Books › Design Is a Job

Design Is a Job
137 pages
A tough-love, profanity-laced pep talk that transforms creative anxiety into professional armor.
What it feels like
Reading this feels like sitting at a dive bar with a veteran creative director who is buying you a beer and telling you to stop undervaluing yourself. The pace is brisk and relentlessly practical, stripping away the romanticized myths of the starving artist to reveal the gritty, necessary mechanics of contracts, client wrangling, and getting paid. It is a deeply empowering experience, wrapped in a blunt, irreverent tone that makes you laugh even as it calls out your worst professional habits. The prose is punchy and conversational, delivering hard-won wisdom without an ounce of corporate jargon. It will delight any creative professional who is tired of being pushed around and is finally ready to treat their craft with the fierce respect it deserves.
- Mood
- empowering
- energizing
- no-nonsense
- Tone
- blunt
- irreverent
- pragmatic
- humorous
- authoritative
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- professional boundaries · self-advocacy · the business of creativity · valuing your work
- The writing
- Punchy, conversational, and unapologetically profane, delivering hard truths with the cadence of a seasoned raconteur.
- The arc
- Transitions the reader from feeling creatively exploited and uncertain to feeling fiercely protective of their time, talent, and worth.
- Who it's for
- Creative professionals and freelancers who are tired of being pushed around by clients and need a kick in the pants to run their business like a business.
Content notes
- profanity
About the book
Co-founder of Mule Design and raconteur Mike Monteiro wants to help you do your job better. From contracts to selling design, from working with clients to working with each other, this brief book is packed with knowledge you can't afford not to know.
Description from Open Library.
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