Hi! I’m Lauren Hom.

In the fall of 2020, I completely lost my creative spark.

The pandemic was raging, streets were burning, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from consuming terrible news stories the same way one might mindlessly consume potato chips…

…which only reinforced the sinking feeling that it was selfish (dare I say reprehensible) for me to make art just for fun or pleasure…

…even though creating for fun and pleasure was, uh, what I built my entire career upon?

For the first time in a long time, I froze…

It’s easy, if you’re just now coming across my work, for it to look like I have my shit together. I’ve done lettering work for big clients like Google and Target, my Instagram following has grown past 250K, and I teach hundreds of people how to sharpen their lettering & creative marketing skills through online workshops each year. But what you can’t see is that this business took five years to build. And it definitely wasn’t always this peachy.

Let’s take it back to June 2013: I had just graduated top of my class from SVA with a degree in Advertising, and my partner and I had just landed our dream jobs as junior art directors at a big NYC agency. It ticked all my boxes: great salary, reputable agency for my resumé, and snacks all over the place. This was the job that was going to make all those late nights working my ass off in school worth it. I could feel it.

By October that year, I was drunk crying to my best friend in the back of a cab. Sobbing, I admitted to her that I felt drained and uninspired at the agency but also felt guilty for feeling this way because it was supposed to be my dream job. That was my conundrum: finally acknowledging I was unhappy with the long hours & mundane work but feeling obligated to stick it out. I found myself making lots of little excuses for why I couldn’t quit at that point.

The truth is that the shift from agency job to freelance can be intimidating, but it can be a lot less scary if you have a plan for how to make that transition and actionable steps to take you from here to there. For me, I knew I wanted to pursue lettering. I figured out what kind of work I wanted to do once I left the agency, how much financial cushion I needed to feel comfortable before quitting my job, and started working towards making those things a reality! 

I truly believe that this is a transition almost anyone can make. So, I spent a while thinking hard about the things that took me from miserable-at-an-agency to my-own-boss-and-loving-it. And from that I came up with 5 actionable steps YOU can take to start positioning yourself to go freelance while you’re still at your full-time job. 

What began as leftover paint from a mural project turned into a mini kitchen renovation. That’s a completely normal thing to do with extra paint, right?

I refer to this makeover as an interior design version of the TV show Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee (including that generous vodka pour for those who know the meme haha). I didn’t knock anything down or tear anything out. Instead, I used paint, stock cabinets, and new hardware to give the kitchen a colorful, custom look. Oh, and nine years of design + mural painting experience probably helped, too.

Here’s a peek inside the process, complete with sources and links to materials whenever possible!

My gut tells me that subjects that make me nervous - like this one! - are important to talk about, especially in a community of freelancers where we all learn and benefit from the experiences of our peers.

From the outside looking in, it’s easy to think “I’d never work on a project that’s related to (insert company or industry here)”, but through my own experience as a commercial lettering artist and conversations with industry peers… things often become less black-and-white when an actual offer is sitting in your inbox.

All this is to say that my take on business ethics and choosing clients is personal and imperfect. I’m sharing as a fellow freelancer & entrepreneur, to add to the conversation.