04 → Laura Craig @lauracraigdesign
Laura (She/Her) is a freelance graphic designer working from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She does an inspiring amount of work surrounding social activism, and supporting her local community. We had the below interview over an email back and forth.
How has your graphic design journey looked?
My graphic design journey was led by my interest in art as a child and throughout school as well as my love for music and film. I have always enjoyed traditional art and was definitely motivated by my dad who is also an artist. I had difficulties with my own art teacher in highschool who was not helpful when I wanted to go to university but I knew it was something I wanted to do. I was able to get help from students at the art school I later attended for advice on my application and my dad helped me prepare my portfolio. I attended Belfast School Of Art (the only art college in Northern Ireland) and completed a foundation degree with a focus on Design and Photography. I progressed from my foundation course into a 3 Year Design and Illustration Bachelor's Degree. I graduated with 1st Class Honours in 2018.
During my time at university we had a series of lunchtime talks from local design studios and one in particular was a freelancer who was only 2 years older than I was at the time and I was shocked he was able to work freelance so quickly and definitely planted a seed in my brain. I worked in a publishing firm after graduating that was focused on travel and classic literature book design which I didn’t particularly enjoy. My year long contract ended and I wasn’t sure what to do and I was searching for creative communities. I was contacted by a friend from high school who worked in theatre about joining their team to help them with design. At this time I also found the Girls Rock School Northern Ireland team and joined a mentorship scheme which paired a senior designer with a junior designer. This is when I decided to try becoming fully freelance. I had no idea what I was doing and relied on online resources (such as Creative Lives In Progress, youtubers, etc) to work out invoicing, contracts and taxes.
I unfortunately only freelanced for 10 months before the Pandemic happened. I was hired by the Senior designer who mentored during that time so had regular work but was let go in March 2020. The pandemic was a blessing and curse. It was the closest i’ve come to giving up because the industries I had connections in (theatre, events, music) shut down and I had no income for months. I relied heavily on my community groups and theatre friends to adapt and work on online projects. The pandemic gave me the time I wouldn’t have had otherwise to develop my own brand and website which completely changed my freelance business once things opened up again. I have been independently freelance now since 2021 (working for myself in my own studio) and have been lucky to have varied and creative design work.
Even now as a student, as much as I enjoy certain aspects of my course and we do learn about brief writing, audience, etc. I would also say immediate information on freelancing is pretty sparse. Do you reckon that side of things should be more of a core part of university curriculums, or is it something you just have to learn through experience?
I had to learn through experience and there are elements that I was not prepared for at all when I started. I know not all courses are the same but I do feel like my course really lacked any proper business information and it was through networking and online that I was able to learn what I needed to after university. I think all design courses could benefit from basic business classes.
What does your idea of contentment look like? Is it monetary, a state of mind, a mix of two, or something different entirely? Can we find that in client work?
My idea of contentment is a mixture of both monetary and a state of mind. When everything is organised and set up in a way that lessens my anxieties around money I am definitely content. Money always worries me and early in my career I had a lot of anxiety about being paid which affected my day to day now I won’t start a project without contracts and deposits so I know I won’t be ghosted. I always make sure I have time for personal projects alongside client work. This can be difficult when i’m busy but I have always either improved my design skills or found new clients from personal work that is free from client constraints.
Did you have a childhood dream growing up? Apparently ¼ of people actually end up in their ‘dream job’. Is it all bullshit?
I have loved art in all forms since I was a child. I don’t know if I ever dreamed of being an artist as a child but I feel like that was due to not growing up around anyone who did that as a job. School didn’t promote that as an option for me and a lot of people have really old fashioned views on artistic careers. One of our core messaging in the Girls Rock School is: You can’t be what you can’t see, and it’s so important to me that younger people, especially younger girls are able to see what they can do and see people like them doing it. I don’t think it’s bullshit to have a dream job or aspirations but it does make me sad when people don’t have the opportunity to even try.
“You can’t be what you cant see.”
Looking at the socials for Girls Rock, I notice you’re involved in running all sorts of DIY design workshops like zine and t-shirt making. Which obviously have pretty heavy ties to that Punk culture. But not immediately to learning instruments / music itself. Do you find for young people it's quite an important thing to, I suppose, not put all their eggs in one basket but spread their wings and learn a variety of skills?
100% it is all about confidence building for us. I am not a musician myself so I don’t do any of the music teaching so we share our own skills and let the kids try a variety of things with no pressure attached. We all basically agreed that we would make a community that we wished we had when we were teenagers. It is rooted in the DIY punk scene and making your own luck because there isn’t always the opportunity here for kids to experience a lot of cultural things due to lack of arts funding.
Do you think your background, gender, where you live, etc has played into your ability to land work or the way you've been treated? Or are these factors you’ve found haven't mattered too much?
I live in a very small place so I do know that there would be more opportunities if I moved to places like London etc but I do love the creative community here. I don’t think my background or gender has ever affected my ability to land work. I definitely sought out female founded and female catered creative spaces when I left university so a lot of my contacts came from there. I don’t promote my work as being for women owned businesses but I definitely get more work from women and gender diverse people.
It's honestly great to hear that you’ve found things like gender and background haven't played a factor. When starting this project I anticipated a lot of horror stories from those things but perhaps I was too pessimistic!
There definitely will be horror stories but I’m lucky to not know if I haven't been chosen directly due to my background or gender. I’ve passed work along to people who I think would be more experienced for a project based on their own backgrounds.
Do you find you’re paid equivalently to the value you bring? Do you find clients misunderstand what goes into the service you provide them?
No I don’t think I am and that is down to external funding sources most of the time. We have a very underfunded arts sector here. Certain clients do understand the value but I do think I sometimes put more work into certain projects that goes beyond what I am being paid because it’s my work at the end of the day too. I’ve gotten better at ensuring the work is priced based on the value it brings.
How much does your moral compass play into the work you decide to take on, is it important to your practice? Do you find you have to sacrifice income to stick to your values?
I don’t see it as sacrificing income if it goes against my morals. I’ve turned down high paying work from organisations that go against my beliefs. I won’t work with political parties or places that are discriminatory to women or the LGBTQ community. I definitely wouldn’t produce that had discriminatory content. It can be very difficult to know who you are working with all of the time so it can cause problems.
In terms of the future, are you glass half-full, or half-empty about generative AI? Do you see it as a growing threat to your job security as a creative? Is it just a fad or something more sinister?
I’d love to view it as just another tool to utilize but I think it has been taken over by a lot of people who want to call themselves artists but haven’t put any effort into learning a skill. I haven’t seen any particularly inspiring AI generated work yet. The use of artwork in training the software is unethical to me. Look how quickly NFT died out. It feels like a sinister fad! People in the design industry were angry when computers came in though so who knows. Creativity is a unique human quality that can’t be replicated by AI.
“Creativity is a unique human quality that can’t be replicated by AI.”
It’s interesting the way you phrase it as a human quality, in my interview with Aleks Phoenix he had a pretty similar sentiment. But phrased it as sensitivity. To me it kinda seems like human error is actually quite attractive to us. Which is quite comforting in a weird way I suppose!
It’s endearing to me. I stress about perfectionism a lot so having the freedom to make mistakes and create is a privilege that we would lose if we all used AI.
How similar is your job as a freelancer to how you once perhaps imagined it on the outside looking in? Were your expectations close to the reality of the job?
I never really knew what to expect so I think it’s all been surprising to me. I didn’t get a sense of what it was like to really work on real world projects in university so it was all a learning curve. Working in someone else’s studio versus my own has been eye opening. I had to find what worked for me instead of copying someone else’s studio practices. I really enjoy my own way of working now but it did take trial and error.
Is there an aspect of your job you think doesn't get enough recognition, what is it and why?
I know people outsource work but running every aspect of a freelance design business is a lot of work alongside the actual design work.
I think you’re right. I find a lot of freelancers who come to visit my university to speak to us generally tend to show off their amazing client work and projects. But don't always shine a light on the less sexy side of things.
I do think there can be a negative view of freelancing vs working in a studio so it would make sense that freelancers would only talk about the good stuff. I rarely hear the negative side of working in design studios (or hear from them at all to be honest they are so busy) I would assume freelancers wouldn’t want to share the negatives in fear of losing out on clients maybe? I’ve had times where I have wanted to call out bad situations but then worried I would lose work for being difficult.
As a freelancer, how do you personally account for self-doubt and burnout, especially when having to work to client deadlines?
I rarely ever work set hours and make time to do things I wouldn’t be able to do if I was working 9-5 so that helps with appreciating my way of work which does lessen burnout. Self doubt creeps in when I don’t have projects lined up or I lose out on a pitch. Talking to other designers helps ease the self doubt sometimes. I think a downside of working on my own is not having someone to stress out with. Managing client expectations on deadlines allows me to balance work too.
When you mention pitches. Are you paid for taking the time out of your design practice to submit those? The competitive nature of it sounds very similar to a lot of the trendy design competition briefs you often see thrown at you as a student for exposure as though they’re good opportunities and not just incredibly exploitative...how do you think as an industry, we can navigate these situations without seeing each other as rivals fighting for clients but keep in good faith?
I have worked on pitches without a fee before but not in recent years. I would be talking more about sending quotes for a project and not hearing back once money is mentioned. I was always been told not to enter those kind of competitions (any you pay to be a part of) but I have always had a great experience with open brief projects like Posterspy or instagram accounts that post briefs. To me they are extensions of personal projects but have built in audiences so you can’t really go wrong because you are in charge of what you do. There are certain student briefs like D&AD that I’ve seen my peers win and it has really helped their careers. I think everyone has their own strengths so it is useless to get disheartened if someone else is chosen over you.
How do you handle clients, do you have a written contract, or is each project handled on an individual basis? If so, has it changed a lot over the years, why?
It has changed a lot over the years. When I started I never sent contracts or got deposits. This caused a lot of unnecessary stress over money. Each project is different but my main process is the client enquires, I meet with the client, I send a scope/pitch document with price quotes and deadline breakdowns then a signed contract and a deposit paid. Invoicing towards the end of the project and files released on payment. If I have regular work from a client I don’t send contracts as often.
As a young designer, I’m pretty frightened to throw a big formal contract at someone out of fear I might never find anyone willing to humour the effort of it or take me seriously when I dont have the portfolio to back it up as so to speak. How do I for example hold my own, headed out of university pretty soon?
We never discussed contracts in university so I always assumed that was too far out of my reach. It transformed how I worked once I started using them basically because it lessened stress and everything was written down. Emails are legally binding so if someone agrees to pay you in writing you are okay. You already have a few years of formal training behind you that most of your clients don’t have so I wouldn’t worry about not having the portfolio to back it up. I also have some friends in the legal space/accounting so that is definitely a life hack when you are starting a business.
“Emails are legally binding so if someone agrees to pay you in writing you are okay.”
Can you discuss a time when you had to compromise your creative vision for the sake of a client's request or project constraints? How do you navigate that type of situation?
There’s always a lot of compromise when it comes to client work. I have to remember I’m designing for them and not for me. Sometimes a client will come in with a tiny budget and want everything and we have to scale everything way back. I think I do a lot of subtle convincing with clients so we can adapt projects to suit so it doesn’t feel like we are losing any creativity in the process.
I imagine freelancing full-time can feel quite isolating, even with networking and socialising with other creatives. Is there a particular way you’ve found to work around this?
It can be, I have done contract work for other design studios in the past so that helps having regular contact with the same people sometimes in their studio but mostly virtually. If I work with a theatre production based in Ireland I always try to go to their script readings or rehearsals. I would sometimes do production photography for them so there’s always a big group of people. The Girls Rock School helps to as there’s always a different event or someone has a gig to go to. I don’t find day to day work that isolating. I do make time to meet up with other freelancers for coffee during the week.
If you could time travel back to the start of your design career, what wise advice would you tell yourself as a beginner?
Get a deposit before you design anything and chase every invoice. I would also tell myself that you can be professional and still show your own personality. I still need this advice but I found it difficult to post my personal work or work that wasn’t commercial. My business and confidence grew when I started posting work I enjoyed and changed my branding to suit my own personal style.
“My business and confidence grew when I started posting work I enjoyed and changed my branding to suit my own personal style.”
It’s no surprise! Your online branding is very clearly you and influenced by the work you make. How is it you find clients and work? Is a lot of it local to Northern Ireland? Are people finding you via your socials like your Instagram page, website, elsewhere, or do you ever have to go cold calling, etc? Freelancing always seems quite mysterious in that way...
I try and ask each client how they found me and I’m always shocked if it’s from places like twitter. My clients are 95% UK and Ireland based. The majority tell me they have seen my work online or I worked for someone they know. I have never done cold calling /emailing but have always considered it as option but I have to try it. My work comes from posting online, local networking and contract work which again is from posting online. I’ve never applied for freelance jobs through jobs sites or anything like that.
Looking ahead, do you have any clear aspirations, or goals you wish to achieve in the next couple of years. Or is that kind of manifestation stupid?
I never know even week to week what is coming and that freaks some people out but it excites me and occasionally work comes through I wouldn’t have ever seen myself being asked to do. I think a lot of my future aspirations are based around collaborating with other creatives.
Do you think its important we say yes to things that we’re way out of our depth with then? I feel like a worry for lots of creatives is that imposter syndrome that they cant do something… But then they try it, and what do you know its amazing.
Within reason yes. I wouldn’t have half of my portfolio if I didn’t try projects I didn’t think I was capable of. That is also a big component of continuing personal projects as well. Always evolving your practice will stand by you when you get a strange project request!
Finally... Would you mind sharing something with me that brings you contentment? It doesn’t have to be design related!
Laura’s socials:
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