The Freelancer Life: Meet Sara Scobie
Meet Sara, a travel and lifestyle digital product designer and co-founder of a new App which educates conscious travellers about the opportunities and impact of global travel.
Sara loves beautiful magazines and coffee shops and talks to us about redundancy, co-working, collaboration and starting a joint venture with her partner, Abb-d.
“Being a business owner has allowed me to take the reins on my destiny, at least on a professional level. Choosing how to spend my time day after day never gets tired.”
Hello, welcome!
Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and how long you have been doing it for?
Alongside my (life and business) partner Abb-d, I run a digital product design practice Driftime® Media, serving purpose-driven travel and lifestyle brands, through digital design, experience and brand advocacy.
In addition to client services, we’re developing an app which allows us to practice what we preach. Driftime® App educates conscious travellers and businesses about opportunities and the impact of global travel upon local communities.
Both Abb-d and I have an addiction to beautiful magazines. Each new city we visit, magazines and coffee shops take the top spots of our ‘to check-out list’. During our four years in business, we started The Annual Digest - an online magazine exploring better ways of working and the stories behind purpose-driven businesses. January 2020 marked the final edition of The Annual Digest, to refocus our energy on Driftime®.
Why did you first become a freelancer?
I was made redundant from my role as a senior designer at a small brand strategy and insights firm. I hadn't even been there a year. At the time I was devastated as it derailed my life plans – not only that, it made me question myself, my creativity and my contribution to a team I valued and respected.
After a month of contemplation and support from the people I love, I dusted myself off and started networking and exploring opportunities. With 40+ hours of my week returned to me, I finally listened to my desire to be my own boss. As a child, I was that annoying kid that questioned everything, if you want to find your own way of working and creating a business which you love, an inquisitive and analytical nature serves you well.
After three months I had secured more work than one person could manage. For some time Abb-d had grown disillusioned in his role as a senior creative manager at another firm. We decided to give a joint venture a shot, but set the terms that our relationship came first, followed by the leap.
Where’s your favourite place to work from aside from your home and why?
We live in Brighton and co-working here is developing its own culture with new spaces popping up (pre-Covid though they’ve become quieter this year). A year ago we had an office at Ustwo Adventures in the Tea Building, Shoreditch which was home to a collection of purpose centred, diverse start-ups. It was the most inspiring and supportive community to work alongside. You had to pass a culture fit screening to join. Since the experimental office closed, we took a Brighton office in Spaces, an international ‘cookie-cutter’ co-working space. It’s great to have the option to get your head down in a private office but we miss the rich community of people focused on disruptive and pioneering business models with more than profit in mind.
Share your struggles - what do you find hardest about working for yourself and why? How have you found ways to combat these parts of working for yourself?
There have been many occasions I’ve counted my blessing for going into business with my partner. We each act as a sounding board for ideas and problem-solving. Having a team, albeit a small one combats loneliness and keeps you on your toes.
Recently our main challenges have been around finding mentors and local communities for established small businesses. Community is abundant for people at the start of their self employed/startup journey in Brighton but for those interested in conversations around scaling (or not), leadership, optimising and employees, where do you turn? AndCo and Design Calendar have been two instrumental communities in connecting us with inspiring purpose-driven, passionate businesses.
“There have been many occasions I’ve counted my blessing for going into business with my partner. We each act as a sounding board for ideas and problem-solving. Having a team, albeit a small one combats loneliness and keeps you on your toes.”
Share your perks - what do you enjoy most about working for yourself and why?
Being a business owner has allowed me to take the reins on my destiny, at least on a professional level. Choosing how to spend my time day after day never gets tired. We work 10-4 pm on client work, eight hour days aren’t productive for us. Short bursts allow us to focus. Outside of those hours, we deal with the other things that often break the flow and act as distractions. One hour in the mornings is for personal writing and Fridays are allocated to internal work and business development. The four-day focus on client projects doesn’t always pan out but it’s good to have an ideal timeframe for the working week.
What are your top tips for anyone thinking about working for themselves?
If you’re genuinely curious, the only way to know for sure is to try. If you fail, at worst you’ll learn a bunch of lessons which will expand your perspective. We’ve had many conversations with ‘self-employed curious’ people. When you ask enough whys and get to the crux of the interest, you’ll discover if there’s a deep-rooted desire and the drive to make it a reality. Getting organised and educating yourself around working for yourself means you can avoid nasty surprises - check out Courier’s Newsletter and In Good Company with Otegha Uwagba.
What are your top 3 recommendations - podcasts, books, people to follow, sources of inspiration etc. and why?:
Masters of Good (Podcast) Interviews with entrepreneurs who saw the status quo and said no, leveraging creativity, innovation and hard work to design a better way.
The Futur (Youtube Channel) The future of education, design, business, learning...
Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life. By Beth Kempton (Book) A rich life isn't about money, reconnect with gratitude and the art of living in the moment.
What role does collaboration play for you?
Our business would fail without collaboration, it's the backbone of our process and model. We see our clients as partners and collaborators, in addition to our wider team of partner studios and freelancer talent who make up expert project teams. Good collaborators are those who master the art of listening and asking the right questions. Asking the right question gets you halfway to solving a problem. It’s important to create a transparent culture where everyone is on the same page and collaborators are armed with the tools they need to do their best work.
“Our business would fail without collaboration, it’s the backbone of our process and model.”
What do you love to do? What makes you tick and what do you simply love doing?
I love to learn and apply experiments and ideas in real life. Right now, if I could carve out a dream calendar it would be all reading and writing, with a peppering of yoga practice sprinkled in. With our focus shifting to Driftime® I could happily explore opportunities within travel. Intermittent Covid lock-down in 2020 has meant wanderlust is setting in. How is travel shaping up locally and what will it look like globally in 2021? There are already some creative and joyful offerings being shared.
What are you really good at? What’s your marketing superpower? Take this as your opportunity to plug yourself and everything you’re great at!
At our core, we develop purpose centred brand strategy, websites, apps and content design. Ultimately structuring and telling, honest and compelling client stories and discarding the rest.
We know people are generally spending more time online, but brands need to ask what online experiences are you offering which warrant people's time, attention and loyalty?
If we weren’t creating Driftime® app we have questioned deleting all social media accounts. Too many brands do social because they think they’re missing out if they don’t. We ask our clients if their brand is getting a fair ROI for the efforts and time sunk into social media strategy, planning and content creation? How else can we market effectively online? Always questioning the status quo can be a marketing superpower, we like to remain open minded and experiment.
What is the best project you’ve worked on since going freelance?
How could your own product not be a favourite, so I have two! Driftime® app has been in play for around two years. It’s only now that we’ve had the luxury to carve out and dedicate time towards launching a travel editorial with interactive experiences that live up to our vision.
We’ve been blessed to work with a dream client Only One. A platform for stories, solutions, and community action to protect the ocean, tackle the climate crisis, and help build a more just, equitable planet. Alongside their internal team we designed the web platform and continue to work alongside Only One to perfect the experience. Sign up to protect Antarctica and be a part of future environmental campaigns.
What were you doing this time last year? What have you learnt or how have you changed since then?
Last year we were a generalist design practice Curate Labs, now reborn as travel design specialists Driftime®. The focus means we now use our time wisely, less busy work and more meaningful work. With focus comes expertise, as the world adjusts to a post-Covid new normal it may be crazy to jump into design services for the travel sector but expertise, problem solving and agility is needed more than ever.
Want to learn more about Sara? Follow her on Twitter @driftime_media, or Instagram @driftime.media.
