A Decade in the Top Tier… Part Two
Continued:
I gave notice at The Tire Rack months in advance. The original plan was to move to Atlanta, GA.
Estelle and I were tired of living in the frigid Midwest and Atl is close to our hometown (10 years later and we're still in the Midwest). So earlier that spring I flew to Atlanta and interviewed at a bunch of places. Some were very promising, some not so much… just about ALL of them did not offer me a job. When I got back to Indiana I looked around at the local design companies there (most did RV catalogs, most were terrible, and NONE of them offered me a job!)
This is the part of the story where a person with sense would have just gone back to work at The Tire Rack and stayed there. The gig was good, I had lots of creative freedom, and the people were very nice; if not a little bit old-fashioned. The problem was that I was terribly bored working there. Most of the time I just looked online at all the creative gigs in "real" cities and wished I were there instead.
So the summer of 2000, I went to Chicago with my portfolio in hand. I interviewed at The Buzz Company; a creative resource downtown. They looked at my stuff; gave me their skills test, and sent me on my way. Before I left, one of their associates told me "I have a client that you might be perfect for". Sweet! I didn't hear from her again until much later that summer.
In the meantime I interviewed at a small design company out in Broadview, IL. The company was Trisect Design, the owner offered me a job as an Art Director. To my surprise, he was a car guy; so he'd seen a lot of my work already - bonus! I worked on designs for Bosch, Barton Brands, Mexitronica, and a whole lot of local stuff. This is a newsletter I did for them; it's still on their website!
I started working for him by July, but I ended up leaving about a month later for two reasons:
#1. Estelle and I could not afford quite yet to move to Chicago, so I rode the South Shore everyday that summer. Here was my daily schedule
#2 The "client" that The Buzz Company spoke of finally called them back 2 months later. They were working on a new testing procedure and they needed someone with a background in both design and illustration to assist them. The lady told me the name of the client: Unilever. I had NO idea who they were, so I googled them:
Unilever is a Dutch-British multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever employed 174,000 people and had a worldwide revenue of €40.5 billion in 2008.
It was a very BIG company. She said they needed someone who could draw products as well as storyboard illustrations of people using them. They also needed someone who could imagine products that don't exist yet. They also needed the artist to give them the drawings in very fast turnaround… like a day. My thinking at the time was that doing this type of work freelance would make it easy for me to get a "real" job at a big agency. With much more trepidation, I took the gig and resigned at Trisect.
Continued…
I gave notice at The Tire Rack months in advance. The original plan was to move to Atlanta, GA.
Estelle and I were tired of living in the frigid Midwest and Atl is close to our hometown (10 years later and we're still in the Midwest). So earlier that spring I flew to Atlanta and interviewed at a bunch of places. Some were very promising, some not so much… just about ALL of them did not offer me a job. When I got back to Indiana I looked around at the local design companies there (most did RV catalogs, most were terrible, and NONE of them offered me a job!)
This is the part of the story where a person with sense would have just gone back to work at The Tire Rack and stayed there. The gig was good, I had lots of creative freedom, and the people were very nice; if not a little bit old-fashioned. The problem was that I was terribly bored working there. Most of the time I just looked online at all the creative gigs in "real" cities and wished I were there instead.
So the summer of 2000, I went to Chicago with my portfolio in hand. I interviewed at The Buzz Company; a creative resource downtown. They looked at my stuff; gave me their skills test, and sent me on my way. Before I left, one of their associates told me "I have a client that you might be perfect for". Sweet! I didn't hear from her again until much later that summer.In the meantime I interviewed at a small design company out in Broadview, IL. The company was Trisect Design, the owner offered me a job as an Art Director. To my surprise, he was a car guy; so he'd seen a lot of my work already - bonus! I worked on designs for Bosch, Barton Brands, Mexitronica, and a whole lot of local stuff. This is a newsletter I did for them; it's still on their website!
I started working for him by July, but I ended up leaving about a month later for two reasons:
#1. Estelle and I could not afford quite yet to move to Chicago, so I rode the South Shore everyday that summer. Here was my daily schedule
I kept this up for about 6 weeks. Despite the craziness, the main reason I quit this job was for reason #2
- 4:30am Wake up.
- 5:30am Catch train to Chicago. Sleep on train some more. (Yes, it was 3 hours–per trip!)
- 8:30am Get to Randolph St. Station/take Blue Line to Forrest Park
- 8:45am Get off at Forrest Park station, wait for bus
- 9:00am Catch bus out to Broadview
- 9:30am Arrive in Broadview, walk 3 more blocks to Trisect
- 9:45am Arrive at Trisect
- 5:30pm Leave Trisect, walk to bus stop
- 5:45pm Arrive at bus stop
- 6pm Arrive at Forrest Park station – catch train
- 6:15pm Arrive downtown – walk to Randolph St station
- 6:30pm to 7pm Wait for South Shore train, hope I had some money for a snack.
- 7pm Get on South Shore train
- 10pm Arrive in South Bend
- 10:15pm Arrive home (Estelle would pick me up)
- 10:30pm Eat dinner
- 11pm Go to bed
- Do it all again the next day.
#2 The "client" that The Buzz Company spoke of finally called them back 2 months later. They were working on a new testing procedure and they needed someone with a background in both design and illustration to assist them. The lady told me the name of the client: Unilever. I had NO idea who they were, so I googled them:
Unilever is a Dutch-British multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever employed 174,000 people and had a worldwide revenue of €40.5 billion in 2008.
It was a very BIG company. She said they needed someone who could draw products as well as storyboard illustrations of people using them. They also needed someone who could imagine products that don't exist yet. They also needed the artist to give them the drawings in very fast turnaround… like a day. My thinking at the time was that doing this type of work freelance would make it easy for me to get a "real" job at a big agency. With much more trepidation, I took the gig and resigned at Trisect.
Continued…
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