#Self made designer

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike meets Jeremy Fitzgerald

[uniqque007]

Jamie Windell — From Self-Taught Designer To Studio Founder

From stumbling into the design industry in his mid-twenties to leading an award-winning creative team spanning four continents — this is Jamie Windell’s design and creative story.‍

Jamie’s always had a creative side. His love of brands — or more specifically, brand names — began in high school. Instead of doing homework, he used to sketch or re-draw logos for fun.

At 25, Jamie left a corporate job to start a logistics business. Not only was it his move into entrepreneurship, it was also his first taste of design. That’s because launching ‘Think Africa’, in Johannesburg, South Africa, needed a logo, business cards, a website, and social media posts.

To create these design elements, he collaborated with a local graphic designer. Back then, Jamie knew nothing about design, but he quickly grew to love working alongside a designer. ‘Think Africa’ was a labour of love, and a dream business for Jamie.

When friends noticed Jamie’s branding and website for ‘Think Africa’ they reached out to him to help craft their own brand identity and online presence. Whilst a graphic designer handled the logos, Jamie built the websites on his own using Weebly — a very simple drag-and-drop website building and hosting tool — nothing like the no code/low code solutions available today. Determined to succeed, Jamie learned the tool and launched a few websites for his friends.

Fast-forward 3 years. Having worked at various companies in operations and project management, Jamie got the chance to work for renowned interior design studio — Design Partnership (DP). He loved looking over the interior designers’ shoulders to see their creative 2D and 3D work — usually mood boarding and sketching. Adrian, Callie, Mimi, Calvin, Roberto, David, Carina, Jacqueline, Justin, Elizabeth, and Natalie — were in Jamie’s words “super cool and inspiring to observe”.

While working at DP, Jamie began learning logo design — colours, fonts, and styles — diving deep into Adobe Illustrator. Thanks to Google and YouTube, this developed into designs for flyers, business cards, and social media posts.

On this journey of self-learning, Jamie also learned WordPress, designing websites using templates and theme builders, a far cry from what Khula Design Studio does today. Looking back, it wasn’t the best way to build websites, but it got the job done. Recently, Jamie and the Khula team actually got the chance to redesign and rebuild DP’s website in Webflow. You can see it here.

While working full-time, Jamie began designing logos and building websites on WordPress in the evenings and weekends. Friends started to notice, and word started to spread. He was becoming known for design, specifically helping startups launch their brand.

‍

Within a year or so, KITStart My Business had designed logos and websites for over 30 local businesses — all through word of mouth. The pair enjoyed exploring their creativity and pushing the limits of what they could achieve. As two average high school students from a logistics background, they felt they didn’t have a creative bone in their bodies. But they surprised themselves — they did it!

As time went on, Jamie dabbled in many business ideas. He loved starting businesses, but didn’t get to see any of them through. He was a wannabe serial entrepreneur who didn’t want to give up on his dreams of running his own business.‍‍

In 2018, Jamie moved into coaching and consulting startups, while still doing the odd design piece here and there. He produced a few social media post designs for a YouTube influencer and Podcast channel called The Passionate Few.

‍Then in 2019, Jamie relocated to the beautiful British Columbia province of Canada in search of new opportunities.

On arrival in Canada, Jamie knew he wanted to work in the creative industry. So he joined a digital creative agency in Vancouver, called Skyrocket Digital. For a year and half, he got to learn about design from really talented brand strategists, graphic designers, UX/UI designers, web developers, and marketing gurus Mo, Yulia, Kris, Kayan, Yung, Yong Hee, Dave, and Ethan. It was like a masterclass in great design.

During this time, Jamie loved seeing the creative process and how an agency could be run. With proper frameworks and processes that delivered high-quality design work, his learning propelled him to new heights, and beyond his own self-learning journey.‍

“If you want to truly grow fast, dive into the deep end by taking on real-life practical work applications and experience.” — Jamie Windell, Founder, Khula Design Studio‍

Jamie & Yulia at Skyrocket

Then the pandemic hit. Jamie left the creative agency in September 2020, but with his years of experience, he decided to take all of his learnings and launch his dream business. From humble beginnings doing basic logo design, he now understood agency-quality design work, and Khula Design Studio was born.

Today, Khula is a boutique design studio, offering foundational branding elements such as brand strategy, brand identity design, UX/UI web design, Webflow development, and SEO fundamentals. It’s scary how much technology and design have evolved in the last decade or so. We’re really proud of the work Khula produces today, using digital tools to aid our work and enable designers to get better and better at their craft.

It took a lot of learning to run a successful design studio: taking courses, learning from mentors in the industry, and reading tons of books! Jamie did everything he could to make sure it was a success. Khula Design Studio represents years of hard work, and it’s a testament to his passion, perseverance, and determination. The numbers speak for themselves. Within 2 years of launching, they’d helped over 90 small business owners around the world to transform their brand image and online presence.

Too often in life, we look at others’ success, then self-doubt and other negative emotions kick in, and we throw in the towel. But this doesn’t have to be you! Don’t give up too soon. Your next opportunity is right around the corner.‍

“Looking back, I’m proud of the journey that’s led me here today. I’m sure a lot of other agency or design studio owners feel the same way about their journey.” — Jamie Windell, Founder, Khula Design Studio‍

So what’s Jamie’s advice to other entrepreneurs or dream chasers out there?

Don’t give up!‍

‍Interested to see the work we are doing today? Explore our projects here.

You can also follow Jamie’s journey by subscribing to our newsletter below or connecting with him on LinkedIn here.

[detectiveforfree]

wearing each other's merch ;)

[squeakadeeks]

LITTLE GUY O'CLOCK

whew!! I've had this idea for a soot sprite cosplay for Litcherally so long, i thought it was never going to happen but lo and behold! here he be!! !!! I was trying to avoid fur projects to give the Dust Situation in my abode a rest but that...did not happen 🤨

This costume is another primarily suede affair, with only a few accent fabrics other than the faux fur. 90% of fabrics were from big z....again. The things of note on this guy are the chubby stars which are all painted novelty stress balls! also the big soot sprite, Augustus, is actually a fur covered beach ball.

I've always gotten a kick out of this design and thought the soot sprites were just endlessly charming, so i'm pretty happy with this project!

[bowiestarzzz]

Riverclan antagonists

[haoqw]

my cool ass perler wall

[valtsv]

do you ever think of me and my two hands, and wonder why they never soothed your fevers? and wonder why they never tied your shoes? and wonder why they never held you gently?

in other news i'm still in hell with these two

[diurnalvl]

seven years ago, they used to be friends. almost.

1 / 2 / ?

[tea-cat-arts]

A series of mxtx couples as silly little creature designs for my shop. I had a lot of fun making these ^w^

[reluctanttrabbit]

happy birthday, cassie.

closeups on everyone!! the animatronics were definitely a challenge..., (and by challenge i mean i had to get 5 reference photos per animatronic just to get all the main details)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUIN!! HOW IS IT A YEAR OLD ALREADY ⁉️⁉️⁉️

[rhiangalaxy]

Working on my Binghe designs! (Some design notes under the cut :p)

Edit: Had to reupload the image because I forgot his demon mark 😭

[ID: A Scum Villain Drawing. There are three half body shots of Luo Binghe in books 2-3, book 4 to post-canon and Luo Bingge. The left most Binghe from books 2-3 wears a tired, upset expression with less fluffy hair and primarily red and black clothing. The middle Binghe from book 4 and post-canon is wearing a remarkably happier and lovestruck expression, with much fluffier and curly hair. He is wearing a green hair ribbon around his throat, green jade earrings and light green inner robes. His outer robes are dark grey and red. Bingge is wearing an angered expression. His hair is noticeably straighter and has a small braid on the left side. He is wearing black and dark red robes. End ID]

[ID: Notes from the illustration above. In the book 2-3 version there are notes stating that his hair piece is from Huan Hua, and that his hair is less fluffy with the quote 'what no shizun does to a mf'. The second Binghe has notes that his side braids are done by Shen Qingqiu and that the hair ribbon around his neck was given to him by SQQ during his disciple days. The notes about Bingge state that the braid is from the Bingmei vs. Bingge Extra and that his hair is straightened. End ID] 

[zivazivc]

I made a Trolls OC because of course I did. She is a bee herder and she's constantly covered in pollen.

[tubbytarchia]

Sorry for forcing yall to look at a very indulgent cryptid dragon but anyway um. its an attempt!! I'm so iffy on the colors but urgg. I wanted it to be an approximate mix of Grian's various "lives". I wanna draw dragons!!! So bad!! I love dragons!!!!!!! So much!!!!

Some other lifer dragon concepts/sketches below cut

If people still wanna see me dragonify lifers then sure!! These are just quick ideas I wanted to get on paper

[stiffyck]

i need more people to be insane over others very specific aus that are very far from the original. its fun i promise

i need to see more very fanon designs i need to see super specific aus please make the most self indulgent aus and self indulgent designs and please people reblog it i wanna see it i wanna see all of it can we REBLOG MORE ART PLEASE

[squelchbug]

proud practicer of Caine nepotism

ALLL POMNI DESIGN CREDS -> @weedsmokingbfs . ooo hypnosis that makes you follow it for more based takes🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Monstropolis