Starting Over In My 30’s.

Hey there, my name’s Alekkz and if you’re reading this right now, you probably got curious as to either who I am or what I do. This is where I tell my story.

Wow, where do I even start?

Let’s see, scattered through this website you’ll find snippets of who I am but let’s just make a formal introduction here, shall we?

My name’s Alekkz, yes it is legally spelled that way on my Driver’s License. Not quite on my passport yet however because I haven’t renewed that thing since my legal name was in Korean haha. I’m 32 going on 33, time sure flies. If you haven’t guessed already, I’m now officially a freelance designer, well that’s what I decided to put on my business card anyways.

For the last last decade, maybe even two decades, I really tried to figure out what I wanted in my life. As I was nearing high school graduation, I remember getting major anxiety because I hadn’t even decided where I wanted to go to college nonetheless what my major was going to be! Oh jeez, adulting is hard, man!

Anyways, fast forward to present day, I’ve probably had about 20+ jobs if not more ranging from working as a server at a teriyaki restaurant to being a lead pre-toddler teacher and all sorts of other odd end jobs in between. It would probably take me a whole day to tell you about all my job experiences but that’s not why I’m writing this today obviously.

I wanted to announce that I am going full-time freelance as a graphic designer. Did I really just say that? I struggled with imposter syndrome for most of my life for several reasons but the reason I didn’t pursue freelance graphic design in the past was because I felt I wasn’t good enough not having a degree in graphic design like most people usually get. On top of that, any jobs I tried applying or even dare look at, required 3-5+ years of experience in a graphic design field PLUS a degree in graphic design. Yikes. I had neither.

So what did I end up doing? Getting more meaningless odd end jobs. But a long the way, there were people who came into my life and believed that I could create designs for their businesses and at first I was extremely nervous but as I went along, it was so fun! I love creating designs and illustrations. Am I good at it? Maybe. Do I think I’m good at it? Meh… probably not. But I mean hey, people were paying me money to create something for them, so how could I say no to money?

Of course, don’t get the wrong idea - I didn’t accept people’s money and do a half ass job. I poured all my heart and soul into these projects. I did the best that I could with what I knew. Anything I didn’t know how to do, I just asked my best friend, Google and my other bestie YouTube haha.

Fast forward some more, as much as I’ve always dreamed of freelancing full-time, like most people’s #1 question… “where do I find clients consistently enough to pay the bills every month?” Yea… I’m still trying to figure that out. Any normal person would stay at their current job, save some money, then attempt to go full fledge freelancer mode but I kind of had no choice. I had to jump ship where I was working. It was sink or swim, do or die. So here I am sitting at my computer acting super busy like I’m working on a client’s project when in reality I just spend the last 30+ hours creating this website, giving it a whole makeover again because I didn’t like how it turned out and now here we are. The final cherry on top was to put in a freshly written blog post about exactly what I’m doing right now.

Sounds about right?

This website probably has a lot more tweaking to be done but for now, I think I got the backbone set up. I really contemplated putting up my old work as my “portfolio” because it’s kind of embarrassing, not the projects themselves, but I really didn’t know how to save images and turn it into an actual nice portfolio piece. I just threw some screenshots together and it looks ugly. But I didn’t want to “not” put anything on here either, you know?

For now it will be ugly but in the next few weeks, my goal is to actually create my very first passion project based on the courses I’ve been taking to build a proper portfolio, creating a brand identity (that’s what I want to specialize in - branding), and make a really nice piece to put onto my website that I’m proud of.

I felt like I needed to put past “real” work on my website because it kind of shows what I am capable of doing as a designer, you know? For example, I’ve created business card designs, menu designs, dabbled in food photography, created a whole 30+ page catering menu from scratch one time (which isn’t on here because there was some… inappropriate things that happened that I’d rather not be associated with that company anymore).

What else have I created? Hmm, oh I’m currently working on a package design (first time ever) that I signed an NDA for so I’m technically not allowed to spoil anything at the moment but super excited to share that when it’s done! I kind of want to say I can do most design projects if someone wants to put their faith in me but I’m always very transparent about what I’m capable of doing. I don’t just take on any project that comes my way, if you want to work with me on a design project in a category I’ve never done before, I’ll tell you up front that I have never worked on XYZ kind of project but if you’re up for it, I’d love to collaborate with you!

I mean so far, I think that’s how everything kind of starts, doesn’t it? At one point, I didn’t know how to create a business card from start to finish and one day I had the physical business cards I designed in my hands! That was pretty cool! One time I created a poster design and my client blew it up at a print shop and I got to see it in action at a pop-up event. I’ve also gained a lot of experience in web design just from the countless number of times I’ve decided to start a blog, a e-commerce store, and whatnot.

We live in a day and age where anything you don’t know is a click away on the internet. So what if I don’t have a degree in graphic design? I can create whatever you want me to do (within the means of course). I won’t accept a project that I’m not confident in creating.

I don’t even know if anyone’s going to read this far down into this blog post, but if you did, HI! <3 thanks for reading!

Okay but yea, I think I kind of covered the main points of what this blog was about. Starting over in my 30s. Taking a leap of faith, pursuing my dream career.

Until next time~ K. Bye.