January 5th. Today marks a very special day in our calendar. You probably already read it in the title (I’m so bad with suspense): IT’S OUR BIRTHDAY!

That’s right. Exactly ONE year ago, David and I joined our creative forces and signed a pretty important contract. No, it wasn’t marriage, but you can say it was a creative marriage. And it’s the best thing we ever did for ourselves.

We both always wanted to do something creative with our lives, but I guess it took us some time before we realized what exactly that was.

At the time we met, about 7 years ago, David worked at a small communication agency. He was working there as a graphic designer, as part of a small team, which was great for him at first but the environment turned a little sour after the years. He didn’t feel like he could express himself creatively or really be able to take the creative decisions that he wanted to take, as it was not his responsibility. Yet, he didn’t know what to do about it. I remember his many moments of doubt as if it was yesterday. He had plenty of alternative ideas of what to do with his life: opening a geek shop, producing custom stickers.. We even brainstormed around some of them together. Opening a multi-disciplinary coffee shop & eatery was one of our favourite ideas. Of all the paths we imagined, though, we never thought we would ever be working in the creative field together.

In the meantime, I was studying design, and as David had the necessary experience, he helped me so much. I didn’t quite realize it, but he was already being my “work buddy” back then. He saved me from the frustration of learning the technical aspects in design. This allowed me to have plenty of time to experiment creatively. After I graduated with my studies, I randomly got myself into a “self-employed” state. People knew I studied graphic design and so one day, a friend asked for a flyer design. And then another one for a logo. Then, as I started to have more and more of these small projects, I started to get bigger ones, and started to also get paid for them, learned how to structure my invoices. That felt strange, but empowering. Without really knowing it, I started to make a living out of what I love (I wrote a post about this here). I got scared for a bit and looked for a dayjob. I found one at an ad agency, where I worked as a graphic designer for three months. It only lasted this short because I quickly realized that being self-employed was exactly what I wanted to keep doing. This experience only confirmed it and I’m very grateful for that.

I think it’s fair to say that both experiences taught us that we craved more than just being employed creatively. We really wanted to also have the full creative responsibility over what we do, and the freedom to deal with our own philosophy. So funnily enough, we both ended up being self-employed at a moment. I was already doing it for a while, and then David finally quit his job to do it too. We found ourselves doing the same things, we had even moved in together at the time, so we were doing it at the same place. Each of us was doing graphic design. On their own. We didn’t even think working together was appropriate. I had too much of an ego after what I built for myself, and David was too stuck with his own work ethic. We never thought that merging together was possible. And then we quickly realized that this was all very, very childish.

Working together would mean we would give up our egos, but we would gain so much more. One great thing about working together is the following:

When you merge with someone, you can possibly bring MORE than what you can bring all by yourself. Alone, David was a designer, with an interest in videography. I was a designer, with an interest in illustration. Together, we could do all of that, and do it full time, develop more skills and even help each other. So after talking long hours about it, after pushing the “reset” putton in our minds and re-thinking absolutely everything there was to think of, we took the plunge and we did it. We merged together and this little creative duo was born. (and now I realize this sounds JUST like having a baby… haha!)

So what happened in this past year? I could go on and on about all the exciting projects we worked on, the lovely people we worked with, the struggles, the fears, the lessons. But I guess that many of my blogposts around here are pretty descriptive about all those things already. We are so grateful for all of it. But today, I want to remember and highlight the fact that we made as a TEAM. If we wouldn’t have made it together, none of this would have happened. It’s not so easy finding somebody you can trust and work with.

We learned so much. So much that I thought it would be useful to sum it up. So tomorrow, I will be publishing a little “bonus” blogpost in which I’m going to share our tips on “How to rock at teamwork“. Keep an eye on our blog if you’re interested in reading it 🙂