The shitty projects are almost always my fault, because I didn’t ask enough questions before saying yes, or because I didn’t work out a clear process with the client. When I get to work with people who hire creatives all the time, it’s such a pleasure. It’s like dancing with somebody who knows how. You can immediately skip to the good parts! Stefan G. Bucher.

If you are curious about everything, you will do better work. Michael Beirut.

The best agencies are almost cults, which is super fun if you’re into it with everybody else. Maybe some people like having a ladder to climb, which is not a trivial benefit. You can measure yourself against others day to day. As an indie you’re left just looking into the mirror and wincing. And agencies provide real support. When I’m sick, I’m still at my desk or everything grinds to a halt. Nobody covers for me. Also, ad agencies will invest a ton of money into their star performers. And you really can do a lot of great stuff at agencies if you work well within the structure. Stefan G. Bucher.

Every act of visual communication, back to cave paintings, is designed to convey a message, graphic design is the whole series of decisions that get made to shape that message. Michael Beirut.

… I like having the power to choose what my days look like and who I want to help with my work. Being independent introduces me to a much wider group of people, too. It’s a must change faster pace, too, which I like.

The trade-off is scale. I’d like to work with much bigger clients, too, but larger clients really do require an agency or full-scale design firm to support them. Over the years, working as a subcontractor for large agencies has brought me some of my most fun experiences—I still get to fiddle away in my studio, but I get to do it with the power of a big machine behind me.

Stefan G. Bucher.

There’s time for the big jobs, and there’s time for the small jobs. People are always apt to go after the big jobs, but bigger isn’t always better. Aaron Draplin.

There’s a sense of value from the words and what they’re actually saying, not just when they were written. In web publishing, everything is based on newness. If it’s more than a day old, it’s boring. Medium is very much trying to say, there’s more to it than how new something is. Dustin Senos.

I think ad agencies are great for people who get a charge from competition. And that’s not me. I like getting chosen to do something and then doing it better than you thought I could do it. Stefan G. Bucher.

Just churning out comp after comp after comp and then not seeing anything produced is exhausting and heartbreaking. And I’m not motivated by money, so the cash didn’t outweigh the constant disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting paid, but money is a tool to make more stuff, it’s not an end in itself. Stefan G. Bucher.

… fear and action can exist in parallel. Once I realized that, everything changed for me. Paul Jarvis .