It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time and as of one month ago, I am FINALLY self-employed.
As you can see from the photos below, I’ve really really been trying to keep up my appearance… Haha. I think my boyfriend (who also happens to be self-employed) is starting to get sick of my non-stop-PJs-habit that’s rapidly becoming a problem.
This post isn’t actually about fabric. It’s more about me… and where I am in my career… and my super big plans and aspirations… plus my pledge to keep up with my blog and fabric site.
I graduated from Furman University about 5 years ago with a degree in fine art. After that, I completed a graduate program in graphic design at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta, which was awesome! I can’t really say enough about the Portfolio Center… maybe I’ll do an entry on that sometime later, because for anyone interested in graphic design, it’s the place to be. (Some of my projects are below.)
This was from a perfume branding class…
So was this…
This was done for a city branding class…
A currency-design class…
After I graduated, I didn’t find a job right away, which led to me and my mom starting our fabric-design gig.
And then about 5 months after finishing school… I was offered a job at G2 Interactive as a junior web designer, which I immediately accepted! I was incredibly lucky to work under a fantastic creative-director, Jayson, who quickly brought me up to speed in the terms of designing for the web. It was his guidance that helped my own neurotic obsession for pixel-perfection to develop.
The web is an entirely different ball game (compared to print design). In school we were always taught about the value of negative space and clean-open-designs… but with the web, while negative-space is important. You also have to cram a lot of stuff into very small areas. Essentially, fitting the content together like little puzzle pieces. It took a few months for me to get used to these new concepts… but I got there and love it!
While at G2 I worked on a number of different brands… Smuckers, Pillsbury, IE Games, Campbells Soup, Heineken, Chunky, Merck Pharmaceuticals, and a bunch of others. I feel like I was able to try out a number of styles across these extremely varied clients, and it was great as far as gaining experience.
After a while though, I got tired of working off of other people’s designs (because of my lowly position). I wasn’t ever able to design something from scratch, start to finish.
So when an opportunity to work at Infragistics (a software component company) came up, I jumped at the chance.
I started there as a Web Designer and was working under a super fun guy named Hope, as well as a fantastic design-director, Ambrose. Hope left soon after I started, and I was promoted to his old position as art director within the first year. I took on the company’s rebranding as well as their website redesign.
Blah blah, a lot happened during those next few years… I was transferred to a new team… worked on the a lot of website stuff, print ads, booth design, etc…. and about 2 years in, I became disgruntled with my salary.
Being proactive about this got me nowhere… So I began doing freelance to make up the difference.
…And much to my surprise, I started to double my income by just doing freelance on the weekends.
Which caused this whole full-time-freelancer idea to hatch. 
About 3 months after I started doing freelance, I had enough clients lined up to quit.
And so I did.
Yay!
Since quitting, I’ve been doing some Facebook applications for the Max Plank Institute… I’ve worked with FOUR startup companies to create their websites / web applications… I’ve also been designing fabric, building booths, working on a cupcake website, and doing menus for a deli in New York City.
I probably should have made the jump a long time ago… but you know how things go. You never really know if your plans are going to work out…
I have one super big project going on right now that I’m not allowed to talk about quite yet, but I’ve just returned from a very successful trip to California, and I’m hoping within a month or so, I’ll be able do a really wonderful post about the outcome of the Cali Trip.
Anyway, that’s my story… and now that my schedule is finally under my own control… I plan to start blogging again. I have been so ridiculously slack with this!!
Oh, you can see my portfolio here… jung-graphicdesigner.com
Some of my more recent projects haven’t launched yet, so those aren’t up. But I’ve redesigned my site recently… so that it gives off a much more stream-of-consciousness vibe. Which is how I think I probably come across to most people, when I’m speaking or writing… maybe.
Our pre-meal hike in the woods behind our house took us to an abandoned day camp…complete with an adorable little chapel, play ground, and dunking tank
Grammy and Rudy got along swimmingly…once he realized he could easily convince her to play fetch with him.
Dad served us the long awaited feast! Lauren was lucky to have gotten such a nice shot, as we were all pretty hungry by this point and irritated that the photo was getting in the way of starting the meal.
Poppop helped us solve the world’s problems after dinner.
Thanksgiving #2 was held the next day at our cousin Blaine’s house. After the meal we were sure to check out his new 3D TV (hence the funny glasses in the photo on the left) and Lauren made everyone check out the new Birds and Berries strikeoffs. (Which turned out awesome too. We can’t wait to debut the line in May!)
The next day was reserved for hiking with Dad! 
I'm the designer in the group... And I write about half of the blog posts here. I'm also co-founder of a startup called Shelf (launching soon).
Carrie heads up our PR department. She's also one of the main contributors to a book that we're publishing. And she takes care of LOTS of other stuff, because she's awesome! And we all think she should quit her day job to pursue the wonderful world of pattern making. (Kidding Carrie, chill.)
Lauren & Jessi Pretending To Be Construction Workers
I’m currently living in New Jersey and my mom is down in Spartanburg SC, so I drove down to her place for a week with the goal of finishing our booth.
Not knowing where to start, we decided to just drive over to the Home Depot and take it from there.
We walked around aimlessly for a while until one of the employees asked us if we needed help.
Which we REALLY did.
I showed the guy a photo of a booth from my iPhone… which he used to draw us up a little diagram… PLUS measure out all the wood for us…
After him, we talked to 7 other employees while gathering the remainder of our supplies… each of whom taught us something new and exciting about building materials.
We now love the Home Depot and its team of incredibly helpful employees!
I have to say… throughout everything, my mom has been quite the little trooper. She didn’t want to actually build a booth for our first year because curtains would have been a much easier alternative. But in the end, I think we were both really happy.
The rest of the story probably isn’t that funny to any one else except us. Ha. Suffice it to say this little adventure consisted of 5 long days of the “blind leading the blind”.
And… we wouldn’t have finished at all had it not been for our next-door neighbor Mac McPherson checking up on us everyday to make sure that we were on the right track.
And actually, truth be told… we didn’t QUITE finish. The basic structure is finished, and we painted our walls. But we still have yet to actually do a trial run to make sure that this puppy isn’t going to topple over.
