The Un-Ordinary: An Anti-Gatekeeping Series on Freelancing (Featuring Jen Drews)

Meet Jen Drews.

Jen is a digital designer. She immerses herself into a world of design, where creativity meets strategy, and projects are more than just tasks—they're opportunities for innovation and growth.

What's the craziest design request you've ever received?

I'm not sure if I can write this but a German version of onlyfans once reached out to me via instagram about doing an app redesign for them. Their page was really unclear on what their businesses was -  but I was in the middle of a backpacking trip, needed money, and their request for a UI update for a  social media platform seemed very professional with a high hourly rate. Let's just say it was a very weird client discovery call and I did not continue with their project.

‍
What do you do when you get stuck creatively?

I take a break and go for a walk. When working as a creative for yourself, it's really easy to have this constant pressure to work as hard as possible. There needs to be a balance between intensive design work and rest. Usually when I rest, then ideas come to me more naturally. However, to do this in a way where I am still getting things done, I timeblock my days and make sure that there is down time for me to do things completely unrelated to client relations, design, or video editing.

‍
If you could design a new emoji, what would it be?

*stressed pinching nose emoji* it's my go to position when I'm thinking about a complex problem or someone says something wild.

‍

What are the most common forms of gatekeeping you've observed?
How do you think we as a community could change them?

I view this as a 'short term win' versus 'long term win' mentality. When people gate keep it's to protect their time, energy, and make sure no one steals their creativity, in the short term this might help give you a competitive edge, but will hurt you later on.

The long term mentality is building a brand off of sharing your insights, this helps you connect with your clients, and other people in your field while fostering community. Do be okay with giving away your knowledge for free - it takes a certain level of confidence in your work. That confidence ironically only comes when you have spent enough time building your craft and connecting with your community.

My best advice on how to change this, is to pay it forward, by building community for the upcoming designers. *As a side note*  :there is always a limit on how much free advice and energy you can give to others. If you want to build a community and not get burned out you need to be very realistic about how much you are willing to give.

I do Youtube videos because I can create it once and anyone can watch my design processes. However, if someone messages me demanding I give them tips, then I have a paid mentorship session they can book with me.

I had to implement this because I was getting 20+ messages a week from designers asking for advice. After answering the first few people I realized that it was taking a lot of time out of my own client work to do this, and people who want free advice usually don't value it. Sometimes people would even rudely message me back, after I had sent them paragraphs with links, telling me I didn't answer what they wanted. To prevent this from becoming an issue, if people want advice I'll send them the link to a relevant Youtube video I've done or let them know about my 1 hour mentorship option. This really filters out who is serious about wanting advice.

‍

What's your greatest pain point in managing your business?

A big pain point is knowing what to charge for a project. This becomes very complicated when running a design agency because each client is unique and so are their design solutions. For some clients I just do a branding project, for others I do social media feed designs, content creation, and branding. Others want custom app or web designs! These design solutions have very different price tags and Roam helps with piecing together how much each aspect of a project should cost. This helps me charge a fair rate, and not get burned out from over working and under paying myself.
‍

Where should we direct people to find more about you? Website/Socials?

Launching in the first week of November is my design agency Jaia Studio, which can be found at www.jaiastudio.com, and people can sign up for my monthly design email and follow on Instagram @jaia.studio. There will be lots of brands and the health, wellness and fitness space that I'm helping launch in the next two months - so tons of design and business advice will be coming out!For my personal channels, peoople can watch all of my app and design process videos (including the series on creating and launching Jaia) on my Youtube @j.drewsdraws - which the the same handle for my instagram and Tiktok page.

‍

‍

‍

"The Un-Ordinary: An Anti-Gatekeeping Series on Freelancing" by Roam.

Roam is the most intuitive business management platform for digital creatives, here to equip creatives with the practical tools and support to streamline their workflows and thrive in business.
‍
‍

‍

‍