Meet Jesse Taylor | Creative

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jesse Taylor and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jesse, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My career is two-pronged, I’ve been freelancing under JesseTaylorCreative for over a decade and have worked at Marketing for Change for over 8 years where I’m currently Assoc. Creative Director. At the agency I work with research, strategy and media teams to build behavior-change campaigns for local and national organizations. In my freelance I focus on branding, typography and illustration. That prong allows me to exercise my traditional designer brain and be select on what projects I take on. A lot of agencies don’t allow employees to freelance, but my philosophy is that any time I move the mouse I become a better creative – which benefits the agency. Starting my freelance over a decade ago allowed me to make sure I was getting to do creative, fun, rewarding work – the work I wanted to do. Doing this for a while now I’ve been able to apply a lot of what I’ve learned doing freelance to the agency work, and vice versa. It’s cool to see the two lines blur because it makes the work fun.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My philosophy is you get out what you put in. In college I got a job at my school’s library so I had access to a computer, some days the janitor would have to kick me out! I’ve applied that same drive to my career and have been able to be fulfilled by it. I mentioned it in the Q&A but one of my biggest perspective shifts was when I heard that the creative field is not 9-5, but 24/7. This gave me the freedom from being bound to the clock, and to let ideas run wild. But it’s not just having the idea, it’s how to leverage and build from it – spotting the opportunities. I also owe a lot to the creative community and collaborations with friends – i’d say those are some of my important take aways. Connecting with your people, who speak your language can lead to friendships and work! And making time for passion projects, that you can hopefully bring friends into, can be some of the most rewarding work. The more work you do, the more work you’ll get. And it’s important not to bet on getting “fun” projects, but make the projects you work on fun. I hope that comes across in my work.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Here is the itinerary for when when friends come to town in no particular order:
Breakfast at The Exchange (COS)
Penny arcade (Manitou Springs)
Cadillac Jack’s antique store (Calhan)
Show at Black Sheep (COS)
Drive through Garden of the Gods (COS)
Chicken fingers from IvyWild kitchen (COS)
Volleyball at IVP (COS)
Day trip to Cripple Creek & Victor CO

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Shout out to Katie Sturges for throwing my name in the hat for Shoutout CO.
Shout out to Rachael, my parents, AIGA, M4C, Duval, Tallahassee, COS, Sean, Eric, Chris, Jenny, FTS, Creative South, Crop Cons.

Website: https://jessetaylorcreative.com

Instagram: @jessetaylorcreative

Image Credits
Chris Crouch, Stephen Martin, Blake Jones, Orange Video