Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Joshua Baron

One of the many words of encouragement I heard from my father after graduating from a design university.

After graduating from Full Sail University, I was ready to start working but I didn’t know how. It was a sense of urgency I was familiar with. It’s like that dream where your loans are chasing you and you’re trying to run away but your feet are just above the ground. The idea that you owe money to the federal government is one thing, getting the bill is another, and your Dad there every day to remind you is a totally different thing.

I ran out of money and moved back to Broward county. I had a strong enough portfolio and was getting a decent amount of interviews but I wasn’t getting the ones I really wanted. There was little to no response from the agencies I wanted to work for. I understand why now after spending a lot of time looking at designer’s resumes.

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I quickly realized that just applying and sending my work wasn’t good enough. I changed my strategy to make myself more of a standout candidate.

“Did you apply?! Did you call them?!”

I adapted my strategy to include timely and detailed follow up responses. If I heard back, the next day I followed up with a thank you. If I didn’t hear anything after 7 days I reached out with a “when can I come in?”. If they said no altogether I asked why and how I could improve.

Being new to the game I made some amateur mistakes. I misspelled a name on a reply to an agency and sent an empty attachment to a potential freelance client. Both errors ended the conversations.

I also made my entire resume tangible. I would bring this package with me to interviews. Seeing other creatives reaction to it was really cool!

My Dad thought I was crazy spending money on art supplies.

“You’re always working and never getting paid?!”

Showing everyone, everything is the same as showing everyone nothing. I went back to my sketchbook with my work. I edited and revised to match different agency persona’s and only showed the work that fit the opportunity.

When I applied to both The Women’s Tennis Association and the BBC, I created some projects that spoke directly to each brand. The results were ill.

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@JRBD3 we love this.

— @BBCOne

I started to get more of the right conversations. This also led me to create new things that weren’t already in my portfolio. The door was opened a bit and I was able to better read and anticipate what would work and what wouldn’t.

“Get out of my house already!”

I was feeling good! Like a real designer, I just had to get paid. I had doubled my conversation rate and creating work for more ideal opportunities. After 5 interviews with The Women’s Tennis Association I kicked off my career as a graphic designer. I told them I could start in two weeks. I quickly packed my Celica and moved to St. Pete, Florida.

Before landing the job at the WTA I would spend my days working on my portfolio from different coffee shops. One day I was approached by the owner of a Denny’s. He told me that I wouldn’t make any money as an artist and that he would pay me to learn how to manage his restaurant. I politely declined the offer but as soon as I told my dad about it he was all, “are you fucking kidding me? You pass up the only job offer you’ve got?!” This Denny’s job offer was my biggest source of motivation to get something.

“How’s the job, Son?”

The Women’s Tennis Association was a great environment for learning and refinement. My direct manager and coworkers were sincere craftsman and women who taught me how to design for the client and not for glory. I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and I learned what it meant to go above and beyond.

I took a lot from my direct manager and still regularly think of him and his tactics when managing my own team, speaking to clients, and handling conflict. We were a small and effective team. It was a great job that I remember fondly and will take that memory with me everywhere I go.

One year rolls around and I found myself yearning for more. The WTA was great, but I had always romanticized the idea of an agency life. I repeated my process and landed a position more aligned with my evolving skillset as a multimedia designer at a Tampa based digital advertising agency.

My first day on the job I had a new client, a bunch of coffee, and a deadline with no chill! It was a welcome challenge. There were some red flags even then, but it was almost everything I had hoped for. I got to be pretty decent at managing myself against super quick turn arounds. It was the hardest I had ever worked, and I learned tons about myself.

I picked up a lot of knowledge in my first year and it wasn’t long before I was handed the reigns to the creative team. In my mind I had always imagined agencies like this a place of learning, teamwork, and creative growth. We did a really good job of creating that perception on social media, but the perception was not the reality, and this was not that type of place. I had a hard time meeting my own expectations. To be fair, I think every designer struggles with validating their work.

It was your typical 8:30am to 6pm. Work through your lunch break. Work at night. Work on the weekend. Work over your holiday. Work in your sleep. It was brutal. I got a lot of work done, but I wouldn’t show you most of it. Creativity and people were afterthoughts. Getting shit out the door fast always came first. Some of the work was good but the reward for doing good work was more work. And when you stood up for yourself you were quickly made an example of. I was buried, burnt out, and riddled with anxiety. This wasn’t the romantic agency experience I had yearned for as a young designer.

I worked there for 2 years and 6 months. In that time, I saw too many people cry and roughly 40 walk out. Some were fired but most left on their own accord. It was an overwhelmingly negative experience that I had to work hard on to get something positive out of. It was exhausting. The people I worked for lacked empathy and could care less about me as a person. So, I left.

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“Make something for yourself”

I spent more time outside of the office, talked to local creatives, and went to more meet-ups. I got involved in the design community and what I found was that creativity could come first. Quality could come first. People could come first. Instead of being a product of my environment I set out to create an environment of my own.

This thought lead me here. Hot Sauce.Digital

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I’ve started my own thing. I want to take everything that I learned from both the good and the bad and turn it into something creative and worth it. I’ve seen a lot on both sides and that’s okay because I know what’s right and I know what I’m capable of.

Hot Sauce is about going further and pushing limits. Pushing the limits of creativity, of comfortability, and of quality. I want to make people happy. That’s the goal right now. I’m okay with it evolving because the world is evolving. People are changing. I’m changing. The chances I couldn’t get elsewhere I’m going to give myself. I’m fired up. I’m bringing heat.

So I guess the moral if the story is an expression I’ve heard all my life: It is what you make it. So that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna make it.

This is an origin story, and yes, this whole article was written to plug my agency. So put us on your next project. Let us take you further.

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“Get a f****** job!” was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Get a f****** job!”

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