Self-employed and doing things her way
Meet Chelsie Tamms, Designer and Owner of Chicago-based Lettering Works
In this latest installment of our interview series, I am excited to introduce you to Chelsie Tamms, Designer and Owner of Lettering Works. Designer extraordinaire and creative entrepreneur, Chelsie will inspire you with her authentic takes on leadership, business ownership, and life in Chicago. Her entire career has been one of self-employment, and she has a stunning portfolio to show for it.
Jessica: Tell us a little about your career journey, how you got to where you are now.
Chelsie: My first taste of being a freelance graphic designer happened when I was in high school somewhere between entering various poster and t-shirt design contests and making posters for countless school events and organizations. I've always loved art, so I was happy to learn about design as a potential career path early on.
I studied Graphic Design, Spanish, and Marketing in college and by the end of my senior year, I was producing my own line of greeting cards out of my apartment and had already self-published my first book, which served as both a how-to on lettering and portfolio of my work. This ambition ultimately won me $10,000 in startup funding from a student entrepreneurship competition at my university.
While I held internships throughout college at advertising agencies and a personalized products company, I bypassed the corporate world by starting my company, Lettering Works, after graduating from Bradley University in 2016. In the very beginning, I split my time between an artist residency and building my business and client roster.
For three years, I built my business in Peoria and focused on custom design services, logos, and branding, in addition to starting my own line of art products, expanding the greeting card line into stickers, postcards, and other souvenirs.
In 2019, I moved to Chicago to pursue larger opportunities with my business. I focused on expanding to new museums and airport gift shops after finding success with those particular segments in Peoria. I continued my design services and later added consulting and online courses into the mix.
Passion projects have played a vital role in my success and growth over my past eight plus years in business. A few of my most notable projects are 100 Days of Peoria (and later 100 Days of Chicago), Cool Beans, and a shop local campaign. These projects have connected me to opportunities working on campaigns with local government and non-profits like the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois and Gift of Hope.
Currently, I love working with independent artists and creatives, small business owners, and non-profits and community organizations on all things creative - from strategy to logos to custom merchandise. My art products can be found at The Field Museum, Chicago History Museum, Garfield Park Conservatory, Flyover Chicago, and in a few shops at O'Hare Airport, as well as at countless independent shops throughout the US.
Jessica: You are a team of one by design, but you are still a leader. What changed for you once you stepped into your leadership role, i.e., owning your own business? Did others treat you differently? Did you show up differently?
Chelsie: It took me a while to accept that I could still be a leader as a company of one. From the beginning, I was able to lead clients to creative design solutions, but it wasn't until a couple years into business that I had a realization that pursuing my unconventional path itself was actually a form of leadership.
Once I committed to being a business owner (and not just a freelance graphic designer), I felt a shift in how I lead and approached opportunities. When you take yourself and your dreams and vision seriously, others follow suit.
In more recent years, I've started to show up as more of an advocate for working in a way that uniquely works for you and leaving other toxic messaging behind. I operate my business at an intersection of chronic illness and pursuing my biggest dreams and passions. I strive to be an example that you can do things your own way and be successful in a way that is meaningful to you.
I'm on a mission to customize brands, elevate confidence, and empower the creative community. I hope my journey can inspire other creatives to pave their own path in a way that works for them.
Jessica: What do you love?
Chelsie: I love ice cream and traveling the world and designing logos and drawing in general and spotting my stickers at cool gift shops and spending time with friends and family.
There are two distinct feelings that I love most in my business. First is the initial sketching and creation of a new logo or custom design because I see so much potential and love the burst of creative energy. Second, nothing compares to the feeling of seeing one of my clients light up with confidence when I deliver their final design files. I know the designs we created will help them make their next big move and help them reach their goals.
Jessica: How do you spend your days?
Chelsie: Every day looks different as a creative entrepreneur. My favorite way to spend my time is drawing, lettering, and designing for client projects as well as creating my own new designs to add to my growing collection that is available for both licensing and wholesale.
I'm committed to being a life-long learner, so I enjoy listening to audiobooks, implementing new business ideas and strategies, and connecting with fellow entrepreneurs in various small business communities.
Other frequent tasks include sending outreach emails, responding to inquiries, posting on social media, journaling, restocking stickers, and packaging wholesale orders. I'm also responsible for managing my own bookkeeping, developing creative marketing ideas to continue to grow my business, and maintaining strong relationships with my wholesale buyers and custom design clients. I try to limit meetings to a few connection calls a month alongside any client consulting meetings.
I'm always striving to improve my prioritization and efficiency, which allows me to enjoy life in Chicago outside of business as well. Most evenings, you can find me grabbing dinner at a favorite local restaurant, meeting up with friends, attending various community events, or taking a long walk in my neighborhood.
Jessica - You introduced me to Danielle LaPorte’s concept of Desired Feeling States. Will you explain what that means and why they are important to you?
Chelsie: Many people frequently move the target for success and happiness, making it incredibly hard to attain. By constantly focusing on achieving the next thing and believing that once that is accomplished, then they can be happy, people often rob themselves of actually feeling how they want to feel.
Defining your desired feeling states is all about deciding how you want to feel first, centering those feelings, and making choices that allow you to feel those feelings. Danielle LaPorte says "you get to choose how you feel—it's the ultimate self-agency. Our feelings inform our thoughts. And our thoughts inform our behaviour."
As a creative entrepreneur, I have incredible agency to do things my own way. But if I have not determined how I personally want to feel at the end of the day (and throughout the day, too) then what am I doing it all for? We shouldn't go into business to wear ourselves out, but rather to be our best selves and feel fulfilled with our choices.
I am currently focusing on desired feelings of being curious and confident, as well as creativity. The specifics of the words you choose matter - I picked "creativity" over "creative" because I don't think it is necessary for me to always be the one creating. There's a lot of pressure in that, but "creativity" as a desired feeling state to me means that I can be creative, I can surround myself with others' creativity, or I can be open-minded in seeing how else it might show up.
Defining the desired feeling states that resonate with you can help you better understand yourself and what you need to do in order to feel the way you want to feel. There are so many people out there telling us how to be successful or happy with their formulas and their key steps. Ultimately, it is up to us to define those words and center the feelings within ourselves that are most important to us, without the societal pressure, and to do so in a way that works uniquely for us.
To learn more about the services and products Chelsie offers through Lettering Works, check out her web site!
To read about the rebrand she did for my business (and see examples of the great work she does), travel this way.
Photography provided by Kara Hoganson.
