Tell us about yourself and your creative background
I'm an architect in Cardiff, where I moved to study at Cardiff University’s Welsh School of Architecture. I chose architecture because I always loved art and design subjects and making things, but also liked science subjects too, basically anything that involved creative problem solving. I didn’t decide on architecture until I was doing my A Levels and my Art Teacher told me she though it suited me, so I went for it. Turns out it did suit me, and here I am.
So, what’s your Creative First?
My Creative First is starting an architecture practice in 2018 along with my friend and former colleague, Rhian Thomas.
When you’re working for somebody else or a bigger practice with lots of commercial pressures, you don’t always get to explore the things that really interest you and you have to work within their structures and priorities. We wanted to set up on our own to explore our own interests, do the things that mattered to us and work in the way that best suited us.
What was the biggest challenge you faced?
I think there’s two things, one was the financial side and leaving a salary and making enough money, especially at the beginning because we didn’t have existing clients or savings to fall back on, so that was a challenge and a risk.
Another thing was in terms of experience, it was like pressing a reset button. Although we had a lot of experience running big projects across different sectors, because the practice was new it was difficult to attract that kind of work again or win those kinds of projects, so we went back to doing smaller things. At the start, it was difficult to get anything other than domestic projects and refurbishments, which we weren’t really prepared for. We assumed we’d be able to carry on doing the larger-scale projects we were used to, but the world didn’t see it that way. The world looked at us as a new practice without any experience and if we were bidding for a project, they’d ask for examples of things the practice had done that are similar, and it took us a long time to get that kind of work.
Can you share tips for others who want to start their own creative business
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Be willing to take a risk and don’t be afraid to fail – You could sit there and think about it and never give it a go, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know.
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Be willing to put in loads of hard work- you need to be ready to learn things that you didn't think you needed when you worked for somebody else, and which are a bit outside of what you trained to do.
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Plan things and think carefully about why you want to start a business and what you want to achieve that you couldn’t achieve if you worked for somebody else. It’s hard work, so the purpose and passion need to drive you.
Would you approach things differently if you were to start again?
We learnt so much, that I probably wouldn't do things differently. Having been through the experience with Alt Architecture and starting my own business again, it’s quicker and I understand the process a bit better.
Why choose Cardiff for your Creative First?
We set up in Cardiff because it’s a great place to live, there’s so much cultural and creative things happening. We’ve found the creative networks, like Creative Cardiff, so useful to engage with and we joined the co-working space Rabble about a year into the business. It’s been great to have a community of other business owners and freelancers at Rabble, lots of them in creative businesses as well.
Creative Firsts feature
Want to be featured? Email us at creativecardiff@cardiff.ac.uk if you have a Creative First (first time industry experience) to share with our community.
