Hello from a Designer Turned Full-time Writer

Introduce Yourself
#1

Hi everyone!

I’ve been a long-time lurker of this forum and just recently created an account and have been commenting here and there.

I’m a self-taught graphic designer who worked in the field for 5+ years while doing content writing jobs part-time. I transitioned to a full-time writer about 2 years ago and decided to combine the two skills I’m good at and enjoy doing on a consistent basis: graphic design and writing.

So, I created my own blog called mediacaterer.com

It’s a bit janky in its current state, and WordPress hasn’t been living up to its promise of being beginner-friendly, for me at least, but I’ve still managed to attract about 10-20k visitors per month on the blog. I’ve also been branching out to other somewhat related fields as well like digital art and video editing to kind of grow the blog into an art & design hub

I found this forum while looking for a space to connect with other graphic designers preferably professional ones who I can learn from. The main motivation behind that was that I’ve mostly worked remotely, so I’m not the most social person out there nor have I been exposed to a lot of input from other designers - so when it comes to the whole “operations” of graphic design and communicating with people other than clients and managers - I don’t have much experience there.

I first became part of the r/graphic_design subreddit but that was just… a nightmare. Post after post was just about toxic environements, designers complaining about unreasonable demands from companies, why the graphic design industry is dying etc. etc.

The more sane posts were just beginners and fresh graduates looking for portfolio advice. So, this forum seemed like the nice middle-ground between asking and getting advice and discussing some nuances of the industry.

I hope to learn a lot from you guys and hope I could also offer some advice to people who might need it - on a subject I might be able to contribute on

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#2

As far as I know, GDF is the oldest remaining forum focused on graphic design. Most other online design communities have disappeared or migrated to other platforms. From my experience, they cater primarily to hobbyists, amateurs, and those trying to break into the business in non-traditional ways.

GDF is a little different; it predates that and began at a time when most graphic designers were trained specialists. Even though the longer-term members are (or have been) working professionals, we still have friendly disagreements.

Despite that, we’re all friends who face many of the same issues. It’s a great place to talk shop — especially for those who work alone and miss the ongoing interaction with peers in a workplace environment. Just as important and rewarding is the chance to help serious design students who are frustrated and need a little guidance from various points of view.

I’ve been a member here for around ten years. At the time, I was a creative director at an agency. Part of my responsibilities was managing writers and copy editors. I figured I needed to practice my writing skills, so I joined this forum where I had a daily reason to write about things I knew something about.

I’m rambling now, so I’ll stop.

In any case, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts.

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#3

Welcome Aboard @IbrahimAhmed :wave: :grin:

hello

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#4

Welcome.

It’s funny how many of us have similar pasts. I also did some writing in my past and even now, somewhere in there, there is a frustrated writer waiting for their moment to shine. ‘Dear sir or madam, will you read my book, it took me years to write, will you take a look …’

For a while, although still working as a designer, I was also European editor and a contributor of a, now defunct, online design publication. Not sure how I found time to do both. Mind, it was 20 years ago when a couple of hours sleep a night was fine!

Anyway, good to have you around.

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#5

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome

Writing’s defintely not been an intuitive journey for me either. I remember I used to write on the side and was mainly doing graphic design and used to offer advice on a popular influencer’s writing group.

Most if not all the people over there were beginner writers trying to break into professional writing so I used to give my two cents to give them a bit of leverage. I did this for like 2 years and still sometimes go back and check it out weekly, although I’ve gotten a bit busier overtime.

The main ah-ha moment for me was when a person DM’d on the side and asked me if I offer writing services. I honestly told him that I hadn’t written for anyone but myself, on this art & design blog of mine.

Coincidentally, the guy was also making his own Photoshop-style editing software but for the web (something like PhotoPea) and said he wanted someone with both graphic design and writing experience - so I was the perfect candidate. It even wasn’t anything like Canva, but like an attempt to make his own software with a bunch of APIs in the back-end.

Then that just escalated to me writing about 50+ posts for him with tutorials on how to achieve certain effects on his tool like: “How to add a gradient background”, “How to add a grainy text effect” etc.

After that I made the jump to doing this full-time. I’m also very grateful to my first client as he kinda shaped my confidence in this field. I even remember him asking for a pretty low rate on our first interaction (because I didn’t have much idea what writers charged) and he was the one to actually call me out and say “you provide original and unique content for people in that amount? Give me your actual rate”

And then I bumped it up a bit and he said “yup, that’s better”.

Now, I’ve written like 400+ articles for multiple clients in various niches (I wanted to explore the whole field rather than constrain myself to wrtiting on design for the first few years of my journey), and have written around 100 posts on my current blog.

Now, most of my foucs is on this blog, growing it, and then eventually collabing with other designers as well as hiring a few part-time designers to write on this blog - which would help both the blog and audience to grow as well as help me gain some social skills to talk with other designers

Once again, thank you everyone for the kind words!