Monday April 6 I start down a new route in my life. I've been kind of tossing in the wind for the last 5 years not really loving what I was doing for a living (I was/am one of the owners of www.smartwashusa.com). I did it 'cause it made money. I did it because sometimes it was exciting, e.g. when I sold a new account or developed a new revenue stream. But truth be told, I was never passionate about it. I did it 'cause it made money and because really it was all I knew how to do. So, now I'm leaving that biz in the hands of my able wife and another one of our partners to pursue a career that I never knew I'd be interested in much less even thought for one second that it was something I would EVER want to do professionally.
I'm going to school to be a creative in order to work in or own a creative shop. I'm going to learn how to make brands kick ass. It seems weird to me because I've never considered myself one of those artsy kids. But strangely enough I am. In September and October of 2008 I had to create a whole brand for my Smart Wash business. I sat at my HP for days designing in Photoshop, making signage, writing copy, creating brochures...the whole nine. I didn't think much of it really. In fact, I didn't really even enjoy it 'cause my HP ran SO SLOW! It would take nearly 30 minutes just to load in an image and start doing my thing. Anyhow, I saw that I would be doing more design stuff for my company for projects I need not list here but I was like, "damn, this crap takes forever..." And I didn't want to sub out the work; plus a lot of people, people I didn't know, would exclaim at how nice the brand looked(s) and I would always be asked if Smart Wash was a franchise because it was so well branded. Not braggin, just passing on what I was told. I figured well, hell, I need to get some better tools to continue popping out these designs. So, I bought an iMac.
It may sound cliche, it may sound silly, it may sound like I've totally lost my mind but this iMac changed my life. No really, it changed my life. I started designing in it, using iWeb and iPhoto and iMovie, I got the Adobe cs3 suite and started to learn Illustrator. I went to the Apple store to learn the tips and tricks and then someone turned me on to RapidWeaver...and that was that. I started having the time of my life! I picked a few clients to design sites for and I loved every minute of it. I remember when I came to the realization that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life...I yelled out to my wife who was in the other room, "Jess, I finally found it. I finally know what I am passionate about: being creative!" Who'd-a-thunk-it? Certainly not me. Not until now anyways.
So, here I am standing on the precipice of a new career, a new direction, a new me. I start Monday at the Creative Circus here in Atlanta and while I am very nervous about what I will encounter - will I still like to do this stuff? will I still be interested in it when it is in a school format? - I am also extremely excited 'cause I have been tossing in the wind and now I've finally landed somewhere.
