The Designeloper

A confession article about the loneliness of the “wolf” web designer

First of all I am writing this, so I can see that I am not the only one in the planet, working this way. If in the next paragraphs, you see yourself, feel free to drop me a line.

Early days

At 12-years-old I finished my first QBasic program. A small “crm” for my uncle’s car service garage. It worked. At the same time I loved to create photo collages in Photoshop, mimicking the cover artworks of various metal bands.

Finally in my 32, after almost 20 years in front of a monitor, I name myself a Designeloper. I am feeling blessed to combine my great love for art and my small passion of working with code.

Now

Sentel is a company of three. My associate Stathis who is responsible for managing and expanding our clients portfolio, my wife Livya, a traditional graphics designer and me.

Well my job is to take the client specifications and after some work, to send the link of a complete website back to the client.

Ok between these step there are some more. If you still haven’t get the picture, I sketch, wire-frame, design, code, setup the server, host and maintain each one of these website. Is it clear now?

Plus

At the same time, I try to keep myself updated with the latest design and development news, test new software and frameworks, that will make my work easier. Basically the last is always end with me trying to do my own framework… :/

Every now and then I find myself wondering where is my end point. When I will become completely burned out. Sometimes I feel that I am close to the point, but the next day I feel so energetic like it is the first day of working.

There are many times I tried to work on an idea for a SaaS or a PaaS, but there comes the limit. I am not a developer. I need to work with one or two, but all of the times (until today that I am writing this) I cannot safely share my thoughts with potential associates, or the ones that are already in my network, are completely uninterested (for their own personal reasons).

I came to the resolution that either my ideas are terrible or I am completely incapable of connecting with the right person. (personally I believe the second)

If you know a place to safely share ideas, or you want to connect and chat, feel free to drop me a line at iam@christoschiotis.com

I don’t know how to end this confession. But I know that I want to thank you very much for being so kind to read this article till the very end.

☺