“Growth happens outside of your comfort zone.”
Robert Taylor is a graphic designer for RallyUp, a tech platform supporting nonprofit fundraising. With over a decade of experience, he blends technical skill with emotional storytelling to design brands and campaigns that inspire.
Interview
Transcript
Robert Taylor
I actually am lucky enough to work from home. So I’m a remote worker, I am a graphic designer for a company that provides fundraising software for nonprofits, 501 C organizations, and things of that matter. So it’s a really cool job to design for a company that actually works towards helping a community.
Sara Sobota
Absolutely. Great. How long have you been working there? And what is your official job title?
Robert Taylor
So my official job title is Graphic Designer. I’m one of two designers on the team. I handle more of the marketing side designs and the other designer does the app side of the designs. And in two months, I will officially be working there for three years.
Sara Sobota
Wow, that’s great, congratulations.
Robert Taylor
Thank you.
Sara Sobota
And it’s been remote the whole time?
Robert Taylor
It has been remote the whole time, actually, yes. They used to be based out of Arizon, and then, it actually happened just before COVID hit, they decided to go remote. And I actually have co-workers that are not just all over the country, but actually all over the world. The other designer is in China. I have co-workers in Canada, my actual boss, he was previously in the UK traveling around. So it’s really cool to actually be working with people that are just all over. Different perspectives, different insights. It’s really cool.
Sara Sobota
That sounds amazing. How did you end up in this field? And how did you hear about it?
Robert Taylor
So I always liked art as a kid. But I knew that when I was in high school, I wanted to go for art, but I also wanted to be smart, and go for something that I knew was a little more secure. And I was kind of a techie kid, I actually grew up when MySpace was a thing. And I would actually use HTML code and edit my MySpace, not knowing that that was actually a job in of itself. I thought it was just something fun that I was editing my profile. And through doing that, I ended up picking graphic design as my career. CCU [Coastal Carolina University] had actually just created that as a design program, one year before I started, so I was the second graduating class for graphic design, which was pretty cool. But I basically kind of picked that, because I knew that it would be a little more secure. And again, it was more techie. I really, at the time, thought the website design was kind of cool and different, so that piqued my interest.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, that’s awesome. I don’t think I asked where you are from originally.
Robert Taylor
Um, so actually, I’m from Conway, South Carolina. So CCU has been a big part of my life, not just for me, going there, but actually my mom went to school there, I actually got to see her graduate and walk across the stage. And then she actually, eventually started to work there. She’s been working there for 18 years now. And so she’s an alumni, and then I decided to go to school there. I actually, soon after graduating, worked there as well. I worked at CCU as a student worker in the Student Accounts Office all four years, graduated and continued to work there for a few more years. So I actually ended up working at Coastal for eight years. It was really great, as well, to kind of be so involved. And then I eventually did leave to start working in the field that I got my degree in.
Sara Sobota
Do you live in Conway now?
Robert Taylor
No, actually, I live in Wilmington, North Carolina. So just about an hour and a half north, and not too far.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, great. What does a typical workday look like for you? Can you walk us through one, if there is a typical day?
Robert Taylor
Yeah, it’s fairly typical. So I actually, I’m working in our guest bedroom right now, is where I have my desk so that I’ve got a bit of privacy. So you know, normally I wake up, I pour my iced coffee, I take a minute to sit on our balcony and just kind of relax and have some separation before jumping into my workday. Working from home is really convenient, but you do have to kind of make sure that you have a little bit of separation. There was a point where I was just waking up and coming straight to my desk and sitting down, not the healthiest of habits. So I’m making sure that I have that break in the morning. Then after I get my iced coffee, I sit down and then I firstly just go through my daily work emails. I actually do freelance on the side as well as my full time job with RallyUp. So I just take about 30 minutes in the morning to go through my emails and plan my day. Depending on the day I will have calls with my direct supervisor. I’m technically part of the marketing and communications department, how we’re structured, so we’ll have a few meetings throughout the day where we’re talking about what emails are going to be going out, what new web pages I need to create, any other large marketing campaigns. And then also depending on which clients are using our platform, I will sometimes also create graphics for them, to make sure that their fundraisers are successful, and just kind of stand out and really any other promotional materials they may need.
Robert Taylor
So really, my morning is just setting up for whatever I need to kind of do that day. And it can just be an array of those different things, which is really nice, because as a designer, myself, I like to dabble in a bit of it all. So sometimes I might design a one pager print material. So I’m designing that specifically in Photoshop or Illustrator or InDesign, because I know it needs to be in a print format, CMYK for printers, and then other times, I’ll be designing a web page. And I use a program called Figma for that, which is just specifically digital only, and it works in pixels, and I can relay that to our developers really easily. So yes, I get to work through a whole range of projects, which is nice.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, yeah. And then this goes back a minute, but was RallyUp a startup? Did it begin when you were hired?
Robert Taylor
It didn’t begin, but it was a startup. So they had been in action for six years? Previously, whenever I came on, so it’s still, in a way considered a startup, I would say.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Was it challenging for you to find this career path or figure out how to apply your background to this task?
Robert Taylor
I wouldn’t say my specific job, because luckily, I’ve had other design jobs previously. So to be honest, I feel like where I’m at in my career, I’ve stair stepped each time I’ve moved from job to job, which is good. I mean, that’s everyone’s goal in life, I believe. But also, as a designer, I’m always looking to learn and have things to take away with each job that I’m at. Whenever I left my career at Coastal, you know, that was not doing something in the design realm, I was collecting tuition payments, which was far from it. And the first job I took after that was actually for a marketing agency in Surfside, and they had a big range of different clients as well. So I was doing similar things where, you know, social media ads, or Google ads, or print materials and stuff, but whenever I left that job, I think the one thereafter was actually my most pivotal career change.
Robert Taylor
I ended up taking a job at a branding agency, which is slightly different than a marketing agency in how they approach their clients and what their services are, they’re a little more, I’m gonna say picky, but specific in the clients they take on because I have found out that a lot of marketing agencies, it’s fast paced, which means you’re just turning around designs a lot. Whereas the brand agency, you are focusing a lot more on what you’re providing, which I think any designer actually would almost prefer because no matter how you work, I think that you put a lot of yourself into your designs that you’re creating. So it’s more personal. And so you want to make sure that when you’re giving that to a client, they’re appreciating that enough and understand the work that’s put into it.
Robert Taylor
So I ended up moving to the mountains, just below Asheville, I was in a small town called Hendersonville working for a branding agency there. And I learned a lot in that job role. And I can give them credit. Now that company was called WE•DO, WE•DO Worldwide, a brand agency. And that is actually where I learned how to fully build websites. When I was a student at Coastal, I learned a little bit about the HTML process, but a lot has changed in tech over the years. And while hand coding is still, you should still know HTML, most websites aren’t built from pure scratch anymore like they used to be. And so that is where I learned how to build websites through different builder platforms. And that completely changed my knowledge and my abilities. And to this day, I’m still using that knowledge because most of my freelance on the side is building websites and had I not switched careers, or well, switched jobs, I should say, I wouldn’t have learned that. So again, not saying switching jobs always makes you learn more things. But it was kind of a stair step to getting to where I’m at now.
Sara Sobota
So, what prompted you to move from WE•DO to RallyUp?
Robert Taylor
So, that was very interesting. I would have stayed with WE•DO as long as I could have, because I really loved the community. I was one of five other designers. So the job that I had right out of Coastal, for Banton Media, I was the only designer, which wasn’t bad, but I didn’t realize how much I missed working with other designers. So even when I was in classes, having the critiques was stressful as a student, but looking back was really needed. You get to see feedback and other people’s perspectives and stuff and I learned that it’s not just about being worried that someone’s going to tear your art apart, it needs to be constructive. And that’s usually what it always was, I think students do tend to worry a little bit too much about it. But again, that’s a learning and growing process.
Robert Taylor
But when I went over to WE•DO, I was, again, one of five other designers. So we would sit all the time and talk, like, if one person was working on a website for a client, and they felt stuck, they’d be like, hey, I need input. And we would all gather around, look at it and give insights. And again, it was such a learning process, which was really, really amazing. It’s, it’s kind of hard to get that out of, like, out of college, to be honest. If you’re getting a job where you’re the only designer, you feel like that’s all on you. And you have to kind of like self learn. So, but the interesting thing about WE•DO is that they merged with one of the clients that they had, actually one of their larger clients, and, which wasn’t a bad thing, it was the first ever time I’ve experienced a merger. And it was good, actually, it was a growing process. But the merged company was actually one that was a business, it was a startup that was trying to provide resources, local resources, for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Robert Taylor
So that was my first experience, a, like, direct experience with a company that was trying to help individuals, help businesses. So, they were grant funded. And all of that happened during COVID. And so unfortunately, some of the grant funding was eventually running out. So they de-merged. And I went with the other company, so I was no longer with the branding agency, which was totally okay. And then, and then they, they eventually were running out of the grant funding. They were grant funded through, actually, all of the universities in western North Carolina, because apparently, a lot of universities have Small Business Resource Centers, which I had never heard of. I didn’t know that. Which was part of their, the reason they were starting their business was so many people didn’t know that the resources were out there. So they were trying to spread and share that knowledge.
Robert Taylor
And so my role, then, I became a single designer again, and that company was called Supportedly. And so, I became the Director of Design, there, fancy title, but I was the main designer, but I still had a lot a lot to do, I ran their CRM manager where I basically managed all of the 40,000 plus contacts that we would be emailing and making sure that our email campaigns would go out properly and not say the wrong names to the wrong group of people. So because it was the entirety of western North Carolina, so we had all the different groups that we would be emailing like Cleveland County, Catawba, just all the different ranges that were out there. And so it was really nice, actually, transitioning, while I still would have loved to work at WE•DO, because again, I would be on various projects versus just one company, it helped knowing that the purpose that that was driving that company was to help people. So anytime I was designing something, it wasn’t just to market a sale, they weren’t trying to sell and make money that way. Again, they were they were grant funded, they were just there trying to help. And so I really, really enjoyed that. And they luckily gave us a big enough heads up a few months out saying, “Hey, we are trying to get more grant funds, but we will, if we don’t, we’ll run out at a certain time.” And so I started, of course, unfortunately, hunting for jobs.
Robert Taylor
But since they gave us enough of a heads up, I was able, in this scenario, not many people can but in this scenario to be a bit more specific and picky where I was trying to apply. I know how the job market is right now, most people are just trying to get a job as they can. That is just a reality. But luckily, I was just trying to be a little more specific, especially in my, at my point in my career, I knew that I wanted to stair step up again. And then be more specific in finding a company that had a culture that I really enjoyed It’s really important, again, I know it’s not easy to find a company that’s like that. But the place that I work at now, they really, really strived hard and it shows to make a company culture where everyone is happy, everyone is appreciated. There’s no negativity and so, which not saying that’s the reason why I’ve been here as long as I have, but I wanted to find a company where I could stay for a while and just grow myself as well. I would have done that with WE•DO but again with the partnership and split, it just was a reality. And it was a big learning experience for me. And so, but, I was able to luckily find a company that really cared about that and I can tell in the interview process. They wanted to find someone first that fit, versus someone that could just do the job. And I’ve learned through different companies in the past that I’ve worked at, knowing in interviews that they ask certain things, what they actually mean and what they’re looking for. And vice versa, you know, me asking them to make sure that I’m going to work somewhere that I’m going to enjoy. And it’s not just a job. Sorry. Yeah.
Sara Sobota
Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That’s amazing. Wow. Okay, great. It sounds like your career’s really had an arc that is in a good direction. Yeah. That’s great. Can you recommend any specific skills that an aspiring applicant should have to increase their chances of landing a role in your field?
Robert Taylor
I think, to be honest, what’s helped me the most, that I’ve noticed in my journey, is actually knowing a bit about coding and websites. But that was for my current job that I have, that actually was not even a requirement. It helped, but they use a developer to actually build them. There’s pages that I’ve worked on, when he’s been busy, that has helped. But knowing that understanding, I think, even if it doesn’t need to be applied, can help, because I can relay information to the developer or when I’m designing the pages, I have an understanding of what’s more doable. I mean, most things can still be created, but it might be really difficult, or it might take too long. And so understanding more of the reality of that.
Sara Sobota
Yes.
Robert Taylor
But I feel like most design can be learned in general. And so from my own experience, if I don’t know it, I can tend to YouTube it or find a Skillshare, or an online class that can kind of teach me. Most of the principles that are learned in school, I’ve been able to still just apply, you know, there’s basic principles of design. But at the same time, even those principles, I’m not saying they can be broken, but design is so subjective, that things change, I could want a design to be one way, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be that way to succeed or work in its role. And that’s, that would be one other thing that I guess would be a good mindset to understand is that internally, as a designer, working for a company, you know your company, and you know what you want the end user or customer to do. But when, I guess this, this technically would be a skill, it’s a learned skill to understand, really just putting yourself in their shoes, the customer or the users’ shoes to make sure it’s working. To make sure they understand it, because you might know how your application works. But someone that’s never used, it might not have a clue, they might not know that they can do all these different things. And so your role as a designer is not just to make something look pretty, sometimes it is, but most of the time, it’s actually serving a purpose.
Robert Taylor
And so understanding what the purpose is first, before you started design, I think is a good skill. Really, it’s an eternal, it’s a brain skill, it’s a mind skill, not necessarily a physical one. But that would be something that I think would be really good for designers to understand, jumping into a role. And this is more of a reflection point of view. But I think artists and designers, we compare ourselves to other people, a lot, other designers a lot, impostor syndrome, it happens no matter who you are.
Robert Taylor
But I, from a personal standpoint, have talked with other people that are trying to break into the design realm, and haven’t had a bunch of classes and/or gone to school for it. And they feel like they can’t be a designer because of that. And I, if anyone is watching these videos and think that I want to let them know that that’s not true. You can be a designer without having all these different courses. You don’t have to take a website design course to learn, and know, website design. I mean, you’ve got to find it from somewhere. But you don’t have to have gone to like college and specifically taken web design 101, 102, 105 to get to get all the way there. I’ll say this now. I mean, when I’m building websites, I sometimes forget how to do things. And I go right to Google. And I think a lot of people don’t realize that web designers, developers, we will do that. We’ll be like, “what is the code for that again? I completely forgot.” And Google comes in for the win, or YouTube, there’s, there’s resources out there. And so I really think that if anyone is trying to break into the design realm, they should try and use those resources because I’m going to say that back when I was in school, those resources were not necessarily there. I mean, YouTube was still brand new, where you would sit and if you had to upload a video it would take like five hours and and most of the videos on there were not help videos. They were just random things that people put out there, or music videos, and that’s how we would listen to music. But there’s so much information at our fingertips now that you can learn something, I mean, designers, you have to have not a natural eye for things, but that does help. But most of what graphic design is, is learning how to use tools to get the end goal and all of that can be learned for sure.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, that’s right. That makes sense. Okay, okay, great. Are there any local organ– first of all, I don’t know if I covered this before, what year did you graduate from Coastal?
Robert Taylor
2013
Sara Sobota
2013. Okay, I think that was something I overlooked. Are there any local organizations or programs that you recommend for aspiring creatives? Associations or professional groups or any events?
Robert Taylor
There are professional groups in Myrtle Beach. I’m not going to get the correct acronym, but I know that it’s like a youth in business, young business leaders, I think? Is one of the– now that one’s not specifically just for designers. But that is an overall one that would help, that is one that helps network people in the local area, which networking is always a good thing to do. And I have learned that over the years as well. The whole phrase, it’s not what you do, it’s who you know. I think it’s how that phrase goes, or at least that’s how I say it. And it’s very, very true. And in my career, that’s actually been something that’s helped with my freelance. I knew someone that works heavily with the Murrells Inlet marshwalk, that group of eight of the restaurants that’s right on the inlet, and I do their marketing and designs now. So I redid their website, they are about to do Fourth of July event coming up, and I do their posters and banners. And that’s been an ongoing thing. And so knowing that networked person has just helped with my career, because that’s just a steady stream of design work that I can have that I don’t have to like, go out and look for. That’s kind of just been something that’s come up in that. it’s come to me. Yeah.
Sara Sobota
That’s great.
Robert Taylor
And then on campus, I actually, I am hoping it’s still in play. But there was a club called SAS, Student Artists Society. And it had started the year before I was there. And then I became a member, its first year, or well, I guess, second year. And then I was the treasurer one year, vice president, and then president for I think two years or one year. And so that was a, just a student led organization in the art department where we would have various artists come in and speak and do like kind of smaller, like seminars and conferences, and then we would do also philanthropic things like bake sales, art, art building, and we also did a pumpkin painting or carving or designing contests, we would do that every year, and faculty and staff would actually come and buy those pumpkins. And so we would raise money for local organizations. We would also do, I believe we called it Empty Bowls.
Sara Sobota
Oh, my gosh, that’s still going on. Yeah.
Robert Taylor
Is it still going on? Good. Okay, so we, so I have to give credit to one of the professors, they came up with the idea. But we would do that every year. And then we would donate the profits to local food pantries, or there was an organization in Myrtle Beach, I’m trying to think of the name, street…
Sara Sobota
Oh, Street Reach?
Robert Taylor
Street Reach! Yeah, and we would donate money for that as well to help with the homeless. And we actually got to tour their facility one time where they showed us how they bring people in and not just have them for the night, they actually help with like the rehabilitation process and help them get jobs and things like that, and help them get on their feet or get like means of transportation and stuff like that. But that was, that was something that helped make more bonds outside of the classroom. Because you don’t, you’ll see other art majors in the hallways, but you don’t always have classes with them. And so that was a way to actually kind of get to meet other people that were in those classes. And same thing with that club. It was people that were in different levels, like different grades. So most of the time, when you’re in your art classes, you’re in with the same group that you’re going to graduate with, versus being in that club, you were in a range. So you know, when I was a senior we had freshmen that were coming in, and so it was great for them to like kind of learn, and mingle with someone that’s had more of the, more classes and things like that. It’s just great perspective. So that’s one that is very localized because it’s right there on campus, that they can join.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, good. Okay. I have like three or four empty bowls because I always go buy one.
Robert Taylor
Awesome.
Sara Sobota
Okay. Do you have any advice for current college students or pre professional young adults who are pursuing a career in the creative world?
Robert Taylor
Oh boy. I mean, I know I touched on some of that in previous questions because I know I just kind of like rattle on with with knowledge and stuff. But I think one of the biggest things, this is gonna sound so typical, but it’s just being confident. We’re our own worst critic. And starting out, it’s inevitable that starting out your your first and early designs are not going to be your best. But that does not mean that that’s where you’re going to stay. You’re going to grow. I mean, just the other day, I was redoing my online portfolio. And I went back and looked at some of my earliest designs, and I’m just like, wow, that was just horrible. But that’s okay. Because that’s where I started out. And if I hadn’t have started that I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wouldn’t have grown.
Robert Taylor
And I kind of, in a way, whenever I left Coastal, I took a leap of faith is what I’m going to call it with leaving a job that was comfortable, where I knew I could just keep doing it, doing it. But it wasn’t what I went to school for. And not just that, it was not what I enjoyed or had a passion for. And so if you’re a young designer, and you have a passion, go for it. It might not be easy, and it probably won’t be. But that’s not the point. The point is not easy. The point is to do the things that make you happy. And luckily enough, I have gotten to a point where, in my career, I am doing that. Now, yes, it is still a job. But I get to be creative in my field. And that is, I mean, that’s something that makes me happy. With, with projects that I have, even though there’s an end goal, I can still have kind of like free range of design, and how it should look.
Robert Taylor
So yeah, so like young designers starting out as well, try different things. You might think that you like one thing, and you actually find out that you don’t, or something else is a little more fun that you never knew. I mean, I still took regular art classes that weren’t design classes whenever I was there. And I ended up really loving watercolor. And that was something that was not something that I knew that I was going to pursue as a career. But it was something that helped me relax. So that’s always something good to find, too is something that you can separate from a work life kind of balance type situation, something that you can still find enjoyment in, that is not your every day to day tasks.
Robert Taylor
And this is another kind of random thing. It is still design related. That whenever I first started out, I had a teacher that loved type. And at the time as a student, I could care less about type. I was like, “Okay, it’s a word that’s nice.” And then something happened my senior year, I had him again. And we had a project where we had to create booklets, actual 3d printed booklets. And it was, I did mine on the Gestalt principles. And when type originated, I don’t know why I picked that one, I just did for some reason. And then during that project, it just, a light bulb just popped in my head. And I was like, “I get it now I understand type.” And I just started to really enjoy it. And had I not taken his class and had that project and really kind of like, tried to understand it, that wouldn’t have opened up and then that really became large for me because soon after I ended up taking a job, in the in the midst of graduating Coastal, I had some interesting back and forth where I did actually take a few jobs and then come back to Coastal a time or two. That was too difficult for me to explain, but I did ping pong a bunch. And luckily, I was able to come back each time to the exact same job in the exact same office. And it just worked out. They just had an opening and I was like, “Oh, I’m thinking about moving back.” But I did actually end up taking a job for a magazine. It was a golf magazine out of Hilton Head, South Carolina. And I had all of the knowledge now on typography and layout design and such from that course that I was able to get that job. And so yeah, if you’re a new designer, just take different classes, find out what you do and don’t like because you really might think you like one thing and then find out you like something better. So just try different things. Try new things.
