How my Past Jobs Shape my Creativity Now

I didn’t take a straight path into design. My journey has been full of detours, lessons, and unexpected moments that quietly shaped the way I work today. From teen art nerd to cake decorator to customer service worker, each chapter left its mark on my creativity.

I have been obsessed with art since my brain could form a working memory. As a teen, I carried around artist biographies, compilations on the history of art through the ages, and never was without my sketchbook. I could talk for hours about how the Impressionists, who today might seem kind of “safe,” were actual badasses who stuck it to the man! (This may come as a shock, but none of my peers ever asked me to relay this knowledge.)

If it was Friday night, you could bet your bottom dollar I was at home with my paints, watching old movies on Turner Classic Movie channel, completely in my own world.

At fifteen, I spent a summer in Europe as a student ambassador, wandering the Louvre and the Uffizi. That’s when I decided I wanted to study art, preserve it, and create work like the masters. My first path was an art history major with a minor in painting. Romantic? Definitely. Realistic? Not so much.

Life, of course, had other plans. I bounced around college for a while before stepping away to make a living. That living came decorating cakes at my local grocery store.

I spent years crafting frosting roses, talking to customers across a bakery case, and squeezing in painting in the quiet corners of my apartment whenever I could. At the time, I didn’t think those jobs were teaching me anything about creativity. I just thought I was working hard, living paycheck to paycheck, and trying to scrape out a life.

Looking back, I see how each one quietly shaped the way I design today.

Cake decorating taught me patience and attention to detail. It was creativity under pressure, making something beautiful and functional in a limited amount of time is no joke! It also showed me that creativity doesn’t have to be slow or sacred. It can happen in motion, between conversations, in a busy kitchen that smells like brown butter and sugar.

My fine art background taught me to trust my instincts, to follow color, texture, and mood even when I didn’t know exactly where it would lead. That sense of experimentation still drives me, especially when I’m designing something new and feel that tug between logic and intuition.

And all those years in customer service? Weirdly enough, they taught me how to really listen, to understand what people actually need, even when they can’t put it into words. (That’s not to say there weren’t customers who sent me into the walk-in freezer to scream for a second. Sometimes I wish I still had that ability…)

These lessons show up constantly in design, where empathy, clarity, and communication matter just as much as composition.

Now, as a designer and illustrator, I realize I never started from zero. Yes, I’m a new graduate, but I have YEARS of experience. Every version of me, the decorator, the artist, the student, the art nerd, shows up in the work I do now.

Creativity didn’t start when I returned to school a few years ago. It’s been unfolding through every job, skill, and small creative act that came before. Creativity isn’t a clean beginning. It’s a long thread, and I’m still following where it leads.

Thanks for being here,

Jai 🙂