Welcome to the Creative Business Kitchen, may I take your order?

I just wrapped up a project that perfectly embodied why I love what I do, not because everything went smoothly, but because absolutely nothing did. If you've ever had a plan not go to plan, you're going to love this wild ride. A few months ago, I landed a dream gig: designing the rebrand rollout for a major Melbourne business I've loved for a while, including adding their new brand to their head office and all Melbourne locations. Being the cheeky creative I am, I may have "accidentally"...

Picture this: You're standing in a hotel room in Thailand at 2am, holding your phone like a decibel meter (because apparently that's what jet lag does to your decision-making), discovering your air conditioner is as loud as a busy restaurant. The pillow feels like it was stuffed with concrete, there are actual holes in the walls, and you're pretty sure the paint is peeling in real-time. So naturally, you do what any reasonable person would do: panic-book a $1500 upgrade to the Hyatt for the...

Yesterday morning, I stepped out of my shower and realised I had made a critical error. No towel. Standing there, dripping wet, I quickly assessed my options: Call for Rohan? He's upstairs in his office with noise-cancelling headphones on. I could scream the house down and he wouldn't hear me. Ask Chorizo for help? My dog just stared at me with those vacant, utterly useless eyes that somehow conveyed both confusion and complete indifference to my plight. So I had three real options: Sprint...

I heard myself say something a while back that stopped me cold: “I’m sick of letting my future self down.” Gut punch, hey? Because in that moment, I realised I'd been living in this constant state of mental debt. Always owing tomorrow's version of myself something I didn't deliver today. Always carrying this weight of unfinished tasks, unmade decisions, and unstarted projects. I was exhausted – not from working too much, but from thinking about work constantly. Here's the thing: It's not...

One of my worst traits?I’m great at the first 90%.But that last 10%? Gets me. 👏🏻 Every. 👏🏻 Damn. 👏🏻 Time. Like when I: Spend hours building a beautiful proposal… and avoid hitting send Create a shiny new service package… and never tell anyone about it Record a client walkthrough video… and never add it to the offboarding handover Sound familiar?I bet you’ve got your own folder full of almost-finished brilliance, too. This isn’t just about procrastination or perfectionism.It’s about the...

Bit of a vulnerable longer read, hope you enjoy! It was the day I felt the full force of the gender pay gap, one I thought I'd escaped by choosing the freelance life. It all started a few weeks before... I was a freelance graphic designer for a recruitment agency, often sent to different businesses to help with design overflow. In my recruiter’s words, I was their best recruit. The fixer. The one they sent when they wanted to make a good impression. Hair toss. This placement had landed me in...

If you were in this morning's Cowork Ketchup inside the Freelancer's Pantry, you would have been part of a discussion Feast Member Paula brought to the table. "Is everyone spending hours creating proposals for every job? How do you know it's worth it? Some proposals I'm spending hours, days, sometimes weeks on, how do I decide what's worth going the extra mile for?" Firstly, shout out to Paula, having bravely pivoted away from serving the industry that used to employ her, she's now thriving...

Yesterday I had a client go from curious on a call at 2 pm to an $8k paying client at 7:30 pm. Wild, right? This client found me via a Google search (thanks Google gods) and was looking for a designer to handle a bunch of flyers needing to be redesigned as well as some promo items for an event happening mid-Feb. Literally the thing I do day in and day out, branding rollout to create better brand experiences. Excellent. It hasn't always been this easy, landing clients and converting them on...

A month or so back I had a client request that landed in my inbox that was IDEAL for me. AAAAND if this sounds familiar, you might remember I wrote about it in an email titled "I call it a F*ck around fee" Well, Reader, I've got a juicy lil update for you. But before I do, let's revisit the specifics, because I know if I were the one reading this email, I'd be curious about the deliverables, the expectations and the dollar figures we're making a fuss about. We all love a sticky beak, let's be...