Ytrep Profile - Just Creative Design

Jacob Cass is a self-employed freelance graphic designer, working in the fields of logo design, print design, web design and branding with the majority of his time spent designing and implementing marketing promotions for small businesses such as logos, brochures, letterhead, business cards, email signatures and more. You will also find him blogging on his popular website Just Creative Design which provides free graphic design tips, articles and resources. He's also the latest young entrepreneur to be profiled on our blog!

What made you decide to start your own business?

Originally I started out doing graphic design work as a hobby for friends and family for free and I just loved it so when people were starting to ask “how much for this” and “how much for that” I knew it was time to start charging money for my design so really I guess it was just natural for me to start my own business.

How long have you been in business for?

I am 20 now but I got my first paid job when I was 16 so I guess I could say 4 years however I have only been doing it seriously for the past two years.

Why graphic design for you?

I believe I touched on this in the first answer… because I really love it. I surround myself in design every day and regularly discuss and converse with other designers through the use of my blog. I am also subscribed to about 200 other RSS feeds (subscriptions) that I read on a daily basis – this really keeps me motivated and up to date with what is happening in the design world.

What are some of the trials you’ve been through in starting your business?

There have been many lessons learnt but no mistakes. The first thing that comes to mind is the problems that I have had with my many web hosting providers. Because my business grew so quickly, my web hosts couldn’t keep up with the traffic on my website so it in turn shut down my website which I could not get up again for about 10 days (a huge amount of time in regards to a website being down). So I guess the thing I learnt out of that was to think big – I should have gone with a bigger and better web hosting provider.

The next big trial I went through was actually building up my business and reputation. I put the hard yards in for 6 months straight and it really paid off. I don’t have to do as much as I did before as I have now built my reputation and my loyal readers / clients now do the work for me.

Check out his site and blog at www.justcreativedesign.com - Jacob has some pretty cool articles, downloads, and links to awesome photos on the web!