Today we’d like to introduce you to Caleb Blassingame.
Caleb, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was in my senior year, studying for a bachelor’s degree at the Art Institute of Phoenix. We had just gone on summer break, and I was utilizing the break as recuperation to prepare myself for this final push to graduation. A week into my break I received an email from our Campus Director. The email states that the school is not accepting any more students on its campus, and the school will be shutting down by the end of December. The dispiriting email goes on to list the options I have before the school closes. One option was receiving half-off my student loans and finished up my schooling online, option two was to receive complete loan forgiveness without a degree (For context: The school was a for-profit school, and I couldn’t transfer my credits to any other design school in Arizona). Which one would you take? In my case, I had been attending the three year bachelor program for around two years and seven months. I figured I had learned all I needed to get an entry-level job in design, and I could just focus on my portfolio and start job hunting early. For the next six months, I was strenuously working on building my portfolio and freelance brand. While working for little to no pay, I eventually grew tired of doing dirt cheap design work for start-up companies to put on my portfolio and decided to focus my attention on social media.
I started to focus on Instagram and actively looked for client work. About a month of grinding on Instagram I came to realize how competitive the Graphic Design industry is. I found myself constantly lowering my prices to compete with other designers on Instagram. I also hated seeing my post being overshadowed by bigger design pages. After a couple more restless nights of just uploading work on Instagram, I realized that just showing my work was not going to grow my page, I had to find a way to network with other designers and make my brand name more familiar in the graphic design market of Instagram. That’s when I decided to start my own graphic design community where designers on Instagram and other social media sites can connect and familiarize themselves with each other. I used a digital distribution platform called Discord to create a custom server tailored to Graphic Designers. Rather than just creating a huge chatroom for designers I decided to customize the server for all designers to use as a valuable resource. In my server, we have subtle yet helpful tools like peer-to-peer critique rooms, YouTube tutorial links, social media marketing tools, and much more.
After I established the server I just started messaging people daily to join it. Slowly but surely more Instagram designers kept joining and we have gained over 400 members. As the community grew larger, the goal grew larger too. Since then, I have recruited a team of talented designers, who help produce content and spread awareness of our community. I found myself being more productive than I ever was, I was working with individuals towards the same goal, and we were all at our own pace. We had come to realize that this community could be a huge impact on designers who are looking for a positive direction in their careers. We are currently trying to build a platform where freelance designers can come together and build their brands. If you think you would be a good fit for our community, message us on Instagram for a personal invite @westlogocommunity or @westlogo.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Major Struggles I had Included:
– At the beginning stages of my community, I was working around 27-30 hours at Lowes. So I had to constantly spend time applying to design jobs as I was running the server and trying to keep up on Instagram.
– Competition for Graphic Design jobs with no job hunting experience is a huge learning curve. I was rejected over 100 times before landing my first design job.
– Putting on a Lowes vest as I leave home from a bunch of design job rejection emails was really unmotivating. Some days I deeply considered switching careers.
-Staying consistent (on social media) on days you wanted nothing to do with design is a challenge within itself. I’m still trying to keep up!
We’d love to hear more about your work.
The Westlogo Community is a Discord server that serves as a Graphic Designer social network. Our design members primarily focus on strategically testing marketing techniques to help them land them new opportunities from social media. As a community, we work together to answer each other’s questions, engage with each other on social media to boost exposure, critique each other’s work, and so much more. Our team is working to build a design empire, and create a platform for independent graphic designers who are looking to freelance full-time, be part of a team-like environment, that serves as a support system for you to achieve your goals.
We are known for our successful engagement method. While pursuing getting big on social media I have learned a lot about Instagram’s algorithm. So our community supports each other’s new posts by liking and commenting so each post gets maximum exposure. It’s a mutual bond type of strategy.
Aside from our successful engagement group, I would like to say that we are the most active Discord community right now. We’ve had enough people confess our server is the most active.
I am proud of the efforts and contributions by everyone in my server for helping grow up until this point. This would have not been possible for all my members and moderators.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Role of Luck Includes:
– Meeting the right type of people I would want on my team and to try and make Westlogo something more.
– Competing for a Graphic Design job between three designers and then landing it. Landing a design job meant I wouldn’t have to be on my feet all day at Lowes and I could always be active by a computer.
– My girlfriend being so supportive, she helps me with daily that need to be done on the server.
Contact Info:
- Website: Instagram.com/westlogo
- Email: westlogochannel@gmail.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/westlogo
- Facebook: facebook.com/westlogo
Image Credit:
Discord.com
Facebook.com
Caleb Blassingame
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