How did I get here?
Speaking of journeys, this is one of my all time favourites. Sat in the back seat of a mustang on Route 66 with my two brothers the week before my wedding!
Mrs. Green was a strict, elderly woman who had a fierce laugh and a dodgy right leg.
She was one of my primary school teachers when I was a kid, and she put two-and-two together when she realised I had a combined passion and skill (as much as you can, as a child) for art, language and technology.
“You could be a graphic designer one day.” I remember her saying at a parents evening. Not that I knew what one of those was.
I just knew that you should always think about how you present stuff. I’d spend as long on drawing the title for my homework, as I would writing the story. Needless to say, the signs were there from the beginning.
As a teenager I can distinctly recall a conversation with one of my favourite teachers at school, when I shared with them that I wanted to study Graphic Design at college after my GCSEs - they weren’t happy.
They encouraged me to think really carefully about this. They were convinced that I had more to offer than being just a designer.
So I followed their advice and studied a variety of A-levels (Art, Media, IT and Religious Studies), and I did pretty well. Having graduated with decent grades, I committed myself to a Graphic Design degree at Falmouth University.
But, before I got my creative groove-on…
I wanted to take a year out.
Exploring faith.
It was during this year, while I was out in Australia, that I had something of a spiritual awakening. Instead of a school teacher, this was one of the clearest instances in my life of being influenced by something outside of myself, I felt like God was speaking to me and asking me to change my course. To give up the Graphic Design degree in Falmouth and to trust that the next step would become clear.
After a lot of thinking and praying, a unique opportunity presented itself to partner up with a church my older brother was helping to lead, while doing a degree. I end up studying applied theology (theology means the study of the divine, and the applied bit was a reference to the fact that I was constantly asked to figure out what impact faith had on ‘real life’).
The three years of study was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask some of life’s deepest questions, to grow as a person, and to explore how I could serve the world around me instead of trying to take from it.
All the while I was hustling a minor design hobby on the side, because no matter what I did - creativity was an undeniable part of my DNA.
In 2014 I got married to the love of my life: Maddie. And two years later I started an incredible experiment: could I work for a local church serving it’s surrounding community for 2.5 days a week, and launch a graphic design business at the same time?
Here I am some years later, still being paid to help lead a local church. Still making money through design. Apparently it’s possible to hold these two threads together: faith and creativity.
I’ve often wondered if these are two opposing forces that I have to chose between. There are definitely people around me who have tried to persuade me that I should just pick one for a career and stick to it.
After all, as Ron Swanson once said: It’s better to whole-ass one thing instead of half-assing two things.
But what if those two things aren’t opposing, but complementary?
What if creativity could play a part in saving the world?
What if faith could be the engine for a successful business?
Here’s to counting the journey and embracing the complexities of spirituality, style and substance.
