My design career doesn’t have a job title at the end of it yet. It has a type of project instead. A business with something real to offer, no clear way to say it, and room in the brief to fix that.
Some of that work has already started. I’ve freelanced since 2020, taken on a few projects of my own, and I’m studying Graphic and Web Design at John Abbott. Over the next few years I want to be more careful about where this goes. That means knowing my strengths, being honest about the gaps, and choosing work that stretches both.
The strengths I’m building on
First, I see a brand as one system, not a list of deliverables. When I work on a website I’m also thinking about the photos and the tone of the words. Instagram counts too, since that’s often the first thing people find. Those pieces either agree with each other or the brand feels unfinished.
Second, I think about what a design has to do, not only how it looks. Running a small side business does that to you. For a restaurant, that might mean a menu you can scan fast and a booking link you can’t miss.
Third, bilingual work. In Quebec, French isn’t a translation step at the end. A site that works in both languages takes planning from the first sketch. That’s a skill I want to keep sharpening.
The design career I’m aiming for
In the long run, I want more creative direction and longer relationships with fewer clients. In the short run, I want people to bring me the problem, not the layout. Both depend on the same thing, which is judgement I can explain clearly.
A design career also has to be built on purpose. Otherwise it becomes whatever work shows up. That’s how people end up good at something they never chose.
The industries I want to work in
Restaurants, cafés and bars are the ones I keep coming back to. They already have a personality, a space and a story. That gives a designer something real to work with. The interesting problem is getting the feeling of the room onto a screen.
Fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands appeal to me because the details carry so much of the meaning. Art direction, type and product photos decide whether a collection looks considered or generic.
Digital products are the third direction. Designing an app asks a different question. Not only what it should look like, but what someone is trying to do and where they might get stuck. It’s where I have the most to learn, which is part of the appeal.
Design career skills I still need
Taste isn’t proof. I want to get better at testing ideas instead of defending them. Sharper questions at the start would help. So would treating feedback as information, not a verdict.
Accessibility and responsive design are the technical gaps I’m closing now. A layout that looks good at full width and falls apart on a phone isn’t finished. Contrast and alt text aren’t optional either, as the W3C introduction to web accessibility makes clear. Web Publishing has been useful here. The course makes me build the thing and then look at what I built.
What I want to have built
By the end of this program I want a portfolio that shows how I think. That means the brief, the decisions, the versions that failed and the reason the final one works. My own side projects belong in that record too. They’re where I make the calls and live with the results.
That’s the design career I’m working toward, one project at a time.
I wrote about how I got here in Becoming a Designer While Building Something of My Own. There’s more on my About page.
What makes you remember a designer’s work after you’ve closed their portfolio?