Industry report

For this report, I have gathered interviews with a number of practitioners that I was unfortunately unable to interview myself as well as an interview I conducted with Joe Duffield, a local screen printer and longstanding member of Leeds's creative community. I started reading interviews with successful practitioners whose work inspires me such as Chris Haughton, Jon Klassen and Amanda Hall. When talking about the journey that has led them to where they are now they all highlight one key commission or project that acted as a catalyst for their career. Their paths vary greatly but they all feel that this moment came about almost by chance. In reading their back stories it seemed to me that they all put themselves in the position get their opportunity by concentrating on their practice, networking and being open to a range of opportunities even if they were not necessarily where they wanted their practice to go. The importance of this work ethic was reinforced to me when I spoke to Joe Duffield. When he first started his business, he was "doing 15 or 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you want to go home at 6 and watch telly you’re not really putting the work in." he said that being self-employed "keeps you on your toes", he told me that nearly all his clients are introduced to him through "word of mouth" and networking to the point that he no longer actively advertises the business. His clients come to him because of the quality of his work which means he needs to keep up his high standards at all times, one job done badly could have serious knock on effects for future business.

I asked Joe about how he communicates with his clients, which platforms are the most useful and what common issues he encounters. He talked about struggling to keep up with all the different social media platforms. Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are useful tools for maintaining an online presence but can add a time consuming extra process to running a business as well as making communication with clients and job scheduling more complicated. Joe told me that he has got rid of his business phone as 9 out of 10 calls were cold calls and that the most efficient form of communication was email. Emails allow all the information to be written down and organised in one place and can be refereed back to at a later date.

Joe said that his clients are easy to work with, he mainly works for individuals. he mentioned that working for corporations can prolong the process create communication problems if the client’s needs are being passed through several people before they get to him, or vice versa.

The most common issue he comes across is people leaving jobs until the last minute leaving him with very tight deadlines. This often leads to Joe working into the night and putting in extra hours. he has to make sure that he does not sacrifice quality by agreeing to unrealistic deadlines. In this sense, it is clear that Joe like Chris Haughton, Jon Klassen and Amanda hall, created their own luck by opening doors for themselves through hard work, confidence and adaptability.