By the end of 2015, after being an in-house creative director for nearly 8 years and working in this field for over 20 years, I found myself self-employed for the second time in my career. Now, as I enter my fourth year as a brand and creative strategy consultant, I attribute some of my success as a business owner to my experiences and the lessons I learned by working in-house. Reflecting on that time being in-house, I can also say that my consulting mindset, and teaching instincts, also attributed to my success leading in-house creative teams.
Whichever side of the fence you find yourself on, leading an in-house team or managing your own business, here are some things that have strikingly similar importance to how successful you will be.

Remember, you are running a business.
As much as being a creative leader is about the creative output of your designers, writers, photographers, videographers, and so on, it’s also about understanding how to run a business. As an in-house leader, you must come to grips that you are running a business unit within a corporation that needs to have procedures, processes, and policies to operate smoothly. Some corporations event document this information to ensure continuity of business. Your job, as the business unit leader, is to continually reassess, reevaluate, and redesign how your business runs to make it the most effective it can be.
This operational rigor comes in handy when you are self-employed so that your own business runs smoothly, plans for the future, and adapts to marketing changes. If you take the time to document how you run everything about your business – from marketing to working on projects, and billing clients – you will absolutely be more mindful about how things get done and where you can make adjustments to be more efficient and profitable.

Your relationships with other people are really, really, important.
I have believed in the power of networking since I was a teenager. I got my first freelance job because of it, got my first job out of college because of it, got my first corporate job at Banana Republic because of it, and quickly transitioned to a position at Gap when Banana Republic decided they were no longer going to be doing graphic tees because of it. I built my freelance business from 1999 to 2007 through networking, and my current consulting firm would not have ramped up so quickly since 2015 if not for my network of professionals that I could reach out to during that time.
So many people get the idea of “networking” wrong. If you’re networking, thinking that good things will come of casting a wide net, you are wasting your time. The key to strategic networking isn’t spending MORE time networking, it’s less time – but with more of the right people. There are two things that I have come to believe are more accurate than anything in business:

1. It’s not what you know, but who you know
2. Building strong relationships is more important than having a big network

Any self-employed creative professional, agency owner or consultant knows the power of networking. It’s how you grow awareness about your business, build a reliable source of referrals, and find strategic partners you can do business with. But for the corporate leader, this is even more so important. You can’t operate in a bubble within the corporate environment. You need to get out there and meet your internal clients, peers, and the (appropriate) higher-ups in the business. Having good relationships with all of these people will make it easier to sell creative ideas, educate them on how your department does things, and frankly make it easier to ask for more resources. Additionally, it’s one of the ways you will build credibility within the company because – if you do it right – your network will be advocates of your department and of you.
Manage your time like it is a precious, rare, commodity. Because it is.
I’ll be blunt here  and tell you the one skill you need to master no matter whether you are in-house or on your own: Say “no” to meetings or anything that is not worth your time, as much as possible.
There are two reasons for this, and they should be kind of obvious – but the more I talk to other creative leaders, the more I realize it is not as apparent as I thought it was.

1. You have too much work to do to spend so much time in unnecessary meetings.
2. Being too available sends the wrong message to everyone.

Creative leaders get invited to a lot of meetings about projects. We also get invited to business meetings related to the company, as befitting our roles in the corporate structure. Those of us who have worked corporate jobs know how many companies have developed a “meeting culture” (I actually attended a meeting where we planned other meetings) that becomes detrimental to both productivity and morale. What’s more, the nature of our role invites people to drop by our offices for an impromptu brainstorming session, status update, or worse to complain about a new corporate policy that will inevitably create more work for everyone. These interruptions not only break your concentration and the flow of creative ideas, but they suck up your time that you will need to earn back by staying late at the office or working over the weekend.
Guess what? Most meetings are unnecessary. Much of what someone called a meeting for could be achieved on a quick phone call or email. And if a meeting is essential, you need to ask yourself: Do I need to be there? Maybe this is an opportunity to delegate a direct report to go to the meeting and report back to you with a brief email.

As a consultant, you need to be discerning about how you spend your time. Not only do you need to leave time to do the work clients hired you to do, but you need to give yourself time for business development, marketing, finance, etc. Yes, networking is vital to growing your business, but you don’t need to do more of it. Be strategic about who you meet with and how. Can it be done with a phone call? Is this networking meeting or event going to result in a referral, business partner, or client? If it’s not a “heck yes,” then it’s a “heck no”!

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From messaging to visual identity
Design is a unifying factor to support marketing and business development efforts. The best way to demonstrate how design drives value for a brand is to point out how creative work touches virtually every aspect of your organization.

In years past, I’ve worked for businesses with inconsistent branding. There were the obvious things –different logos or a wide variation in the look and feel across offices and collateral. However, there was a larger problem: The brand inconsistency confused employees, clients, and prospects.

Employees who don’t understand their brand or value proposition can’t sell it to anyone else. Business development becomes more challenging when your messages are conflicting, you have a different logo on your collateral versus your website, and you’re not even prepared for your elevator pitch on who you are and why anyone should care.

Recruiting
Another area in which your business can fall short from inconsistent branding and loose messaging is recruiting. The top talent will always choose the company that comes across as buttoned-up.

Use examples
When speaking with peers from other departments about marketing and design, I often rely on the Coca-Cola brand as an example. Everything about that brand is consistent: The logo usage, color pallet, and messages are the same so the customer always knows what to expect.

Making an impact
It’s tricky to measure the success of great design. But I can tell you that design professionals can help you brainstorm ways to improve all of the above on top of creating design guidelines to train your staff, so your employees have clarity in how to speak and represent the organization.

Clients value a fresh perspective which is hard to see when your visuals are sloppy, your content isn’t proofread, and your messages are different every time they meet you. Clients gravitate toward modern messaging and branding that speaks to their needs and business objectives.

Design professionals want to make an impact with their work, so collaborate with them on all of your brand touchpoints and you’ll see how employees and business development will flourish.

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As I mentioned last month, it’s hard to believe I’ve been at this for 25 years. Few people in my network of friends and colleagues have stuck with the same career for so long. Many of my peers who I graduated with from SVA gave up on design a long time ago for something else completely. As I started to wonder why they left this career (because it certainly wasn’t a lack of talent) I started to reflect on what the field looked like back when I started.
When I was just starting out, the thought of a designer going in-house was almost unheard of. We were educated to believe that the best work was being done by ad agencies and design studios, and your best bet starting out was to get a freelance gig starting at the bottom and proving yourself to move up to the juicy client work. Then eventually, you go out and build your own book of business until you had a full-blown agency/studio of your own. So that’s what I did…at first.

The freelance lifestyle

I hustled as much as I could to get my own (small) freelance clients, while also freelancing for a couple of small studios in New York City. The pay was low ($12 – $15 per hour), and little of the work was going to make it into my portfolio since it was the-low-man-on-the-totem-pole production design. But that was OK for me at the time because the hours were good, and the studio owners were teaching me a lot about the business.
I was an onsite freelance designer at three different companies at the same time. I had three different rates, kept a timesheet and project log, and submitted a weekly invoice directly to my boss(es) to be paid. There were no client meetings. No division meetings. No company all-hands meetings. No responsibilities other than the project load on my plate. I felt like I was living the young professional’s dream at 26 years old. I went out and bought myself a beeper! (Google it if you’re too young to remember those.)
But after about a year I got restless creatively and also wanted to make more money. I was ready for better work. Work that I would be really proud of that stretched my creative muscles. I received a call from a friend about a part-time freelance opening at fashion retailer Banana Republic, designing tee shirts and apparel graphics. It paid twice what I was making per hour at that time, I would be working in a department with other designers, and there was a good chance my designs would end up in stores.

The perma-lance job

The part-time freelance gig at Banana Republic eventually became a full-time freelance gig, escalating to 60 hours per week periodically as we approached crunch time for getting designs into the buyer’s hands. I started being invited to creative brainstorming meetings, then got sent out to handle internal clients on my own.
This was great! I was doing creative work, being paid really well, and I started to feel like I was part of the company. Like I belonged there. I didn’t really feel like a freelancer anymore. But I wasn’t an employee either. I was something else. I was a perma-lancer (“permanent freelancer”). This was in the days before laws were in place regarding what constitutes an “employee” by the way. But once those laws kicked in we were told that we would need to reduce the number of hours we worked and would need to leave altogether after a certain period of time to avoid classification as an employee (something the company didn’t want, and why they had us in the first place).
After 3.5 years of doing fun work, making friends, and making great money (for a designer at that time) I knew the end was coming. Which it eventually did, but not because of the employment laws. Banana had decided they were no longer going to be doing graphic tees and apparel. On that Friday, we were told not to come in on Monday.
Besides the potential for the gig to come to an end at any time, making it an unstable job, another downside to working as a freelancer is the lack of affordable benefits. As a freelancer, your hourly rate should account for the cost of living expenses, including insurance. And when you’re being paid a straight check without payroll deductions (taxes) being handled for you, you’re going to need to save at least 30% of everything you make to pay income taxes yourself. In other words, you’re living the 1099 life.

Full-time employee

But that all changed for me exactly one week later. Being the hustler that I am, I reached out to the Art Director of Gap brand’s creative department saying I was available. I had two days of interviews on the Monday and Tuesday I would normally have been at my desk at Banana Republic, and was offered a full-time job with GapKids, with a great salary (more than freelance paid) and benefits. This was the first time I ever got paid to take a vacation. Whoa!
But then I realized something… I was in-house now. In fact, I had been since starting at Banana Republic, or at least I considered myself to be in-house—that is I felt like I was part of the company. I felt like I was doing work that was strategically aligned with the business, and I felt like I had a vested interest in the health of the company.
With freelance, you don’t often feel like you have a vested interest in how well a company does. It’s a gig, just like any other gig. There will be other clients to do work for. You’re a hired gun, and you’ll be lucky/happy if they hire you again for another gig.
But feeling invested in something is different. You budget for projects differently (and if you own shares of the company, you treat department money like it’s your own). You approach creative challenges differently (more strategically). You become embedded in the brand and begin to have a history with it.
Was that such a bad thing after all?
Now to be fair, I’ve never been a full-time employee at an agency or design studio. I’ve heard that it’s no more stable then onsite freelancing. So I’d like to hear your thoughts on the differences in the comments below.

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It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been at this—being a design professional—for nearly 25 years. I grew up around relatives who worked on Wall Street, in the legal profession, sales or other business pursuits. So I’m fortunate that my parents encouraged my talent and pursuit of a creative profession, despite pondering if I could make a living at it since they didn’t know any creative arts professionals who could guide me. The only advice for choosing a career that my father gave me was these three words: “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”
So I had to discover for myself the career potential of, and how to go about landing, a job in graphic design. Early on I was introduced to the trade publications of our profession such as Communication Arts, Graphis, Dynamic Graphics, GDUSA, PRINT and HOW. I joined AIGA and the Art Directors Club as a student and started going to events and networking during my first year of college because that’s just what we did in the pre-internet era.
I started working professionally as a freelancer before I graduated from the School of Visual Arts; I later gained experience working in-house. My career so far has included being a front-line designer, creative director, and in-house creative services leader in a variety of industries, and I have also been self-employed (twice) serving my own clients.
Since 2001, I have been teaching design, marketing and branding to undergraduate and graduate students and have served on the board of directors of InSource—a professional association of in-house creative leaders—since 2007, leading the organization as President since 2010. So you could say I have had a diverse career practicing and serving within the design field.
In my roles as an educator, corporate in-house leader, and leader of InSource, I am most often asked by designers who are just starting out on their own career journey: “Which is better, an in-house or agency job?” My answer is always the same: “It depends. It depends on what kind of work you want to do, what stage of your career you are in, what stage of your life you are in and what you want to do with your career.”
When faced with the “thanks for not answering my question” eye roll, I then—as most teachers do—begin to make my point by telling my own abbreviated story about my career journey.
These two short articles are my written version of what I tell my students and young designers to help them better understand some of the differences between working at an agency or in-house as a freelancer or an employee, leading a creative team or working for yourself.

Some advice I once received on choosing among career paths

I’m going to start this off with some sage advice I received about 10 years ago when I was somewhere at the midpoint of my career. This advice came from a colleague of mine at KPMG—one of the “big four” audit, tax and advisory services firms—when I was leading the creative team that I had started there. She worked in a different department but had become a mentor to me while working at the firm. She told me about a time when her own mentor relayed the following advice: “There are three reasons people choose to work for a living: stability, money or advancement.”
“Some people get a job and work because they just want to have a consistent income and a place to do what they do,” she said. “Those people just want stability in their lives, and want a regular paycheck and benefits. They are not seeking recognition or advancement.”
“Some people will work harder not for recognition, but because they want more money,” she continued. “They do whatever they have to do to make a bigger paycheck. Perhaps that’s working overtime or going above and beyond what is asked of them for a bigger bonus. Whatever they’re doing, it is driven by money.”
“And some people are ladder climbers,” she said. “These people work for recognition and the advancement to leadership positions that comes with that recognition. While advancement does often come with more money, that’s not the driver. No, the driver is the power that comes from leadership.”
“Andy,” she said, “you need to figure out why you work every day.”
I sat back in the chair and thought about what she had just told me. I had come to her on a particularly difficult day at work, wondering if I had a future in the firm…or even in this business. And after a few minutes, I said, “I think there’s a fourth reason people work that especially applies to anyone in the creative field.”
“Oh really? What’s that?” she asked.
“Passion,” I replied. “I think designers, and creative people in general, also work because they are passionate about what they do. They love it, they believe in it and they know what they’re doing can help a business be successful.”
Stability, money, advancement or passion. Those are, in my opinion, the four reasons why people work. Whatever reason you may have for choosing freelance versus agency versus in-house work totally depends on what’s driving you to work each day.
Coming up in part 2 of the series: Freelance, “perma-lance” and the first salaried job in design.

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Early influences
I am one of those lucky people who knew early on what I wanted to do when I grew up, and my parents always encouraged me to develop my talent. Growing up in a family full of business professionals I was encouraged to “do more art” rather than persuaded to focus on something else like business, law, or accounting.
At an early age my parents sent me to an after-school art program run by the very well known Long Island artist Aida Whedon and her husband Dan, my first career influencers. The weekly workshops alternated between her studio learning about the great masters, how to paint and create etchings, and his studio throwing pots and working with wood (only in the 70’s would young children be allowed to work with band-saws and electric sanders). It was clear at 7 years old that I wanted to create things for a living, and here were a couple of people who were able to show me how. Although our school district had an excellent arts department, I was still encouraged to continue my personal artistic development outside of normal schooling. I attended several extracurricular art programs, focusing more on commercial applications of art such as advertising, illustration, and graphics, as I got older. And I started freelancing when I was 15, designing tee shirts for a local shop in town (experience that came in handy when I got my first in-house job in the product development department at Gap and Banana Republic).
Hero worship admiration
In the days before the Internet, finding inspiration – and professional direction – came from reading industry trade publications and annual design reviews such as Communication Arts, HOW, PRINT, Step-by-Step, @Issue, and others. I learned as much about design and the profession from those magazines and annuals as I did in any classroom at SVA. I was inspired by the work that I saw, choosing some of my classes based on wanting to do that kind of work (especially if the class was taught by the likes of Milton Glaser, Ed Benguiat, and Tony Paladino).
Early on in my pre-career days of art school, I built a list of my own design heroes. These were the creative rock-stars whose careers I wanted to model my own after. There were several long-lasting industry icons on my list such as Paul Rand, Massimo Vignelli, and Lou Dorfsman… and there were other rising stars (at the time) attaining design fame and winning awards and accolades year-after-year like Chip Kidd, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, and Bruce Mau, to name just a few.
These were the professionals who inspired me to become a designer, and strive to solve creative problems using design. I wanted nothing more than to meet my design hero’s and pick their brains about design, and the design business.
The In (House) Crowd
Jumping ahead several years to the point in my career where my job became less about being creative, and more about leading in-house creative teams, my design heroes started to include people I respected for a different reason than merely being great or famous designers. I started to read articles written by (or about) Andy Epstein, Glenn Arnowitz, Tim Cox, Sam Harrison, Jenni Herberger, Emily Cohen, and others who earned a reputation for their creative business management and leadership acumen. They too were featured in the trade publications like my early design heroes, and spoke at conferences such as HOW Design Live (HDL).
One day in 2007 when I was having a particularly challenging day navigating corporate culture, I decided to seek advice by email from industry peers at InSource, the professional organization for in-house creative leaders. The email advice turned into real conversations with Glenn Arnowitz, then VP of InSource in person (Glenn later invited me to join the board of InSource, of which I am now serving as President). Glenn introduced me to Andy Epstein, whom he co-founded InSource with and was now program director for the in-house managers track at HDL. Andy and I started talking regularly about in-house issues, and he invited me to take part of a panel discussion at HDL in 2012. Tim and Emily were also on the panel, and I met Jenni and Sam shortly thereafter. I had come face-to-face with the professionals I admired, and began to know then personally!
Heroes, and friends
Since 2007, thanks to my involvement with HDL and InSource, I have had the honor of meeting a great many design leaders whom I admire. Many of these industry influencers I am happy to call my friends, as well as confidants and advisors. I have built relationships with them, had countless meals, coffees, cocktails, and phone calls with them. We discuss the industry, the conference, and I seek advice from them.
These connections I’ve made have undoubtedly helped me become who I am today professionally. I can only imagine who I’m going to meet next, and how they will influence the next half of my career.

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