Work "out loud" and go analog

Insights and tips on freelance life from Debbie Cho, Founder and Creative Director of Fruit Sandwich

Happy September, lovely humans (and a wave to new readers)!

Big L-Life topics are too big to do justice in reels, clips, or shorts. For those I want color, texture, story, process, examples, details — don’t you? So today, I’m excited to kick off a long-form conversation series featuring scrappy, bright people figuring out how to live a creative, fulfilling life in the 2020s.

My first guest is Debbie Cho, founder and creative director of Fruit Sandwich. Full disclosure: she’s my go-to designer and a pure pleasure to work with. Prior to going freelance, she worked both in-house and on the agency side creating branding, web, and print for companies like Allbirds, Dropbox, Levi’s, and Sonos. She lives in Monterey Park, California with her husband and cat Uyu.

I wanted to talk to Debbie because she’s finding success by her own definition, quickly and fairly recently. She career-pivoted into design in 2018, and went freelance in 2022. She shares with us:

• how she’s solved for the “feast and famine” cycle common to freelance life

• what she does (and doesn’t do) to keep her work fresh amidst inspiration overload

• how she’s unlearning the hustle culture of her agency days

• what “working out loud” means to her and why it’s so powerful for her craft

• why she doesn’t treat her Instagram like a portfolio

• how she chooses clients, and what she says to them to have a life outside work

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Debbie, what’s one big lesson you’ve learned since going freelance?

“I’ve found the key is having a steady retainer client, so I’m not anxious about when the next income is coming in. Having a consistent set of hours is what helped me fully transition into freelance.”

A year in, I’m hitting a stride in terms of how to manage my days, clients, workload, and what I'm interested in working on.

Lately, I have two main clients — and that’s the max for me because I need a life outside of work to not feel boxed-in or trapped. I found this makes me feel at ease, and I can add projects that I'm really interested in but maybe they don't have a huge budget.

For instance, I helped design the GRAMMY Museum’s K-pop exhibition now open in LA. I'm so interested in exhibition design, music, and education — especially when it's related to such a prominent aspect of contemporary Korean culture. I had to be a part of this exhibit somehow, and [my other clients] gave me that flexibility.

Installation shots from HYBE: We Believe in Music, A GRAMMY Museum Exhibit. On view through Sep. 15, 2024

Debbie’s love of exhibitions, music, and communication coming together!

What’s your biggest challenge these days?

I see myself overworking sometimes. My natural tendency is asking, “Should I be doing more?” or “Should I just work a little bit longer?” But that compounds, and I feel the effects. 

I am trying to strike a balance that's healthy for me, mentally and physically. And that's hard because it can be stressful either way — whether there’s too much work, or not enough.

So that’s when I start to pull back. I've been balancing my life these days by mixing in being outside, seeing friends, and traveling.

This is so common with my clients, so let’s dig in a little. When did the overworking start?

Probably my first agency job. The role wasn’t actually in “creative” —  for years, I was doing account management, client-facing work and project management in an agency setting.

I moved to New York City right after school and got a job working for a traditional mega agency. A small part in this giant machine. The expectations were that I be the first person to come in, and the last person to leave. New York hustle culture really pushes people to their limits, and I got sucked into that. Then I burned out. I didn't actually enjoy the work, either.

So I moved back to LA and transitioned into something creative. I started over and had to put in the hours. I remember thinking to myself, “I'm going to just start as an intern somewhere. Move my way up. I will be paid very little, but work the hardest and the most, and show that I have the skills and ambition.” So yeah, overworking is familiar to me. I did it, and it paid off.

I'm realizing (and this just comes with experience) that when you're young, you're just gonna give everything you have to something because you're still figuring out your place. Trying to put a stake in the ground somewhere. 

Where do you think your work ethic comes from? This is a “Debbie's coming-of-age” question.

Little Debbie, holding steady on the slopes

Definitely from growing up in a Korean family. I saw my parents working hard, immigrating to this country and setting my sister and me up for success. They made a lot of sacrifices. Obviously we're sometimes not going to agree with certain things my parents did. It doesn't quite work or translate anymore.

I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I was born and raised there, and it's predominantly white, not as diverse [as LA]. I grew up in a Korean church, but there was often [the messaging] of “Look to non-POC folks, follow them. You have to work hard to get to their level.”

Totally, external messages can get internalized. What’s your inner critic saying to you lately?

As a freelancer now, I think, “I still need to stay relevant,” or “I still need to make sure people know I'm working on something interesting or good or cool.” So I get sucked into that. And then it’s back to, “Oh, I should work harder. I'm not doing enough.” That’s the challenging balancing act. 

Any recent observations about your creativity or process?

I want new ideas. I want to feel inspired by my own work and what's going on around me. 

I don’t have Instagram on my phone. As much as I love seeing fresh work and what my friends are up to, I do have to insulate myself from it.

My creativity can be depleted very quickly if I’m not careful, from being online. In the past five or six years that I've been professionally designing, something has shifted tremendously.

How would you describe that shift in the design world?

There's more access to other people's work because it gets posted. I see patterns of things that have already been done, people are just re-appropriating it. 

“I wonder, where do ideas even come from anymore? You see something. Are you copying it? Is this truly what I am coming up with? Is it right for this client or project, or is it because I saw it on Instagram?”

So how has this immense digital access affected you?

Maybe that’s where the fatigue comes in. I'm working really hard to figure out some of these design problems and a solution for it. How do I get inspired, stay motivated without feeling it's contrived, or already been done?

My relationship to design has its existential moments, too — for me, my work, the industry itself. I wonder sometimes, does this even feel right? Design is so intertwined with capitalism that I have conflicting moral feelings about it sometimes. 

What keeps you going?

And at the end of the day, the people are what make these projects so worthwhile. It’s these connections that are truly genuine. 

“An exchange of community, knowledge and empathy — that's what's actually important to me in design. How can we communicate through visual mediums? How can humans come together because of design?”

It’s true that I have to work for companies that have money and are selling products. I have to pay the bills. But I'm balancing that right now. I love finding those clients that are amazing to work with, and even companies, too. 

I'm very particular about who I want to work with. It has to align with my morals, feelings, and values. As I get more experience and feel comfortable in my own skills and who I am as a designer, I can make those choices and be deliberate about it.

We’ve touched on the growth taking place for you behind the scenes. I’m curious: has your work itself changed?

Looking back, I didn't give my Korean American identity a chance to stand on its own. As a designer now, I'm very much trying to find ways to incorporate my Korean American identity and bring my culture into design. There's a lot of Western influence on Korean design, but what's going on in Korea is also so far ahead. It's really exciting to be able to start embracing that.

When I was listening to K-pop [in the 90s], it was not cool. [laughter]

Totally, I didn't go broadcasting it. [laughter]

I had my Korean friends, and then I had my white friends. This split identity. I felt it wouldn't cross over, no one would understand either side.

“In the past few years, I've been able to work out loud.”

Now I'm being hired because I'm Korean American. It's very exciting. 

I know it’s hard to art-critique yourself, but how has your style shifted since embracing more of your culture? 

I'm way more excited to use Korean typography and incorporate that into my work. Korean characters are just so beautiful to me, and the shapes and forms are really graphic. I think in the past couple of years I'm realizing, “Oh my gosh! I have this whole other part of my identity that I can tap into.” 

It doesn't have to be Eurocentric design, right?  That's always been the standard of high-level design in all the textbooks, following this grid system and all that. Those are all great foundational things. But that is not the only kind of design, nor is it the best design.

“Design is so subjective. It's about feeling, and what you're communicating.”

I can't even pinpoint what Korean graphic design is as a style anymore. It really is a cross-pollination and feels global at this point. There are influences coming from everywhere. But it feels fresh.

The last time my parents went to Korea, I asked if they could get one or two design magazines for me. They were so amazing — my dad brought a stack of twelve very heavy Korean design magazines. I think he almost broke his back hauling them over.

I just got a bit teary-eyed. That’s such a Korean way to show love, right? This is going to expand you somehow, so we're going to check another bag and bring you a library. 

Yeah. They were just so enthusiastic and wanted to support me. I thought that was so sweet. 

I'm hearing a theme: “going back” to the tactile, in-person and on-site creativity that we had as older Millennial, pre-internet kids.

I love physical books, zines and magazines. I look on the internet too of course, but the experience of finding something random in a store is great. I'm trying to let that happen organically. 

Where are some of your favorite places to get in-person, live inspiration?

Being fully freelance, the self-isolation is real. I’m mostly just by myself in my office. I have a great community of friends nearby. But we see each other on the weekends. 

“The first thing I did was join a yoga studio. It's probably been one of the best things for me because it cuts my workday at 5:45pm.”

Having to be there jolts me out of my aloneness. It’s been really healing for me. I look forward to it every day. 

Also, I go to our local library to work. The A/C is blasting and the people watching is great. I live in Monterey Park, which is a predominantly Chinese American, Asian American community. There's a lot of really cute elderly folks reading the Chinese newspaper or dozing off, which I love.

I'm able to get a lot of work done too, because it's quiet. I can get up and just grab a book randomly on the shelf, or something I wouldn’t find otherwise. There's something about being in physical proximity to others, around people who live in my city.

My husband works in TV and film. When he works from home, we'll go to a coffee shop and work together. 

I notice all the places you named — yoga studio, library, coffee shop — they could be considered third places. And you’ve designed them into your workstyle, lifestyle.

I think it's necessary.

“You can't just be siloed in your own house. Then it’s a you-vacuum, and you're just circulating ideas in your head. That's not how creativity works. I feel you have to bounce it off of something.”

I also really make it a point to see my friends and talk to them and show them what I'm working on. Otherwise no one knows other than myself and my cat, who's just sleeping or staring at me most of the day.

Speaking of showing work, I love your Instagram. The images are colorful and distinctive. I love the layers, texture, and peek into your process.

It's all just stuff that I'm drawn to. Whether it's a personal connection to something, or just visually striking. I’ve noticed a lot of designers and creatives have shifted to using their Instagram like a portfolio. I try to keep it more personal. I have a website for [showing my portfolio]. I don't even know if work should be viewed [on Instagram]. It should be bigger.

It’s interesting to learn you purposely keep your IG personal. When I approached you to discuss rebranding my site, I did get a sense of you as a person from your IG. I thought, “Oh, I love her style. I want to talk to her.” In my case, that was good marketing for you. I felt I knew you a little more.

Hmm, maybe this conversation is sparking something for me. I stopped taking pictures as much. I got a film camera but yeah, the inspiration. It might be a good exercise to get back into taking pictures on my phone, to have a little folder of things, just for myself.

You seem to find it necessary to go analog for fresh inspiration. I think you’ve done a great job finding workarounds to this digital fatigue that many of us are experiencing.

I just want real experiences with people that I care about. I'm not a beach person, but I made it a point to go at least once this summer.

“My friends’ toddler had never seen the beach before. Just seeing his expression, staring at such a large body of water for the first time was the cutest and funniest thing ever. His jaw dropped, and he stood in front of this massive shoreline beach, in awe. I want that feeling.”

What would you tell people who are thinking about going freelance?

First of all, I didn't leave my full-time job right away. Instead I searched for freelance gigs, trying to figure out how to get them and sustain myself.

Basically, going freelance was set in motion because my network was pulling through — my dear friends and people I've worked with in the past. Then, an opportunity popped up. My friend, who thought I was still invested in working full-time said, “I'm not sure if you're busy… would you want to work part-time?”  It was perfect.

I'm definitely still learning. I feel very lucky to have had the stability and resources to basically set myself up for longer-term success.

“Ask your clients for what you need to do your best. Say, ‘I need this in order to make these dates work.’ I ask for the brief a month ahead of time, which means I know my schedule a month ahead of time. I'm not just on Slack waiting for something to come through or not.”

I think people can get stuck when they don’t have a solid retainer client [that they build their business around]. It seems really precarious to try to find new work every couple months, I get it. 

And oh man, all the admin stuff is something I'm still learning — invoicing and getting my own domain, name, and email address has been so painful. [laughter]

No one tells you that! I'm like, why is this so hard? I don't want to pay for an enterprise Gmail account. I'm revamping my website, and I have an S-Corp now. All the tax stuff… there's a lot of annoying things involved in having your own business, but they pay off. I think once you set up that foundation, you can do all the fun stuff of meeting people, bringing them in and working on stuff together. 

What’s next for you?

I’m thinking about how to grow my business. [Right now] it's just me. When I’m at full capacity, I can't take anything else on. The idea of bringing on help, building a small team has been bopping around in my head. 

I want to bring in different perspectives. I miss that. It feels empowering to think in that way. I'm not at the whim of a company telling me who to work with. 

Lastly, is there a book, film, or experience that has profoundly shaped you?

Yes, I would highly recommend Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristen Neff.

Though I've accomplished a lot in a short amount of time, there's a lot of self-doubt and being really critical of myself, too. I tend to create barriers to fully experiencing the joy and feeling of accomplishment when I finish something.

I've been struggling with sharing, actually being proud of my work. Part of it is reframing things and knowing how to self-soothe and say, “You worked really hard for this. You deserve it. You deserve to say something nice about it.” 

It's a self-help-y book. But I really needed it, because it's related to creative work. Your identity and self-worth is sometimes really tied to the work that you do.

I'm also in therapy. All these things make me better and make me do better work. So, why not?

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The images in this interview were provided by Debbie Cho of Fruit Sandwich, Inc.