This is a transcript for an episode of Branding Love Letters, which is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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My Freelancing Journey And The Story Behind This Podcast

Sam Thorogood (00:00): Hello and welcome to Episode 15 of Branding Love Letters. Episode 15, incredible. Well, given that it's a slightly special sort of milestone episode and it's coming up to exactly one year that this podcast has been running, I thought I could do something slightly different today. I absolutely love hiking. I love being outdoors in nature. It's one of the best ways that I find to unwind when I'm not designing, when I'm not working. So I thought that for today's episode, instead of interviewing a guest, I would take the microphone along with me on a hike and share a little bit more personally about my story and the story of this podcast so far. So that's what's going to happen in today's episode. It's going to be a little bit different, but I'm excited to bring you along for the journey. So without further ado, let's go.

(01:19): So where to begin? Well, I guess my design journey, if you want to call it that, starts way back in school. When I was a young lad, I was always very creative. I always enjoyed drawing. I always enjoyed creating things. I remember when I was really young, I used to absolutely love making small kind of books and leaflets and little brochures and things. I would do the drawings and research different ways to bind the spines. I remember doing that at quite a young age, doing little books about the Thunderbirds and Doctor Who and Star Wars and whatever it was that I was interested in at that particular moment. And as I grew older, that kind of design interest stayed with me. You know, at secondary school, always if there was a project, I would always love thinking about how it could be presented, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation or some sort of poster or some way of presenting information visually. Just always, that was almost like the first instinct for me. I mean, I would remember, you know, spending hours and hours choosing the right fonts and colours and almost that came before everything else for me. That was the most important, to make sure that it was looking really, really nice.

(03:04): And then, you know, I left home, I went to university to study English and Theatre, because at the time, theatre was really a big passion for me and at that particular moment in life, I guess I thought, in a sense, that maybe I would become an actor or go down the theatre path. And while I was at university, I was involved in lots of different shows and again, the thing that I think really enjoyed the most was marketing these shows, designing the posters, publicity, little icons for people's social media to publicise the different shows. And yeah, it really stuck with me and I guess, you know, all through this period, I didn't necessarily have great skills. I could see what was good, but I wasn't necessarily investing the time to improve my own skills. I just knew that I enjoyed it and that I was okay at it. It wasn't necessarily great, but I certainly enjoyed it. And then after university, I did some more work with theatres and theatre companies: marketing, that kind of thing. I was involved with a group of friends, we set up a theatre company and toured around the UK. We did Edinburgh Fringe a few times, it's a big arts festival in Scotland in August. And again, I was involved in both acting in some of those shows and also marketing them and still involved with that group of friends and that theatre company. And that's been a real joy to journey with them and to build something as a group. And maybe that experience of setting up a theatre company gave me a bit of a taste of what it's like to set up a business, to set up a company. And there was something really exciting about building something from the ground up.

(05:10): Anyway, after university and after a few odd jobs doing marketing and working with theatres, I landed a job with a refugee charity in the north of England. An amazing, amazing refugee charity where I was the communications officer initially and then became the communications and fundraising officer. And that was a really formative time for me in many different ways, for many different reasons. I was privileged to work with just an amazing team. It was my first real job I guess, like my first proper paid regular income. And it was such an amazing job, just such an amazing organisation. And I was inspired by the people we were meeting and having the chance to get to know. It opened my eyes to the realities that are facing a lot of people. It made me realise how privileged I am and how sheltered in a sense I've been growing up. And yeah, it was a really formative time. It was also a formative time in the sense that I was learning that I absolutely loved when my boss would say, you know, OK, you've got this poster to design, you've got this flyer needs designing, this booklet. I would leap at those opportunities and I would really enjoy creating something visual to represent the charity. I didn't enjoy so much the fundraising side of things. And it was a really clear time for me where I came to realise that actually there's something in this. I absolutely love visual design. I love colours and fonts. And around this time I was starting to explore graphic design as a career, as a genuine option. And I was doing research online, I was looking at different designers and just starting to kind of get a taste for it.

(07:27): In summer 2020, the opportunity came up for me to study comparative theology in Jerusalem. A key part to all this is my faith, which has really come to life in the last five years. And my Christian faith propelled me, in a sense, to want to study theology, to go deeper. And amazingly, this place became available on this incredible course. Studying comparative theology, like I say, and I'd quit my job, ready to go. I think the flight was even booked. And then they told me, we're cancelling the course. This was 2020, it was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so I was in this awful position where I'd left my work, I'd left my city, and I had no idea what I was going to do. I was grounded in the UK and moved in with mum and dad. And it turned into a six-month season of living with them. And so, yeah, not an easy time, not an easy time. But also, a blessing in disguise. Firstly, it was great to reconnect with mum and dad and spend that time in the family. But also, in terms of graphic design, it gave me this incredible opportunity to learn. And I basically had six months to learn about graphic design, about this career, about the fundamentals of design, but also about the business of being a freelancer, what it means to actually run a business, a profitable business, and all of these things. And I was doing research, I was watching videos, I enrolled on a year-long design specialisation. So really, I went after it, and I used the opportunity to further this sort of nascent career that was just starting out and seemed kind of improbable. But I thought, why not go after it? It's clearly something that I enjoy, it's clearly something that can be a career. And why not explore it as a possibility? So that was six months of learning, I would say.

(10:07): And then after that period, I had a time of travelling. And really, a key part to wanting to be freelance was the flexibility it would give. And I experimented with that as I travelled, I went abroad, I volunteered with different projects, different Christian missions as well. And all the time was developing my skills, continuing with this course, and starting to pick up clients. And these were small projects, kind of slightly random design projects. But I'm so, so thankful to those early clients that trusted me, or gave me those opportunities to actually experience what it's like working with a client. What's it like invoicing, and writing a contract, and negotiating, and doing rounds of revisions? It taught me all of these fundamental skills. And it was such a useful experience to be able to start small. Whilst I didn't necessarily need to be earning big, big money, because I was often covered in terms of board and lodge through the volunteering and the missions work that I was doing, I was able to just take projects as they came, and just learn, just go in with an open mind, wanting to learn. So that sort of takes us almost to where we are now.

(11:48): About a year ago, I made the decision to specialise, to start niching down. I realised that, you know, great as it was to be working on all these different projects, actually the thing that I really wanted to pursue above and beyond everything else was brand identity design. I really wanted to immerse myself in this particular niche, in this particular area of design. For me, it was almost like the pinnacle of design. It kind of brought together all of the different elements into one niche that really appealed to me. I loved the idea of equipping, empowering clients with a really incredible brand identity that would just allow them to elevate their brand, and help them connect with more people, grow their business, grow their charity, grow their eco project, you name it. But I started to really niche down, I reworked my website, I changed what projects I was presenting, really just to focus on brand identity, and really started to focus in on who my ideal client was. As I went and as I explored, I realised that actually, yeah, it's the pioneers of this world, the people that I want to work with. I love working with people that are just pioneering something new, unexplored, exciting, maybe a little bit risky, but something that is going to make an impact in the world. Be it in terms of society, in terms of the planet, economically.

(13:49): How does this lead us to Branding Love Letters, the podcast that you are currently listening to? Thank you, by the way. Well, basically, I realised that I needed to learn, and kind of, that's how everything has started for me. And I'm kind of an eternal learner. I love learning new things, hearing new stories. And the podcast, for me, was this opportunity to simply learn more about branding, learn more about brands. And I realised that online, there was a huge amount of knowledge out there and research and strategy coming at it from the other point of view, from the point of view of the brand designer, from the brand strategist, from the communications expert, strategising the best way to do branding. There wasn't a huge amount out there coming at it from the other point of view, from the point of view of that one person who has connected with a particular brand, and who has something of an emotional connection with that brand. And that sort of fascinated me, that human aspect. Because really, whenever I'm designing a brand identity for a client, that is what I'm going after. It's that emotional connection that is so, so powerful, but it's also kind of intangible. And it's hard to quantify. So I felt, at least by doing a few episodes, recording a few stories, at least I'll have some data, in a sense, on what connects, what really connects on an emotional level.

(15:31): So the podcast is, for me, is simply that. It's simply putting the call out, saying, what is your favourite brand? And then hearing and receiving the information, the personal testimony, the data, the very human data on what is working when it comes to branding. And I was really struck by the first interview that I did for this podcast, which was with an author. And she was talking about Chanel, the perfume brand. And she started talking about her mother. And I thought, that's really interesting. There's something in this. Because actually, the brand is almost like a window into a particular story. You know, everyone has personal stories of brands and how they have been a part of our life stories. And that's kind of the stuff that I'm really interested in. In a sense, I don't mind what the brand is that the person chooses, that my guest chooses. It could be anything. The really interesting thing for me is, what's the story behind that? And what are the emotions that are caught up in this story? So I've been so, so, so humbled by the response. I've loved the fact that I've been able to chat to people from different industries, from different countries, and just hear some really, really, really fascinating stories about brands and about the journeys that they take us on.

(17:20): There we go. Thanks for coming on this little hike with me, as I have gabbled on about my career and my life and my journey in this podcast. I hope it's been a little bit interesting. It's been fun to do a slightly different episode for Number 15. We'll be back to normal in a month's time on the 14th of September with another great conversation lined up. But thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate your time. And yeah, I would love to hear from you if you have any feedback, good or bad, about this podcast. If you have any feedback more good, I would say, please leave a review. That would be massive. If you want to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, for example, that actually makes a massive difference to the amount of people that can engage with this podcast. But hey, it's up to you, but I would appreciate it. So anyway, thank you for listening. I hope you have a good final few weeks of summer. And like I say, I will be back with you on the 14th of September to continue the conversations about branding, emotions, and everything in between.

(18:49): You've been listening to Branding Love Letters and I've been Sam Thorogood. I'm on a mission: equip pioneers like you to bring others onto your journey. Come and find out more at www.pilgrimage.design. Thanks for listening. Oh, and big thanks to Thomas Thorogood for the music. Take it away, Tommy boy.