Can You Be Both a Designer and an Artist? I'm Living Proof.

If you know me, you know I wear a couple of creative hats. There's the designer side of me, the one who helps business owners bring their brand to life through social posts, flyers, banners, emails, and more. And then there's the artist side, the one sketching cute characters, dreaming up sticker designs, and setting up at local markets on weekends. Both sides are fully me, but the way I show up for each one looks a little different. Let me break it down.

Client work is like solving a puzzle.

I genuinely love working with clients. A big chunk of my time as a designer is spent on repeat customers like the people who trust me to keep their brand looking consistent and their content moving. That part feels like a good rhythm. But working with someone new is where it gets really interesting.

every new client comes with their own brand, their own voice, their own goals. And it's my job to learn all of that and then create something that actually helps them get where they're trying to go. Design, at its core, is problem-solving. There's always a challenge, always a goal, and my job is to build the bridge between the two.

When I'm designing for a client, I'm constantly putting myself in the shoes of their idel customer. What will catch their attention? What will make them stop scrolling? What feels true to this brand? Everything I make has to be cohesive with what. they already have in place, their colors, their aesthetic, their messaging. it's a bit like being a creative chameleon.

When I sit down to work on my own stuff, my stickers, my art prints, my Lakeland pieces, something just clicks differently. I still think about the audience, because that never fully goes away. But I'm not filtering everything through someone else's brand guidelines. I get to just be me.

My personal style is a lot more cutesy and kawaii than people might expect. And I honestly don't think most people who know me purely as a "designer" would guess that's how I draw. There's something kind of fun about that, like a little secret side of my creativity that comes out at markets and in my Etsy shop.

When everything is mine, it all comes naturally. The way I talk about it, the way I design it, the way I draw it, it's all just me, unfiltered.

Working with so many different brands has actually made me more comfortable as an artist. Designing logos, brand elements, and visuals for clients has sharpened my eye and given me more confidence when I'm creating for myself. And on the flip side, my personal art style quietly influences the energy I bring to client work, even if it's not alway obvious.

The line between "professional designer" and "artist who sells at markets" isn't a hard one. It's actually pretty blurry, and I like it that way.

There are no rules when it comes to how you run your creative business. You don't have to pick one lane. You don't have to be just designer or just an artist. Creativity doesn't work like that, and neither does building something that's truly yours.

I'm proof that you can solve puzzles for clients by day and draw kawaii Pokemon stickers by night, and both things can be equally valid parts of who you are.