Moonlighting Series: Alex Dartt – Graphic Designer

Alex Dartt is a Toledo-based graphic artist.

Last year, I began thinking of an idea for a series about local Toledo artists. I wanted to feature people that make no excuses in getting their work out in front of an audience on top of their full-time careers. This is the next installment in a series I’m calling The Moonlighting Series, interviewing Toledo area graphic designer, Alex Dartt.

If you live in the Toledo area, chances are that you’ve seen Alex Dartt’s work. Alex has worked on the Toledo Mud Hen’s Dream Team inspired uniforms as well as logos for many great Toledo businesses. He is responsible for the rebranding of one of my favorite Toledo-area candy shops, Boyd’s Retro Candy Store. The intriguing thing about Alex is that this is not his full-time job. He has a great career, he’s a married father of two, and yet, still makes the time to put his personal work out there on the side. I wanted to sit down with Alex to get to know him and how he makes the time to pursue his passion for graphic design on top of everything else. I hope you enjoy my chat with graphic designer, Alex Dartt.

What is your day job?

I am a graphic designer at a print/manufacturing facility. I get to create things that are seen around town, and in large venues which is cool. I can help our clients by designing what they envisioned and make it real.

What drives you to pursue graphic design on the side? 

I have a few reasons I design on the side. The first being that I love it. Not everyone finds their true fascination and passion throughout their lives. I was lucky enough to find that when I was about 20. Graphic design really intrigued me, and luckily I can also call it a job. I also freelance because I have a family to support and bills like anyone else. The combination of holding full creative control with my clients and also obtaining additional income is something special that a creative can accomplish. It’s really amazing, and I try to take advantage of that fact.

Do you remember your first paid graphic design job? 

Yes, I believe my first paid graphic design job (personally, not working for someone else) was a logo design. Funny enough, I’ve been focusing on logos and aiming to specialize in them recently. I suppose I came full circle after trying many mediums.

I do plenty of other types of design too but logo design/brand development is my favorite, and I find it very impactful. That logo went well and I was paid for something I created for someone else, what a crazy concept. I was hooked.

I started off slow and was actually given the first logo design by another designer who was too busy to take the gig. Shoutout to all you creatives taking care of their own and sharing knowledge and even jobs, it’s important. Over time, freelance work started to ramp up and my Instagram transformed into a fully-focused business page. Creatives forget this sometimes, but if you are a freelancer, you are a business owner as well.

How do you manage your time having a full-time career, and family while pursuing graphic design on the side?

Balancing a full-time job, family, and my freelance work can be tough, I wish there were more hours in the day. If there were more hours, I would have enough time to stay up and freelance and still get a normal amount of sleep. Until we figure out a way to make days longer, MAKING TIME is necessary.

My typical weekday is waking up and perhaps communicating with clients briefly, maybe posting some recent work (this can be a job by itself, as I post the work to multiple platforms to cast a wider net). I get ready and head off to my job.

When lunch rolls around, you can likely find me with headphones on and working on my laptop for freelance clients. Work rolling into other work and back again doesn’t bother me since I love what I do and there is variety. Heading home to my family is the best part of my day, honestly.

When I wake up, they are asleep, and by the time I get home, time is precious because bedtime is nearing. My wife Jessica and two sons Harrison (3) and Henry (10 months) only have time with me for a few hours each evening, so I’ve tried to make that strictly about them. This has been difficult at times to keep the balance. Day job might run late, freelance work needs attention, and it’s cutting into the time with the reason I’m doing it all? That isn’t right.

I’ve been guilty of shooting a quick DM or email back to a client when it should have been focused solely on my family time. With enough perspective, I’ve come to keep our time, our time. No phone. No email. Just dinner with my family, running around the house and playing, and eventually a show or movie before bed as a family to wind down. Once bedtime hits, my second job begins again where it left off at lunch.

My wife has been really great over the course of my freelance career. She motivates me to keep going, and countless times gets the kids to bed on her own. This can be no simple task with a three-year-old and 10-month old, but she is Super Mom. She understands it from two angles; she knows I love what I’m doing and that I’m supporting the family through my work, as well as the angle of a small business owner.

My wife Jessica has a custom dessert business and custom clothing business: Cakes A Ton and Harrison James Studio. She has her own clients so we often trade places when she needs to run her business and create her products. It didn’t hit me until quite a ways into it, but we have three businesses under one roof. It’s great to find someone in life who is as creative as my wife is and we’ve grown our businesses together by learning from each other’s experiences.

What excuses or myths drive you crazy from people that have put their artistic crafts aside because they are ‘busy’?

Given my personal routine and all I have going on, I find it comical when someone tells me they are too busy for their own craft. There are so many moments of downtime that can be put towards your creative work, especially with the technology we have. Apart from that, my feeling on people not pursuing their craft is that they’re stopping themselves. I’m not like everyone else, but sacrificing my lunch break, my sleep, and personal time has propelled me forward in my career and freelance work.

If you’re reading this and want to take a step forward in your craft, stop making excuses for not doing what you claim to be passionate about. Again, this is not for everyone, but it’s my personal approach and opinion. Next time you’re scrolling through your social media feed, watching the latest episode of your favorite show, or heading to bed early, realize that you can be perfecting your craft and grinding instead. That means reading this! Now get out of here!.. if you want.

How do your day job and graphic art parallel each other? How have you found that your job has actually prepared you for what you do now on the side?

My day job and my freelance work have many parallels. I work in the same programs, using many of the same tools as I would for my personal clients. In the grand scheme, they have the same end goal in which to use graphic design to solve a problem or issue for them or their business. What I’ve learned on my day job and my freelance gig have informed the other one many times over. Whether it’s a quicker way to complete a task, or the right questions to ask to reach a solution, they go hand-in-hand.

Who are some of your biggest inspirations in art and how have you learned from them?

There are so many designers and entrepreneurs out there who are killing it. Rockstars, huge names in the industry. They produce work that at times seems unimaginable, with large teams and budgets behind them. This is awesome work to look at and be inspired by. However, my true inspirations are a couple of people who I actually know, and speak to regularly. Ryan Bowles is a designer turned freelance coach out of Gold Coast, Australia. He has been a mentor and friend to me personally, and his general outlook on life and work is inspiring.

Within the last year or so, a designer by the name of Chris Logsdonout of Tennessee has been a friend and mentor in the design game too. He has a day job, wife and kids like me, and still makes time for freelance like I do. There’s this thing I stole from him that he calls #10to2. This is referring to working from 10pm-2am on freelance. Being that I work at 7 am, this isn’t always attainable or healthy. So, it’s not a regular thing for me, but I aim for it some nights. Having people around you and in your circle that are ahead of you and doing things you want to do is huge. Do it.

What’s one or two things you wish you would have known or done in your early 20’s that you can reflect back on to help other aspiring graphic designers?

I’m 28, so I’m still learning in my 20’s but I will say this: Try things. Find your niche. Break out of your niche. Fail. Try again. Make contracts. Charge what you’re worth. Make cool things. Have fun. Make yourself and those who matter happy over people who don’t. Support your peers. Don’t be too serious, but be serious about your goals and what it takes to reach them, whatever they are. You’re young enough to screw up, so do it now. You have the rest of your working career to figure it out, so figure out what you love to do and do it for a living.

How do you feel about the belief that we should all just drop our day jobs and pursue what we are really passionate about full time?

This isn’t realistic for me, not yet. This is my end goal, whenever that happens. If you have the means to make it happen, go for it. Personally, I will take this time and keep my head down and grind and learn as much as I can. It’s paid off in the short time I’ve been in the field, so I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Lastly, is there a quote or mantra you live by?

Focus on what truly matters.