Throughout my career in many, many interviews, someone would sit across from me at a large desk, and ask me to tell them about my work history. My protracted response would cover subjects in print, packaging, web, illustration and digital design. My portfolio was a mash-up as I could never choose one focus. I love every facet of design and I want to do everything – but the problem with wanting to do everything is that those roles rarely exist. Today, teams want specialization.

When I applied for front-end dev positions, I would be declined for being too grounded in traditional design. When I applied for digital design, they worried I wouldn’t be happy only doing design (and well, they were right). I never quite belonged anywhere. Evidently, my flight path formed a zig-zag rather than a straight line.

To add to the confusion, I also co-created Foxhat, an Etsy shop, where our first product was illustrated gift wrap; a far leap from building websites and designing digital products. The only thing that linked all these ventures together was my enthusiasm and consistent drive for each category. I wanted to be really good at more than one thing, and have that be viewed as a plus rather than a negative. I thrive on diversity.

Although I have enjoyed the opportunities I’ve received to carve this zigzag over the years, one thing remained consistent. I was always looking for something else. No matter how great my 9–5 was I would still come home and work on freelance projects or Foxhat because I had creative freedom.

Ultimately I think that’s what lead me to Night Shift. It’s the idea of turning a passion project into the real deal. Looking back it seems obvious that I would arrive here, but it took 10 years of following my intuition to finally feel like I’m at home.

This is Night Shift.