Small but Mighty
About the
workshop
During our time together, I will cover how to start, run, and grow your creative business as a mighty team of one. (Or two, or three!)
Growing your own practice as an independent creative is no joke, but we will take a look at some of our wins at Fred&Co. Then–so you don’t have to cry as much as I did–we will turn to some of the big mistakes and pitfalls I faced during the first couple years as a business owner.
As designers our craft often serves the success of other people’s ventures, so we are already set up to be great business owners. I will go over positioning and pitching your services to potential clients, review the operational side of running a small studio, and talk through some sticky client situations.
Together we will think through ways to gain confidence in your own creative process. You will walk away with some cautionary tales, tangible resources to refer to in a bind, and steps for starting your freelance journey or continuing to improve your business.
Molly O’Neill is an independent brand designer and creative director based in Minneapolis. She runs her small design studio Fred&Co. that focuses on brand, print, and packaging design. One of her favorite parts of the job is collaborating with a constellation of other freelancers who work alongside her on most projects.
Molly graduated from Northeastern University’s design program in Boston while cutting her teeth during her time at Scout, the university’s student-led design studio program. At Scout, she oversaw a team of 50 students working on semester-long client projects, and led the charge to run their first student-led design conference that brought in speakers from The Boston Globe, Lyft, AirBnb, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, Twitter, and IDEO. After graduating, her first job was being a full-time freelance designer and she has been building her business ever since!
Molly has worked on clients projects of all shapes and sizes, including big brands like Anthropologie, Herman Miller, 3M, and Target, as well as food and beverage start-ups making a splash like Figlia, Zero Acre Farms, Snoozy, and wildwonder. While she loves jumping into projects at any phase of their brand journey, building the brand’s entire world from the ground up is her most favorite.
Outside of her creative practice, she is an incoming design instructor at Dakota County Technical College, and speaks at design programs across the US about how to start, run, and grow as a creative business owner. Besides design, she loves taking her great dane Fred everywhere, making arts and crafts, and keeping an eye on Zillow beach houses.
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