Getting ahead - Graphic Designer Aaron Draplin
About this episode…
Getting ahead - Graphic Designer Aaron Draplin
From designing for his buddies to speaking at events all over the world, Aaron’s been riding the freelance wave for more than two decades now, and it’s going well.
With speaking gigs, his ‘Big Three’ retainers, a stream of other freelance work, his own merch shop and the thriving product business he co-founded, Aaron’s got a lot on his plate. Everything was a march to freedom.
Aaron talks to Steve about how he got there, how he keeps it together and what he’s learned along the way.
Read highlights from the episode in the next tab.
Getting started in the nineties
Aaron spent the summer of ‘96 washing dishes in Alaska. After buying his first computer, he went back down to Oregon for the winter and started working freelance.
“I was learning how to be an illustrator, but in 1998, I went back to school in Minneapolis and got a big highfalutin graphic design degree. Because there was a hole in me, you know? The freelance thing out west was piecemeal, little pieces here and there, and that was awesome, but there was a hole. And the hole was what I didn't learn in art school.”
Aaron immersed himself in the culture, learning graphic design in a thriving, progressive city, and then took a couple of jobs — the first on a magazine in LA, the second at a studio back in Oregon.
“I went on my own in 2004, simply prompted by friends kind of messing with me and saying, you can do this out of your basement, out of your home. You have the wherewithal, you've got the Gusto and the energy and the grit to go do this. So I did.”
“Why did I go freelance?
“Because I could do better. I could do better and have a better creative life in that world, right? And man, so far so good.”
Aaron Draplin, Freelance Graphic Designer
Working hard through his thirties… and forties
Aaron says he’s worked hard but always with freedom in mind.
“There wasn't a lot of balance there. I worked as much as I could because I understood that this is my shot to get ahead.”
Aaron was debt-free by 2012, with money in the bank, and he says he’s never looked back. He’s said yes a lot and taken plenty of risks and opportunities, but he doesn’t chase growth for the sake of it.
“Bigger isn't better. You know, you can make it small, stay crusty, work without pants on and still get your budget covered. And maybe even beyond, you know, but I say that with an asterisk and a wink, like be careful.
“It's volatile and you better be organized and you better be willing to take it on the old chin every now and again, you know?”
More from Aaron Draplin
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and freelance graphic designer Aaron Draplin
Steve Folland: Freelance graphic designer Aaron Draplin - we always get started hearing how you got started being freelance. How did you get started?
Aaron Draplin: Why I got excited to talk to you is because the freelance thing is still a mystery to me, right? Where this all started for me was it goes all the way back to when I left Michigan in 1993. And we went out West my capability to do an illustration for someone, for a snowboard or a skateboard or something to that effect that was freelance. Right. You know, every kid had a job pizza job, you know, work up at the mountain, you know, like some ski resort or waiting tables or pumping gas. Okay. So every kid where I'm from in Michigan had a job. So when we took that out West to bend Oregon where we were these little scumbags, you know, snowboarders and skateboarders that moved out there as a, as a collective, like six of us, right?
Aaron Draplin: 1993, I was 19 years old. We got out there and all of us got our jobs and I had a pizza job and I had a car. So I was lucky to have that. And I was lucky to do, I have a pizza delivery sort of gig, but at night I would do stuff extracurricular. I would take on these jobs either for friends or whatever. So that's been in me all the way back now, you know, you do a bunch of stuff that it's all analogue because they didn't have a computer. Right. So all it was was pen and ink and things and stuff. And I was learning how to be an illustrator, but in about 1998, I went back to school in Minneapolis and got a big highfalutin graphic design degree because there was a hole in me, you know, the freelance thing out West piecemeal, little pieces here and there was awesome.
Aaron Draplin: In 1996, a couple of years before I went back to Minneapolis, I went to Alaska and got my first computer. I worked all summer washing dishes and came back down to Oregon, had this computer. And then that, that winter of 96, 97, I worked freelance armed with a computer. Right. And that winter, I didn't have to have a pizza job. Right. So that was that first sort of like jump. Okay. So I did that for a couple of years. Everything was great. I was armed with this machine. I was capable now of making vectoring things and layouts and tri-fold brochures and just things and stuff. But there was a hole and the hole was what didn't I learn in art school. I mean, don't you have to have that to go to the next level, you know, how was I able to even make any money?
Aaron Draplin: Well, that was freelance, right? So I go back to school and I get immersed in, we'll just say sort of contemporary culture, you know, of, of graphic design in a big city, in a thriving city, in a progressive, cool graphic design scene. And I was still doing some freelance, but they train you to get ready to go into a work situation, which I did right away. You know, in 2000 I did two years there in Minneapolis and took a snowboarding magazine job in Southern California. So I do that for two years down in the beach, sort of South of LA, the longest two years of my life. I mean, it was a beautiful place and all that stuff, but it just wasn't for me, I get back to Portland in 2002. So I've been this big sort of cycle I went from Oregon to Alaska in the summers and I go Oregon back to Minneapolis to learn.
Aaron Draplin: Then I go down to cut my teeth. And my first job in LA, I get back to Oregon in 2002, I get an awesome studio job. I did that for two years, play by the rules worked late. And I went on my own in 2004, simply prompted by friends, kind of messing with me and saying, you can do this out of your basement out of your home. You have no, if it's a talent or whatever, but you do have the wherewithal like you've got the Gusto and the energy and the grit to go do this. So I did. And so since 2004, I have been freelance now, sometimes that was with retainers and contracts and NDAs and just, you know, legal beagle, other times it was just for scumbag buddies, you know, and all, all of it adds up to an awesome life. You know, it's been incredible these last now 17 years, you know, and I'll never go back, and just to be clear, they dangle the big stuff in front of me every now and again.
Aaron Draplin: And I take it and I bite. And other times they dangle a hundred bucks and say, listen, I just need help cleaning up this logo. Can you do this, you know, a hundred bucks in my life, it's still four records. Right. I will never lose this idea of like, how dare someone get that logo to the 90% percentile or something. And I'm just going to the final 10% for 200 bucks or something. I will never lose that buzz. If I had that opportunity back in 93, it would have changed my entire winter. Right. I remember doing the logo for 300 bucks and it got me ahead. It got me ahead when I was 20 years old, you know, 300 more bucks than my buddy next to me, it meant everything. So I've never lost that, you know, and this ability to guide myself and this ability to make my own hours and make my own time. That's why I wanted to talk to you. You know, because I want kids to hear that this exists, you know,
Steve Folland: So you weren't, in-house in a studio for two years and then, you know, your friend said, you can do this, but how did you go about doing that? Like, were you still working on the side that whole time?
Aaron Draplin: It was a transition. Cause here's, here's what happens, you know, is, you know, all the way since I was a kid, I was always working on the side somewhere, right. What's paramount is that you have to pay your bills. In high school. it was getting to pay insurance for your car or your lift tickets up to the mountain or skateboard decks, or the small things. When you're in school, you have to make sure your rent is covered and whatever the things are. And you know, and then of course, when I got on my own and you have to pay for an apartment and all that kind of stuff, I always had the focus to make sure that my bills were paid just whatever the day job was. But there was always some side hustle, always going on, either for fun or for some cash. And what happens is, you know, when I got my first studio job, it was being paid 65,000 bucks a year, you know, and I don't know what the hell that is.
Aaron Draplin: In the Queen's Royal Harry and Meghan currency. I don't know what that is. How many Cadbury eggs divided by, you know, the Queen's Royal... I don't know, but 65 grand was a lot for a kid who was 30, 31 years old. It was a lot. And it allowed me to start to get ahead. Like when I got my job at this, this my only agency job I've ever had, they said to us, you're allowed to work freelance all you want, but just keep it out of the day job. No problem. But I started to do stuff at night there because listen, what the studio gave us. It gave us like ping pong tables, not necessarily to play. And I had some killer moves by the way, but it wasn't necessarily just to play that ping pong table meant real estate for me.
Aaron Draplin: I can print little GOCO cards and little screen print things and use this large surface to let them dry back in my apartment. You know, you've got cardboard boxes and things and stuff spilling, you know, okay. Whatever. So I would stay late and I would use that facility just to have space and real estate to play with. I would use that facility to plug my amp in and play my guitars as loud as I never could ever play inside. You know, my apartment, I get in trouble in my apartment. How there it's an industrial kind of area. It closes at night. No, one's around, it's secure and I'm in there hammered. So I would take advantage of those facilities, right. And these extracurricular efforts, we'll just say, but what happened was those things that were, I was using either to print or just play.
Aaron Draplin: I started to get jobs and then whatever I was making at my day job, those jobs kind of started to outweigh what I could make my own after seven o'clock, six o'clock when everyone went home. Right. And it basically tipped it tipped, and I could make more freelance than I could. And I have to be careful here because I love that job at Cinco design. You know, they gave me a shot. I've learned so much from the owner, Kirk James. I mean, this is a long time ago at 17 years ago, but he is to this day, one of the greatest designers I've ever been close, you know, watching him make things. And I learned a ton, but to go out on my own, he did kind of say to me, you know, this is a natural step and you know, you're going to go do this.
Aaron Draplin: We'd love to keep you here. Um, but we understand that you're going to go make this, you know, this leap and, and my first year on my own in 2004, I just love to say this because I know you're not supposed to talk about numbers and, you know, measurements and just all this ages and all this kind of, but I'm 47 years old now. But then in 2004, I was 31 years old in my first year, completely freelance, independent from meetings about meetings and, you know, account managers who I miss. These are friends, you know, independent from everything. I cleared 200 grand that first year. And that was amazing. So what that basically meant was I made three times as much, but smarter than that, I started to pay everything off. I bought a house right before I went on my own.
Aaron Draplin: I was still under this agency. I bought a house, you know, that next year I cleared a little more than 200 and just kept on going up. Right. And just hustling, taking everything some years, there were folders where, you know, 50 or 60 logo folders, right. Some were a hundred, some are 10 grand, all amazing. And within about five or six years, I had paid my house off and had no debt. And that was 2012, I guess that was about seven, eight years. No, 2012, 2011. I was free of all debt and had money in the bank and have not looked back since, so
Steve Folland: Wow. Cause I mean, that was a lot of Cadbury's cream eggs. So you made the right choice. Right. But how, how did you find, or how did those clients find you, you know, like those early clients and it built and built and built, how were you finding that work?
Aaron Draplin: Well we were snowboarders and skateboarders and stuff. Right. And, and that is an insular weird little world and the same crew and characters that I moved out West with. Those guys kind of went home that at least those guys, they went home to start families and different things or go to school back and, you know, go start a business back in the Midwest. But those were the same sorts of characters that I met in the snowboarding industry. You know, uh, when I went to work for the magazine and those people were working at brands and things and stuff, magazines, footwear, board companies, Burton, all the big names in the snowboarding world, right? Libtech and Ride and all the cool stuff. Well, I got to know the industry. So when I went to work for the agency, that industry, let's just say the privilege that I knew some of those characters that helped me get on certain jobs at the agency because one of them was called Nixon watches, right.
Aaron Draplin: And these cool watches that you can get at like a skate shop or something, or even bigger. But because I knew the world, you know, I had had the pedigree of actually being in the West and snowboarding and skateboarding around this stuff in the nineties, and then went to school and then went and worked in the magazines that I had some authenticity on the Hill. And then of course, when I started to work for these things, here's how it happened. It was in my agency job. People would hit me up. One thing was to start a magazine with some friends. And another thing was to start a headwear company, Cole headwear. Another thing was a sort of little binding company called the union binding company. So right there, those were three retainers, right? Not all that much.
Aaron Draplin: I think it was five grand for the mag and maybe 10 grand for Cole and maybe another 10 grand for Union. I mean, what that 25 grand meant right there. That's what allowed me to get a down payment for a house and then allowed me to save and get ahead. And every year, those cut bigger and bigger and awesomer and more and more responsibilities. And so when I went on my own, it was not a clean break as far as, you know, as those things kind of grew and the freelance outweighed the ability, whatever they could give me with the jobs and stuff, I made that transition, but I did it with some strategy. You know, first of all, I had some money in the bank when I made that jump over to where it was just me. I want to say I had about five grand in the bank.
Aaron Draplin: Now what that number meant was that five grand or maybe 10 grand. It meant I could fly home at any time to see my parents back in Michigan. And then I could loan a friend a little bit of money. It meant I could pay my bills right away. Right. Little things, cell phones and stuff, and insurance, car insurance, car payments, all that kind of stuff. Everything was always so practical to this day. It's still that way. And what it was, it was all a March towards some kind of precipice of freedom. You hammer all night long. So you can just get out of the agency sitch. You hammer all night long. So you can start to pay off these things. You know, other buddies were out chasing young ladies, some were chasing guys, whatever you want to call it, they're going ape. I wasn't really doing that.
Aaron Draplin: You know, I was working, saving, getting ahead, but I did it with the transition. Like there was like a gradation because I knew people that just jumped out. And then I also knew people that jumped out and didn't quite get jobs. I knew guys from the snowboarding industry, they hit me up while I was still in the agency. Those were these budding little companies. And they turned into things and within, two or three years, 2006, five, six, seven, those were proper retainers where I was, you know, making a living off of just those three big ones, the magazine, the headwear and the bindings. And of course, littering in between all those cracks, logos, things, stuff, merch, when I started to go on the road right around 2011 or 12 or something, and talk about all this and share it, that was a whole nother little weird appendage that started to grow out of my five things like, you know, you do some logos, you work for a couple of buddies and before you know it, you've got like sort of your five fingers on one hand, right?
Aaron Draplin: Well, before I knew it, you know, things just kept, you know, field notes started somewhere there and that was self-initiated and then given to friends in Chicago, and that became a company 2005, six, seven, something like that. So that suddenly there's another appendage that comes out of this. Suddenly you've got like 12 or 13 things on your one hand and you're, it's like, wow, man, this is starting to cook and starting to go, you know, but I guess what's important is that when I made that transition, the commitment I had made to myself was, first of all, I did not do broke. I did it with a little bit of padding. It might've been five or 10 grand. So at least in the very worst-case scenario, if the work dried up, I'd have five, six months to cover myself to try to go find a job, try to find new clients. But luckily it just kept exploding, you know, into more and more things. Yeah.
Steve Folland: It sounds like a lot of stuff was coming your way and, but you're clearly loving it, but how did you manage the work-life balance side of it as in, how did you know how to manage your workload? Even if you are loving it?
Aaron Draplin: Well, there wasn't a lot of balance there. You know, I worked as much as I could because I understood that this is my shot to get ahead. What else am I going to do it? You know, I mean, what were my splurges? They weren't necessarily going snowboarding anymore. It might've been going to the record store, but I remember this, I remember this, you know, when you say work-life balance, you know, it's like when I got on my own, I started doing these road trips in the fall that were amazing.
Aaron Draplin: And I would go back and see my mom and dad in Michigan, I would drive all the way there and do loops and woopty dues and crisscrosses and all sorts across the States. And basically lived in my little Passat wagon sometimes, you know, but you would go to a town like St. Louis, Missouri, and get a little hotel on the outskirts. That's clean and safe and has wifi and all this. This was at the Dawn of wifi, 2004 or five, six, because it meant, my clients didn't know, but I was in Missouri kicking in some little hotel room. And what I would do is I would work late nights in there. And then I would get up in the morning and I would go see the city and do stuff. So, to answer that question, there wasn't a lot of balance.
Aaron Draplin: I took every job I could get. I mean, I try, there were a couple of things I had to let go, but that's how you get ahead. But I will say it, it opened up so much time that I could go to do things like those road trips. That was amazing. You couldn't do that in an agency setting. You know, you had to get time off and play all these games and paperwork and, you know, whatever, I could just go, I could just go. And I was free in a lot of interesting senses. And yet my commitment to my clients didn't change. As long as that was waiting for them in the morning, wherever time zone they were at, we were cool. So I always had a list. This is what I'm working on. And if it means pulling over right now and going into some McDonald's, you know, you guys have heard of those, McDonald's has strong wifi anywhere in the nation here.
Aaron Draplin: And if you just get, don't eat that, but if you get close to it, every now and again, a Big Mac, I guess I'll just have to, you know, just for full disclosure, but you get close to it. You can get the wifi on my little laptop in 2006. Right. And I'd sit there, whatever file I had just worked on the night before, off into the ether to my client. And then it was back on the highway. Right. So that just took organization. And it took a commitment to like, tonight, you don't get to go to see the band that you wanted to see in this town, you know, or whatever it was going to be tonight, you're in a hotel room and then you're going to hammer until this thing's done. Right. And that's really no different now. But I will say people started to see signs of imbalance, you know, did you just say you worked for like three weeks straight?
Aaron Draplin: And it's like, yeah, but I mean, you know, you're sleeping and you're doing things and you're going out with a friend to eat or whatever, you know, it's like, when I got a girlfriend, you ought to see this little, this little Moonbeam Hazel, we could turn the lights off in this room right now. And she'd walk in here and light the place up with her radiant beauty right now, she saw it right away, you know, because she had balance in her life going outside, exercising, eating properly, being a nice human being, all sorts of things that I sort of wasn't, right. And that's always been a struggle because I'll just kind of look her right in the eye and just kind of go, you got it pretty easy with me, don't you?
Aaron Draplin: Because I just have to remind her, like, I worked hard for those thirties, so we could chill a little bit in the forties, but I've kept that pace going. In fact, just yesterday, we were talking with friends and it was like, how much more, Draplin. How much more? Remember when the thirties, when you started this stuff, how much more, you know? And it was like, I don't know, three more years and I get to 50 and I'll change. I'll change some stuff, you know, and slow it down. Yeah. Maybe.
Steve Folland: Maybe. So how do things grow then? Through those thirties to where we are now, did your business change at all? So right at the beginning, it's you doing designs, design, design, design... How have things changed if at all?
Aaron Draplin: Well, you know, it was like the retainer clients, and we'll say the big three, the snowboard company, magazine, which was completely independent. We started with our money and our friends and it turned on and turned into like a viable thing. That was, let's just say, I don't know, about five grand a month, you know, that was like a real thing. But not all year, maybe seven issues. So let's just call it a cool 35 grand. The other retainers for Cole and Union, those were getting substantial. Cause that was on the clock all year long for them. They would give me a list. I would give them an estimate, we'd battle it out. And of course, whatever that number was, I'd give them 20% more just because we were friends, you know? And it's like the ability to say, with two retainers from those guys, I have my entire year covered.
Aaron Draplin: Just those two. What about the mag? What about all the logos? What about all this stuff? So frankly from about 2004 to about 2011 or 12 or 13, it was like that, right? It was just, these retainers were getting bigger. I was saving more and more money. The projects were getting like the one-offs, you know, someone coming to me for a logo, I would have to leverage and say, you guys, I have so much going on with my big three. If I'm going to do this project for you, this is the price. Because what it means is they've already got me Monday through Saturday. But if I'm going to give you my Sunday night and Sunday, you're paying for it. Right. You don't, you know what I mean? I mean, not trying to be tough. I never would have said that to anyone, but I just started to stand up for myself because if it meant compromising my time, let's get paid for it.
Aaron Draplin: Right. So whatever that means, they never would have felt that. So I would shoehorn, these extra things and everything just got a little bit bigger. And then when I started to go on the road in 2011, 10, maybe 12, and sort of build these things into proper tours, it got even cooler because, you know, when I leave the house, it's not like I turn things off that plane ride actually allowed me to focus a little bit more, being able to focus for five hours from here to Boston. Right. So I get a lot done on the road. And then when I get to Boston, the next morning, we're going to go do this song and dance that night. They want to take me out drinking, but I don't really even drink. You know, I would stay in the hotel room with good, strong wifi, get all my work done and then get ready for a fun day with the students or, you know, some big lecture or a conference or whatever it was.
Aaron Draplin: I never got to go to any of that stuff. And I mean, in those thirties, we'll just say, I didn't even really know about that world. Right. Um, I've done Adobe Max for the last eight years and it's been incredible. And I got a little name, I throw a little weight around there and by the way, we sell a fuck load of merch while we're there, but all according to plan. But I didn't even know that was a thing, I didn't even know. It was a thing. And then you get invited to one of those. It's amazing. You get to see all the software, all the celebrity designers, I got to be backstage with a bunch of them. And then kids were acting like I was one of them. And then they would meet me and realize I was just trying to get my parking validated, like any other Dick out in the parking lot.
Aaron Draplin: Right. You know, it's like, you would peel these veneers back really quick. And then they'd like me, maybe even a little more, it's just a regular kind of person. Right. You know? So that really changed this kind of weird, like public outreach, you know, and it became another finger where it's like, wow, I can make money on the road talking about myself and sharing this, doing workshops with kids. So for the last seven years, minus the pandemic, you know, it was a pretty booming, fun time. You know, I got to go to over 450 places, everything from Bratislava to Philadelphia to the Philippines, man, I got to go all over the place, Germany a bunch of times, Sweden, Australia, and then Dubuque, Iowa, you know, where no one goes. I've been there two or three times, you know? So that 450, you know, was every other day, sometimes, you know, it was like you were leaving Wednesday and then back by Friday morning, you do the gig in Salt Lake City on Thursday.
Aaron Draplin: And then you're back by Friday morning, you know, and then have a weekend with my lady. Right. And then work, work, work, you know? So this is how I got ahead. Just the best way to put it as Field Notes started to grow. Things started to come out, you know, that would shadow field notes. Sometimes, like the Skillshare classes, right? All the merch that we're selling, all the merch that we're making, the roadshow, the book came out, went crazy in 2016. So I'm just trying to mitigate all of this, you know, and enjoy it. Take care of everyone around me. Right. You know, my mom, my little sisters. I just bought my sister Sarah, who's a horrible person, by the way. I bought my sister Sarah, you can put that on the record, right now. She's wonderful.
Aaron Draplin: She looks just like me with long hair, poor girl. No, my little sister closest to me, Sarah, about a year and a half older than her. And then my little baby sister, Leah, who might be, if I'm 47, she's 37. I've got about nine, 10 years on her. But just today I bought my sister, Sarah an Aeron chair, a beautiful, you know, like kick-ass, no deal involved, Herman Miller Aeron chair. And I mean, I've had this one for about 17 years, right? 17 years. One of my buddies, Brad, from Cole Headwear, back when we were starting the deal, he was watching how much I was sitting there, bought me a beautiful chair and I've had this the whole time, but today I bought her a chair, you know? And, um, I guess where I'm going with that is if they need something, I kind of have them covered, you know, this isn't about me trying to just put it all into a big bank account. I make sure my mom's covered. You know, she needs anything. I got her. Yeah. I feel like we need to jump back slightly because, for example, I mentioned Field Notes.
Steve Folland: Yeah. We've covered the fact that you've toured the world speaking and things. Um, can you explain what Field Notes is? What did that mean for you?
Aaron Draplin: I have been drawing in little books forever. Right? And it might've been just a sketchbook. It might've been paper, just fold it over. And it became part of my kind of half-ass process to listen, make notes, make lists, check things off. Email is a constant battle as far as just trying to get to a zero inbox. And I can gauge a certain kind of number in my I've been under 50, the last 10 days. It's cause I'm ahead right now. But when I get behind, it'll go up to like 80/100 things in my inbox, which are anything from like a link from you to come on this. Right. It does not leave the inbox until we're done with the podcast. So that stays in there, or a kid who wants some questions answered or something that is a quick deliverable that day, get us these files and your typefaces and your things.
Aaron Draplin: Okay. Okay. That is sent off. It's out of there. But I can tell, it's like the health of my sort of, you know, my practice is all about, getting that to the zero inbox. When I had my appendix taken out in 2011 or something, I got down to like eight or nine emails because people thought I was going to die. So they backed off of me and what a golden period that was. I was on death's door, Steve. When I'm working, it's like, how do you keep track of your life? You know, it's email, it's lists, it's things. And I would, when I went for the union binding company in Milan Italy, one time after a long slog there, we went down to Milan and I saw my first set of like proper Moleskines and I got a bunch of them.
Aaron Draplin: And I read a little thing in the back that said, this is the same little book that Van Gogh used and Hemingway and these big names. And it was like, wow, man. And I used a bunch of them for years. In fact, even before that a friend, when I was in school, a friend would go back home to Japan and she would get us stuff from Moogy right. And bring it back to Minneapolis. And I use that stuff until it was gone. Right. So I bought a bunch of Moleskine and then somewhere, you know, being a fan of it, I found out that that was kind of about the Hemingway and Van Gogh thing, gullible or not. I really thought that this like little form went all the way back to some French countryside or something. No, it's marketing and they're full of it.
Aaron Draplin: Right. But it, it just pissed me off. Cause it was like, wait a second. I don't want to have my heartbroken. I really thought that maybe this was the same paper and the stitching. Okay. Nerdy stuff. So here's the deal I made my own, quite literally make my own, I would print them, cut them, fold, cut the corners, make the things. Cause I had tons of these things from when I was out, you know, junking all across America and I'd bring them back and all these sorts of cool little books and things from banks and all sorts of stuff. So I knew what they looked like and what they tasted like. So I started to make my own, well that wasn't going to cut it. You know, I did a couple of hundred gave, used seven or eight of them myself over the course of a couple of months, you know, gave them to a bunch of friends.
Aaron Draplin: And then I made my first proper printing. 2000 of them, let's say 2004 or five or something, 2000 of them for 2000 bucks. I gave a stack of them to my buddy, Jim Coudal back in Chicago, who I was a fan of. Jim saw them that day. He's like, you're onto something. We shook hands became, you know, kind of brothers. And, and this thing came out of that. And it was purely like, if it would have been me just doing these things, they might still be in that same shoebox all these years later. Right. And that'd be okay, it's okay. It wasn't making a business. It was like, how do I make something so I have enough to give to my friends. That's as simple as I can put it. But Jim saw what there was. Cause he's like an adult, you know, and he's a smart guy. And he took it and like built a website, built a business, built a team, talented people in Chicago, built a life for me with this thing. Right. I'm so thankful for Jim. And I mean, before we knew it, we were like a business, you know, and subscription lists and…
Aaron Draplin: You know, annual this and things every couple months and colours and ups and downs. And then, of course, the whole time we've never had a penny of debt. We really kept our act together and had small decisions that would resonate later. You know, it wasn't about getting bigger. It was about doing it. Right, right. So I am so, so proud of it. And on top of that, I use them every hour, every day. Yeah. That's the story right there. And I mean, now we're about 14 years in, 13 years in and it continues to kick ass. Even through the pandemic. We were a little nervous, but people were, you know, remember this, isn't just for gigantic graphic designers trying to keep track of his day. People use them for poetry and grocery lists and you know, prison breaks and gambling debts and just all sorts of cool schematics, all sorts of cool.
Aaron Draplin: You know, it's paper, you continue to design them. Yeah. There's a whole group of people back in Chicago that watch over this thing, 13 people, 12, 13 people. You know, Brian's kind of our art director and then, you know, he'll show me stuff. Sometimes he doesn't show me stuff. Right. And I won't see it and I'll just, I'll get a box of them after they show up other times right now, like I'm on a project with these guys and like I'm in the thick of it. And sometimes, you know, cause I'm out here, I'm just far away. It gets disconnected, you know, but Jim keeps me up to date. We talk every, you know, once a month for a good hour or something. And then on top of that, sometimes I'm talking to him every other day. It's awesome. You know, he's kind of a big brother to me, I'm, I'm 47. Jim's about, maybe 60. So he's got life experience and the family and the whole bit, you know,
Steve Folland: And so was that your first taste of like creating a product, of like doing something beyond creating, you know, a design?
Aaron Draplin: Well, probably for myself, but see the scary part about when you're freelance is that, and I recognize this right away was I was being paid and hopefully well, you know, at least enough, to do it for other people. And the fact of the matter is, you know, without dragging a brand, I don't know if I should talk about it, it rhymes with Strata Gonia okay. And you know, when you work for something that you're a fan of, I paid 300 bucks for a jacket in 1989 or something. I saved my money and I bought a Patagonia jacket that was beautiful, you know, maybe 250 bucks or something, but I had never bought anything that beautiful. When I got to work for them. It was, they're a really cool company, you know, and they really do beautiful work and it's great gear. But beyond that, they have great sort of social impact kind of stuff too.
Aaron Draplin: I really, it was a real privilege. But when you realize it's like, when you do a t-shirt for those guys, you get paid a nice chunk to be, you know, to be fair, when I'm messing with Patagonia, they paid me really well, but they make a lot on that T-shirt because that's what they're supposed to do. That's what the plan is. Right. They make a lot on that thing. So I got basically 1%, we'll say, and they get 99. And it was just this thing where it's like, you know, I'm trained to be that person in that smaller percentage to say, yeah, let me help make you some stuff that then you guys can go and proliferate. They have the network, they have the organization, they have the wherewithal to go in like sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Well, I kept doing that for other people.
Aaron Draplin: It was like, wait a second. What happens if I do it for myself? You know, and Field Notes was, that was really the first time that I did that. And then Jim saw that and then it took off. But there were other things that I did that were maybe not necessarily, it's not even the word successful. It's more like, I don't know how to say it. It's like, it's okay if something fell flat, the only marker that I was kind of placing on it was like, let's just let it exist. You know, there's no milestone here that we have to hit some big profitability. It exists. It does, it's done. Let's just enjoy that. Right. There's a beauty to that. There's a release there of like, Oh wow. It can just be something for just me and my friends. Well, what happens when that takes off and that's kind of Field Notes, you know, and out of that came the merch and now I've got a bunch of Type Faces going on.
Aaron Draplin: And then of course all those gigs and other things and stuff, you know, doing podcasts, I'm just shameless, I'll just say yes to any of this stuff. But this is a break for me, man it's fun. And I know I'm the one doing all the talking like an ass here, but you know, I get to meet another person, especially in this pandemic time, you know, it's a weird thing, but yeah. That was the first time. You know, when that happens and a whole new set of responsibilities come out of it where you're like, I gotta be careful with this because these things, I'm not going to say a golden touch, but there were a couple of things that just had a kind of you know, buffed out bronze touch to it where it was like bigger than I thought it was going to be.
Aaron Draplin: You know, it was just bigger. And you have to be careful that you don't take on too much, you know, take on too much work. Well, check it out. It's really just, you know, how many hours are there in a day? You know? And then as these things start to explode, you know, within a couple of years there were concerns about how big is the line going to get? And what happens when someone from the UK asks us to, you know, carry the product, how do we even get it over there? You know, we have a UK distributor now. And so there's like, you know, building blocks. And what I mean by that is like, there's no way I could do those, those jobs. There's just no way. I can contribute to the sort of top-level of like the creative and the look and the feel.
Aaron Draplin: But any of these other things that's Field Notes, cause there's a proper team. But when you pull anything back into my lap, the merch, the things, the stuff that's all me, my girlfriend does the shipping, helps with certain things. But you know, you just get this sense of like, this is getting too close to getting away from us. And if it gets away from us, it's going to affect a lot of other things. So there's an interesting balance there. How much is too much? And, you know, I know here I am throwing out numbers and money and things and stuff, but it was like, Why did I go freelance? Because I could do better. I could do better and have a better creative life in that world, right? And man, so far so good. You know, at all times with the parachute though, the first parachute was like, Hey, if this doesn't go well, I'll go get another job.
Aaron Draplin: You know, it reminds me of a little story. Where about five years into being freelance, we'll say 2009, 10, I got a call from a prestigious headhunter in the Northwest, they kiss your ass. Because if they can place you into a job, they're going to get a cut. That's how it works. Right. So you're thinking, Oh, I'm something they're calling me, you know? And they're blowing smoke up the Hill, you know, the older tower of London, if you, whatever you want to call it. Up your old big ben. Okay. I don't know what I'm talking about, but it's a big Stonehenge, jammed inside your ass. I'm trying to be cultural with you, okay. So they really get after you, you know, what are you doing right now? I'm freelancing. I'm freelancing. Cool. I'm just, you're working out of your basement. Yeah. I'm working out in my basement.
Aaron Draplin: And she says, well Aaron, this is a big branding job. And they're seeing your work, a couple of fans or they're seeing your stuff, they're seeing your output. And they know about you here in Portland. And she reads me, the HR, you know, rigmarole. And she reads me the job brief. And somewhere along the way she says, you know, and just so you know, it's kind of business casual, which means you kind of got to wear like a shirt. At that point, you know, like I've only had a shirt tucked in at my grandma's funeral. Right. And I just was like, Whoa. So you have to kind of dress up and go in there. But what are the hours like? Cause she tells me, Oh yeah, you get 40, sometimes 50, 60 hours. Now some there's going to be ugly weeks. By the way, on Fridays, you can just kind of wear whatever you want. When you go into the shop, you know, it's kind of like a Hawaiian shirt Friday. Huh? So it was the casual day. So I finally just cut to the chase and asked how much? And she says, Aaron, they're wanting to offer you 99 grand a year. Right now. She goes, well, what are you making right now? If you don't mind. I said, I broke 300 last year in my boxer shorts.
Aaron Draplin: In my basement. Why would I ever go in there for anything? You know? And she became a human and she said to me, Aaron, I'm so sorry. I assume that you were like all these other kids that were just, you know, making just enough on their own. And I didn't even know about was just the, sort of the width and the breadth of where these retainers could go. And what happens when you actually commit to something and you take all these gigs, it was starting to add up. I'm not trying to be braggy, please don't, whoever's listening to this, please don't take it that way. Those are triumphs because you got to understand, if I took a zero off of that 300 and said, I only made 30 grand, I still would've gotten ahead with that because I would've known how to budget my time, budget, my budget, you know, like, how much is your car and all that kind of stuff.
Aaron Draplin: My mom taught me that, make your budget, figure out what your monthly, you know, do that and stick to it. So you know that funny little story there long-winded I know not everything that's dangled in front of you, this little golden carrot on a stick. It's not better sometimes. Bigger isn't better. You know, you can make it small, stay crusty, stay without pants on and still get your budget covered. And maybe even beyond, you know, but I say that with an asterisk and a wink, like be careful, it's volatile and you better be organized and you better be willing to take it on the old chin every now and again, you know?
Steve Folland: Yeah. We touched upon your speaking, but I'm just wondering, how did that get started? You know, it's one thing for somebody to see somebody who's been at Adobe Max for eight years, you know, but we sit there and think, well, how, how did that start?
Aaron Draplin: You know, where this came from was simply, I got to go do a panel discussion up in Seattle and we were already up there because Seattle is just a couple of hours above us here, right. Three hours. And we were up there with my clients, Cole and Union, those two guys were up there. You know, Cole had seven or eight people at the time, Union had six or seven, whatever it was. So I'd go up and see my, my two points of contact George at Union, and my buddy, Brad from Coley's or you know, basically brothers, right. We were working all year together on the phone and I'd go see them every couple of months. So we're up there and, you know, celebrate something or approve something or, you know, work on a project or something. And then that night was a panel discussion.
Aaron Draplin: And the panel discussion was something about snowboarding in the industry or something. And that was one of six on this whole thing. And the one guy that got me into it, my buddy Stick, you know, this guy Stick, he used to work for this thing called Ride, Stick kinda got me into this and said, just come and sit with us. It'll be fun. There's gonna be a little crowd of people. And if you want, you can bring some of your merch to sell. I had a couple of things you know, hats and some stuff and brought a little pile of stuff to sell like a band. And, um, I went up to this thing and it was really fun, you know? And then on top of that, out of the six, two of us really were the ones who were talking.
Aaron Draplin: This was just what I remember. You know, you don't want to be a ball hog, like I'm doing on this. You don't want to be a ball hog, but if no one's going to say anything, pipe up, right. There's a crowd there that got to this thing, you know, and it was at this weird moment of like, I was terrified and freaked out. Okay. Because someone in the crowd saw that I could kind of handle myself and be proper, you know, amongst other things that were passed on to someone in the AIJ up there and somewhere they offered to have me come back, you know, for another thing. And then out of that, you know, I of course exploited the shit out of that on my social media, wow, I got to go into a panel discussion.
Aaron Draplin: You know, you show the graphic and you get to say, I'm with my buddy Stick and we're going to be on this thing. It's going to be cool. Come to this thing. Well, someone saw that. And the next thing that came out of that is I had this offer where David Carson, you know, that's a big graphic designer, right? David Carson, well, he flaked on some gig, Don, Savannah, Georgia flaked on it. And then what that means is you sign a contract. You say you're going to be there and get on the plane and go to Savannah, Georgia. And then he flakes a couple of days before. And these guys call me on a Thursday night afternoon. They're like, Hey, if you get on the plane tonight down to Savannah, Georgia, it's a bit of a red-eye. We have you speaking tomorrow at noon. Can you do this?
Aaron Draplin: We like what you do and you want to come see? And it was just like, well, let's go do it. Let's just go. So that night on the plane, I kind of, you know, built this who, what, when, where, why PDF. Knowing, like how do you even do it? Like I'd never done a public speaking thing by myself. I was part of a conference. They had all sorts of other stuff lined up for a whole weekend. But in the graphic designer, you know, a little flap of this thing, this big name, you know, I know David Carson from the night, I've been able to meet him a couple of times too. But, he was a big name, the nineties, I had this book and stuff, you know, and I was just going to go fill these shoes, you know, as sort of this anomaly. So I go down and I do this thing and it was really fun.
Aaron Draplin: Brought a bunch of merch with me, sold a bunch of stuff. And because of the people in that, like I'm not down there for my health, you're getting paid to do it. It's pretty fun. You meet a bunch of cool people, but you bring the stuff and sell the stuff, you know, like a band. So I went down, it went really well. And there were people in the crowd that didn't start to hit me up and say, Hey, we really liked what you had to say. Would you come to this? And before I knew that, you know, that got me hooked into like AIG EA and art director clubs and conferences and things. And I could just, a couple short years later, I got to go the biggest one of the year, Adobe Max. And that one, I was just, you know, just a little barnacle, just a little, a little growth in appendage, a, a melanoma on graphic design.
Aaron Draplin: Okay. And I remember that at that one, I brought a bunch of merch with me. You know, there was no, what they call the marketplace now, there wasn't any of that. Right. And I brought a mountain of stuff with me and I went and gave a $50 bill to like a facilities guy. And I was like, Hey, you get me a door. And a couple of saw horses. Here's a $50 bill. And that guy went and grabbed it and set them up. He didn't know who I was with, gave him the $50 bill he was off. I set my merch up. And before I knew I had a line about a block long, if you want to meet draft, like I’d spoken hour before or whatever, if you want to meet this asshole and buy some merch, here you go.
Aaron Draplin: I'm just proud to report. You know, the last one we got to go to about a year and a half ago now, it was awesome. We had a line the entire time at our merch thing. I did my talks. I got to meet so many people. I got, I signed every Field Notes. I shook every kid's hand, every selfie. And you know, all of them, you have to understand that some of them, my contemporaries, I'm not going to name any names, but they don't really do that stuff. And that's okay. That's not, there's nothing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but you know, as a kid it's fun to meet someone you look up to, or even just, some people are just curious to get close and just go, Oh my God, you know, whatever, there's some of that.
Aaron Draplin: And we'll sell stuff to those guys all day. But you know, I accommodate that stuff. So we ramp up and when we go do that and you know, that's how it started. It was very natural. You know.
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self, one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Aaron Draplin: Understand what it's going to take to keep your taxes cool. You gotta pay the piper and you can't get behind on that. Cause it'll bite you in your heart, you know? So you gotta be careful with that stuff. I learned the hard way. A couple of times, not necessarily fudging it, letting it slide a little too long or being sort of oblivious, but you can't mess with that. So as a youngster, you know, I would have told the young Aaron Draplin every buck, every buck about 40 cents.
Aaron Draplin: You have to have set aside because as the numbers start to go up, I'm not allowed to use that buck to pay everything off. I'm allowed to use 60 cents to pay everything off or whatever you want, whatever to buy records. And it's not that, you know, I was good about that. But what would happen is like, there was a turnover one time with my accountant and I wasn't quite proactive enough. I was on a road trip. I had assumed he was going to have me for the next year. He let me go because he was retiring. And what that meant was he didn't put the paperwork. And for all my extensions, that, of course I would ritually abuse every year. You know, every year that would come up and it was supposed to be in April and I would get the extension. It would go till August and then it would go till September. Next thing you know, we're putting this in on the deadline on October 15th. Right, right, right. I would abuse that every year, while that one year that I assumed, like the other years that he had put my extension in, he didn't, I simply didn't open his letter that I got from him every year. Up to that point, I got the same letter.
Aaron Draplin: Without your extension and Aaron you animal, we're going to get your things that year. I didn't open it. I put it on top of all my other scary envelopes. When I opened it, it said, I'm retiring. The failure to file that year costs me $22,000. So that could have bought my mom a car, that could have done a lot of things. Right. You know? And I cried my eyes out because first of all, I thought I was gonna get in trouble. No they'll work with you. But there was a pretty stiff penalty, you know. To the younger youngsters out there, you're not going to get around this. That's part of being a citizen. It's part of the deal. Part of being freelance is not just being able to pull off the cool work and the cool jobs. Be it sound recording, editing, whatever you're doing, man, or me being a cake decorator, whatever that is. There's a grace to how you communicate, how you get jobs, how you keep jobs, how you hand off jobs, hopefully the work you do along the way and how you handle your finances. It is as important as any of those other things. Right? So it's a big part of it. You know, the ability to sleep at night to comply, do it creatively and be a citizen and do your part, you know?
Steve Folland: Yeah. Thanks so much. And all the best being freelance!
Aaron Draplin: Thank you, Steve. I applaud you, man. I love seeing people inventing their way, you know. Stay strong, man. We'll see you around.
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