Today I’m speaking to Danielle Clarke from Danielle Clarke Creative, who is the epitome of never giving up on the goal you want to go after.
In this interview, Danielle tells me about how she had knockback after knockback, but still kept at it, whether that was at school or in her career. She’s an example to anybody who wants to go out there and start their own business, showing how you market and brand yourself, and how you make things happen.
As always, I really recommend sure you listen to the podcast in full, but here are some of the highlights:
Danielle on her early education
Darren: What kind of things were you into when you were in school or going through college that made you want to go into the area you’re in now?
Danielle: I used to love science and geography because I loved nature and learning about other countries. I loved fine art too – anything that kind of got me being creative. I was never very good at maths and despised it, but that was probably the only subject I didn’t really like. I liked English too, especially creative writing. I used to love it if we had to write a story, do some poetry or something like that.
When I left school and went to college, I took AS-Level Geography, Graphic Design, and English Language and Literature. I considered becoming an English teacher or becoming a fine artist. At the time I thought graphic design meant I’d get to design album covers because that was the one thing that really got me into design, or the back of skateboards maybe, because I was into that sort of music and lifestyle at the time – rock and skateboarding.
But I soon realised that most artists were poor, unless you’re Tracey Emin or Damian Hurst, and I ended up really disliking geography because but the teacher sucked the life out of the subject. I just went from loving geography to absolutely hating it.
Darren: It’s amazing how a bad teacher can ruin your passion for something, isn’t it?
Danielle: Yeah, completely. And I became less interested in English and realised that I really did want to pursue graphic design. So after my AS-Levels, I moved into a BTEC National Diploma, which is like the equivalent of three A-levels, and went and did solely graphic design
…on her mother’s influence
Darren: My art teacher actually told me not to do A-Level Art because like he didn’t think I was good enough, and my dad didn’t want me doing that sort of thing either because he thought I should be doing a “proper” subject. What support did you get from your parents?
Danielle: Oh, my mum was my biggest cheerleader! I think she’d been watching some sort of documentary and I’m pretty sure it was my mum that actually first told me about graphic design. She’d seen this documentary about this graphic designer, and the thing that stood out to her the most was how much money this guy was earning! I remember my mum getting really excited and telling me he was getting paid something like £30K a year. Obviously, I’m going back a few years and that’s salary’s still good today.
She’s never ever said to me “don’t go into that career, get a proper job” or whatever. I remember at one point I was talking to her about becoming an athlete and again she was super supportive. So whatever I’ve said I wanted to do, I always had my mum’s backing and support, so I’ve been very lucky.
…on her first break
Darren: So, what was your first real break in the industry? It’s notoriously difficult to get into and most people who want some sort of graphical or creative work tend to want it from somebody who’s young, and for free .
Danielle: I used to be a part of an organization called Millennium Volunteers, which was based in Birmingham, and it was through them that I got my first bit of real experience working as a designer. I’d already done all sorts of volunteering, like working in charity shops, tidying up places like community gardens or activity centres. But with Millennium Volunteers, a lady I’m still in touch with showed me the medical illustration department at a hospital in Birmingham called Heartland Hospital and they said that they there’d be potential for me to go there and work alongside the medical illustration team. I didn’t even know that the hospital had such a department.
So I went along, still at college at the time, and took all my sketchbooks and stood up with my portfolio. I would only have been 16 or 17 at the time and everyone from the medical illustration department was there sat around this round table, so looking back it was pretty intimidating for someone so young.
But they obviously liked me because they started asking me to come in a couple of times a week. It was amazing and super valuable, and I absolutely loved it. So that was my first kind of real taste of getting a bit of experience, and like you say, it wasn’t paid. And the work I did there went in my portfolio when I applied to go to university, so it taught me a lot.
…on perseverance
Daniel: At secondary school, where you had to go and get some work experience for two weeks, the school had got me work experience at Kwik Save. I was fuming – no disrespect to anybody that worked there or in any other supermarket, but I had no interest in doing that. It wasn’t remotely related to one of my interests like art or design.
So I said to the school “if I find my own placement, can I change it?” and they said I could, so I went to the online Yellow Pages and I started looking for local design agencies, but a lot of what popped up was printers. I remember printing them out, getting a pen and being on my mum’s landline phone and just calling them telling them I needed two weeks’ work experience. Eventually, there was a particular printer that said yes.
I went along, and two other lads from another school were there, and on the first day they got told off for messing about with the printer and I think they got told not to come back! Of course, I didn’t do anything like that! I turned up on time and wanted to help out as much as possible, and they actually gave me a job because I impressed them that much. I think I was working there for four weeks, bearing in mind I was still at school. I would only have been 15 because they were asking me for my National Insurance number and I didn’t have one yet! But they gave me a job anyway and I was photocopying, binding, taking phone calls, doing filing, doing the petty cash. I absolutely loved it and that was actually my first paid job in a design environment.
…on setting up her business
Darren: You now work for yourself. What made you take that horrifically big leap and decision?
Danielle: A number of things, but mainly that I’d been made redundant a few times. Even that word ‘redundant’ is horrible, isn’t it? You are of no use, you are no longer needed, that’s what that word means.
I was working for a small design agency and because it was small there wasn’t a lot of room for growth, but also I definitely got pigeonholed there. When I was ready to grow and take on responsibility, the opportunity wasn’t given to me.
Darren: Why do you think they didn’t give you the opportunity?
Danielle: I don’t think that they really believed I was capable. Because I’d come into the agency at a certain level, I think some agencies think if that’s where they’ve come in, that’s where we’re going to keep them. Also, I’m an ambitious person and always have been, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but if you’re an ambitious woman it can be looked at differently compared to men who are ambitious. Design is a very male-dominated industry, so that definitely plays a part.
But I just wanted more, and I wanted to earn more. I wanted to get onto the property ladder, I really wanted my own place in my own space, and when you go in asking for a mortgage in principle or whatever, those things depend on what you’re earning. So that makes you even more ambitious.
…on her first experience of problem solving
Danielle: Going back to primary school, I remember whenever the school was fundraising and needed money for something, you’d get a letter home asking for donation. My mum was a single parent and we didn’t have much, so I used to hate going home with these letters because I never wanted to ask my mum for money.
So, I started thinking “wouldn’t it be good if there was another way we could try and raise money?” I had this idea of doing a school magazine, so I went to my teacher and told them what I wanted to do, said that I would organize it all and do all the work, and that I’d picked some of my friends to help me to put it together. I was only about eight at the time, but somehow the teacher said yes.
We had A4 sheets of paper and marker pens and stuff, and we had a joke page, a superhero-type colouring-in page, rhymes and riddles, quizzes and other things we just made up. I got the teacher to photocopy the pages for us and staple them together, then went out into the playground at the end of school and was selling them in the playground for about 20p. I can’t remember how much money we made but parents were buying, and we gave what we raised to the school.
So that is the first memory I have of starting with a problem, bringing like-minded people together, getting all their creativity out, and solving it. The buzz and the energy, and that feeling of bringing people together and using creativity in that way, I think that’s the real reason I do what I do today.
…on her podcast
Darren: What was your reason for starting your own podcast?
Danielle: Well, often with creatives we don’t market ourselves because we get so busy. Because we’re doing work, we’re not marketing, and then when it’s quiet we go “ah, crap, I’ve not been marketing and now I’m quiet.” I thought to myself that I don’t practice what I preach and am very inconsistent on social media, with the blog I started, with my email marketing and so on, and it’s because it’s just me on my own and I do put my clients first.
But one thing I do love doing is talking, so I thought it would be really easy for me to sit and have a chat with someone for an hour because that was one of the things that used to always come up in my school report – “Danielle is great but tends to chat a bit too much!”
I thought it’s a great way of reaching people whenever they’re ready. People listen to podcasts doing the washing up, driving to work, in the shower or wherever. So I thought, OK, yeah I’m up for podcasting.
Darren: What’s been your favorite episode so far? Apart from mine, obviously!
Danielle: That’s such a difficult question because I’ve got a genuine connection with everybody that I’ve interviewed. I learned so much from Matt Davies, the brand strategy guy, but the one that probably resonated the most with me was probably the talk I did with Natalia Leven about the yoga studio she started, Chai Soul, and how it came from having a near-death experience.
To find out how that fascinating story ends, check out Danielle’s podcast, Build Better Brands. As well as the ones she mentions with Natalia Leven and Matt Davies, you’ll find one where she interviewed me!
And if you’re interested in what Danielle had to say and would like to hear from more marketing and business experts, be sure to subscribe to the Engaging Marketeer podcast on your platform of choice.
