I’m a 35 year old designer. I was made redundant in 2020, started my own business the same year as a result. I specialise in textiles for fashion, menswear historically but I now prefer womenswear. I had good success in my first year but this dwindled, second child came in 2022, and not much in the way of work and no new clients since going back to work in March 2023. I never really felt I’ve “nailed” it at my jobs apart from my graduate job, which was purely designing weaves and prints for British high street retailers. I’d love that feeling again.
There is a lot of competition in my field as a freelancer. I also tend to put my heart and soul and lots of research into my designs. In my field, there’s basically kind of a set price that designs go for, so I do too much work for the money. But I love it so much, I can’t help it, and I’m not as fast as I used to be either. I love seeing my designs on things, I love the research and creation process, the painting and drawing and scanning in and manipulating…all of it.
Those who are nailing it and selling a lot, my design style doesn’t match theirs at all. I don’t think it’s commercial, it tends to be more statement.
Another thing is I love working for myself: my own hours and days, no begging for holiday or competing with colleagues for time off, it’s totally up to me. I need flexibility around my kids and I like working from home. No office politics, male nonsense or pettiness. There are jobs out there, I don’t really want them, I apply and don’t hear back.
I currently work 3 days a week and find it hard to search for projects, market myself (eg social media, email newsletter), look for clients and do client work or create new collections to sell from in that time. I also hate to cold email because I hate to bug people but I understand that’s kind of how I will find work.
But I want and need to earn money. My husband earns enough but I don’t like the imbalance and the fact that the pressure is solely on him. He doesn’t make me feel “oh you can’t afford this” in any way regarding stuff I want, but I feel that personally.
I don’t think I can earn fully as a freelance print/textile designer. I don’t know what else to do - but I really want to do something creative, and vaguely similar, but it needs to be my own thing rather than for a company, unless they can provide me with the flexibility I need and I choose my hours days etc.
So what do I do? Do I retrain as something more in demand, like fashion designer or an interior or branding designer? Or will I just find myself in the same position with no clients? Do I go into education for the holidays, it would have to be adult or college level I guess?
So what should I do? What would you do?