My way to self-employment

Cosymore Illustration Studio

My way to self-employment

Here I am again! I promised you to write about the importance of having mentors. (OKAY. Yes … I’m aware of that…it’s been 1000 months ago…) Well … being self-employed can be very unpredictable :)

About my way to self-employment

Having mentors

I am pretty sure that without having some mentors I wouldn’t have dared to go self-employed.

I always had the idea of being self-employed, but I rarely knew how and where to start. So, one of the first things which helped me a lot were the fact that I attended several kinds of business-related events where I actually met a lot of interesting people. Building a business really depends on people you’re meeting along the way.

First business-related meeting

I think the first one has been the HUBDOT Event in Luxembourg, where you’re kind of wearing a little dot to share your story. (for instance, a yellow dot means you’re having an idea and you’re looking for someone to help, a blue dot means you’re there to socialize, etc…) It’s a really nice event to make interesting connections.

This particular event helped me by finding a person who kind of discovered my passion in „doing” something creative. At this point, I still didn’t know into which direction my passions of being creative will lead me to. I just knew I wanted to do something which I absolutely love doing and I wanted to earn money with it. So this first person I met was Caroline Kaiser. She owns her own artistic graphic design studio StudioMick and she creates every product herself, from concept to finalization. I was quite amazed when I first met her and her work. She told me about her personal story. How she entered the creative world as an independent. For what I am really grateful was her trust she’s given me and for telling me: “I could do it as well.” She recommended me taking some creative online classes to get into the right”mood”: Learning new stuff to move on.

Being an autodidact

The online classes I’ve taken were the ones from Sabina Radeva, DesignGarden. Sabina is a wonderful teacher, who herself has totally changed her career: a molecular biologist-turned-into a successful graphic designer and illustrator.  She realized “that her passion for creating images is stronger than her motivation to work in the lab“… Again, a really inspiring story which pushed me further. My curiosity about the designing process in a different field (different from the architectural field) became bigger and bigger. I was (and I am still) thirsty to learn more and more about illustration, color theories, artistic graphic design and so on and so on. So taking Sabina’s classes was definitely a perfect start! She always gave me honest feedback in order to push myself and to develop my skills in a positive way. Step by step, I felt more comfortable about my creations. The idea of being an illustrator became clearer and clearer.

Lynn Cosyn | Illustrator

Never-ending curiosity and hard discipline

So on a DAILY basis (even on Saturdays and on Sundays) I was doing tons of research, reading tons of books, magazines and online articles, all related to creative business, to art, to design … I think it is really important to have that kind of never-ending curiosity to find new ways of expressing yourself. Or simply to find out what you really want. It’s all about experimenting and trying out. There is nothing which can go wrong because it’s all part of your own learning process. So be curious and be disciplined is my advice for you :)

Grateful to have met these creative minds

Linda and David from Kinlake. Yep, you might have heard about those two lovely creative souls through my blog or maybe through Instagram when I visited them in Crete in April last year. I actually met them during a blogging class from Emilie Higgle where they were giving graphic design advice for websites and blogs.

I normally tend to be a bit intimidated by people who are established in the creative world and I kind of feel “very small” next to such creative minds…. haha … yes… true story! It turned out that both are incredibly lovely and warm-hearted and really open-minded, which I appreciated (and I still do) a lot! I felt good next to them and I am endlessly grateful that I could define my entire approach to business thanks to Linda, mainly. It all felt so natural. I’ve probably asked a lot of „stupid” questions about „how writing a quote” or „what about invoicing this and that”… „what about sharing this on social medias and and and. Linda was soooo helpful in giving me lots of wonderful advice and I am endlessly grateful for her support.  One oft the best advice from her to me: “JUST DO IT”. Lovely reader, keep that one in mind <3

There was also another creative and very inspiring experience with Julie Conrad, a very lovely product designer. Last year in December, she needed a few people in her design studio to help her out creating awesome products for the Christmas market in Strasbourg-so I contacted her I would be interested in doing this.

At that time I still haven’t been self-employed, but I absorbed – like a sponge –  every information I could get from the ones who already had their business. At Julie’s design studio- despite lots of work there has been this very warm and charming atmosphere! Her shining face when she told about her work and how she handled everything was really inspiring to me. She’s an admirable CREATOR, MAKER, a PERFECTIONIST, a person from whom you can learn a lot, just by being around her. Here again, thanks to the exchange with Julie I had plenty of energy to move on.

Leading a business

I also realized at that time that, when leading a business, you have to deal with so many fields: Meeting clients, replying to emails, making phone calls, ordering this and that, writing invoices, packaging your products, planning, organizing and structuring your daily tasks, marketing…. OH YES. I WANTED ALL OF THIS. (although I have to admit: writing invoices or quotes isn’t the coolest part …;)

If you’re willing to go self-employed … I think it’s just the best thing I have done so far and I hope you’ll find your way, too. (if this is something you might be interested in :) I can tell you: You won’t regret it. 

Now, that I finally have written a new post about my way to self-employment I’m inviting you to visit my new website (focusing only on my illustrations).

I’ll definitely come back with new posts. I just don’t know when :) However, my new website www.lynncosyn.com will be updated on a regular basis.

 

THANK YOU for YOUR support as well, DEAR READER. I’m grateful for your interest in having read my newest post. <3