as social media marketing. Even though I have a degree in graphic design and I am very much pursuing a more stable job in that industry, I still have a passion for crafts and other mediums that aren’t exactly in the design field. My expertise in design has helped me in these other mediums and the skills I learned as an artist in general find ways of overlapping in my projects. I take every opportunity to learn new skills, design related or not, because you never know how those skills might come up in future projects that you didn’t expect to. So far in my freelancing career, I have had a 100% satisfaction rate. No matter how big or small the client is, I give it my all and make sure I find solutions that are tailored to every client. I value the connection over the paycheck. There are times I offer low priced services because I understand that not everyone has the biggest budget. A lot of my clients are young creatives that are around my age. We all know how expensive living on your own can be, and I don’t want cost to get in the way of them being able to have good quality, professional design work done. If they like the work, they will come back for future projects. As they become more successful, they will carry that forward and help me become successful too. I shifted my mindset very early in my freelance career to focus more on the relationship with the client rather than the monetary value of the project, and it has given me a network of people who just genuinely like to work with me because of my positive attitude and kindness. It’s important to open your heart and listen more than just drafting and designing. I take pride in knowing that each client is heard and seen, and every thought they express is considered when I work with them. It’s all worth it in the end when the client is satisfied above and beyond their expectations.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is the people you meet. Finding community is very important, especially as a creative. You wouldn’t be able to find job opportunities or networking events if you didn’t have the right people in your circle. Networking is a skill I had to acquire quickly and it has proven to be the best skill to have as a creative/independent professional artist. You can make all the art you want but it’s not going to get much attention if it just sits in your studio for nobody else to admire. Networking helps you find the people that will appreciate you and your art, and help you find ways to connect your art to those people. You can’t help clients through freelancing if you don’t meet potential clients period. Aside from work opportunities, it allows you to meet wonderful people who are all creative just like you, and you start learning more about different art practices and in turn, it helps you evolve as an artist yourself.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I think this can be said about most creatives: being a creative is not easy. It’s not at all like a regular job with a clock in and clock out schedule and separation between work and life clearly divided. Being a creative means having projects running in the backburner of your mind while you work your day job. Being creative means being totally drained from a day of working and not getting much monetary compensation out of it. Being creative means dedicating hours, days, months, years, to your craft and spending all that time just to be told that it can be found cheaper on Amazon. We spend so many years refining our skills that when we get to a point of efficiency, it almost becomes cheaper to the consumer because the only metric they have to measure value is time spent working. But I spent so many years to get to the point where I can do something in under an hour. There are a lot of things that we creatives have to endure, and not many non-creative people will truly understand the work put into something we make.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nessdinh.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smol_ness/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessadinh/
