Designer Boss
Designer Boss
Meet Anna Dower and Emma Kate
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0:04
Welcome to the designer boss podcast, listen, learn, love and level up with the ultimate success guide for web and graphic designers.
0:17
My name is Anna Dower. I'm a cake lover and success-slaying graphic design mentor.
0:23
And I'm Emma Kate, your personal sensei for mastering the wonderful world of the Web.
0:30
Together, we'll show you how to harness our tried and tested experiences and hard-earned lessons while you soak up everything we know about building a successful design business.
0:46
Hey, everyone, this is a quick intro episode. Just to let you know who we are and how we came about. My name is Anna Dower. And I'm a graphic designer slash creative mentor.
1:04
Hi. And I'm Emma Kate. I'm a web designer and mentor as well. We decided to create a podcast because we created a designer summit in 2020. Our summit was called the Designer Boss Summit. We created it for graphic and web designers. And it was a huge success. So we decided to create a podcast to complement it.
1:29
Emma and I have been working together for how long maybe is now I think
1:35
probably coming up to about two years almost.
1:43
Yeah. And the way we initially met was Emma actually got in touch with me to do some mentoring with her because she was going to create Ecourse. Yeah, so I had this dream to be an e-course Boss Life. And I knew that I really have to work with her to get it off the ground. So I just contacted her as a student, I guess as a mentee, like many of you, I've, I was following her on social media for a long time, I loved what she did, knew I had to work with her. And then we just sort of created a bit of a friendship from there and got to know each other's businesses more and more. And it turned into just we've we discovered that it was a great sort of opportunity to be able to sort of work together considering the ad, a very similar target market, but also goals in our business, to really help other designers that have success in their freelance businesses, just like we have.
2:44
yeah, we share the same goals, I think. And I feel like we definitely complement each other. Not only in our personalities, but also in our skills. I feel like ama picks up where I leave off, and vice versa. So it felt like just a really good partnership. And I had had partnerships in the past. And none of them felt as easy as this. So it's kind of been, it's been really easy. It's been really fun. We've done lots of stuff together. And we just kind of click . Yeah. And it makes it I agree, it's been really fun, really easy, and just easy to be able to focus on our own zone of genius and let the other person do the part that they're really good at as well.
3:35
So yeah, and I feel like we're not controlling, which is like, we kind of just let each other do our thing and do it together in a way. Yeah. Well, I think I think there's a huge respect, though, between us of I know that you're awesome at what you do. You know, I'm awesome at what I do. So it's like, oh, I just dropped you on. If you think that's best, then that's best, just go for it. And so yeah, it's been really good. And the summit was a huge success earlier this year. So we're really excited to be recording our very first podcast episode to launch this Designer Boss Podcast. I'm really excited about this new venture we're having together
4:18
Yeah, and we're going to be sharing all of our stories, basically, and gonna be really transparent about what helped us in our own design businesses, what helped us what kind of hindered us the lessons we learnt
4:32
all that sort of stuff. And hopefully it gives you some motivation, inspiration, gives you some knowledge, to you know, really be the best you can be in your design business. And hopefully from listening to our experiences and stories and tips. You don't have to do things the long way around like we did.
4:54
Yes, yeah, definitely. There's a lot of mistakes that we've made over the years. That hopefully I believe from listening to this podcast, you don't have to make yourself, you can learn from our mistakes.
5:10
Yes. And we thought because this is our little intro video, we would do our fun little chat and talk about three random things that you probably don't know about us. So this should be fun.
we might do one each and then you know, we'll go through them like that. So, okay, first random thing that you probably don't know about me is, when I was younger, probably late teens, early 20s. I would write letters into Rolling Stone magazine about ranting and raving about articles and bands and music and they would publish my letters all the time. I obviously had a lot of spare time.
5:59
Yeah, I know. Like, there's not much going on, I guess. And I was quite passionate about it. But I really wish I kept some of the magazine so I could show my kids now. But yeah, that was something random. Oh, I'm just imagining you as like a young little annadelle punk rocker or something.
6:22
Oh, that's awesome. When I was younger, I used to like put magazines together and stuff, like cut it out and make my own little magazine. Oh, that's, that's that wasn't one of my ones. I was gonna say. A fun fact about me. When I was a little kid. My nickname was Little Miss Dropsy, because I used to just knock everything over. I would spill everything. My parents even call me Emma give her a drink and just fill it.
6:51
And that's quite a mouthful.
6:54
So it was often the domain stop fee. And I think you know anyone. I guess that's met me in real life knows that I'm ridiculously tall. So it was probably because I was just growing for so much of my child. Yeah, I was just such a klutz. And I didn't know how long my arms were at any given day. So I would just knock things over all the time.
7:16
Have you gotten better though?
7:20
Yes. Yeah. Well, I stopped growing sorry. I think I'm pretty much 14
7:27
My next one is some people will probably actually know this. So may not be so random. But I have a fear of birds. And it's not like little birds. I don't mind little birds, ducks. Ducks are okay, for some reason, ducks are like the nicest birds. But I have a fear of birds especially like big Flappy Birds flying into my head. It's like a fear of mine.
7:50
I'm just my kids.
7:55
It is pretty fun. Like, we've been to a few zoos with the kids and they always have bird shows where they've just got these massive birds, you know, flying from one end to another. And that's like my biggest fear that it's gonna fly in my head. But yeah, I've gotten I've definitely gotten better. As I've gotten older. We actually my daughter has two barges now, so I feel like I'm getting better.
8:24
Yeah, yeah. So it's it's the big flappy sort of fast. I'm assuming birds like ducks. I feel like they kind of wobble and they give you I thought they're being Yeah. What do you call it like a sign that they're going to take off whereas other birds just Yes. Yeah. I get it.
8:42
Well, another fun fact about me, which is probably not so surprising. Anyone that follows me on social media knows that I'm obsessed with my sausage dog Miley.
8:53
She's the love of my life. And when she came to the recent photo shoot, I did. So there's lots of photos all busted over my website of her now. But I'm really excited that I'm actually getting another dashcam copy next week. So I'm really excited. It's so freakin excited.
9:15
I can't wait. I don't know how I'm gonna go with all them. The toilet training and all that considering renting an apartment but yes, very excited to have a puppy because I haven't had the puppy experience before I got Miley as a rescue when she was three. So I'm really looking forward to having the puppy.
9:36
Oh, wow. And what about Miley? She's gonna get jealous.
9: 39
All right. No, I think she'll love it. To be honest. I really do. I think she'll maybe struggle for the first couple of days. But she she loves when we look after my mom's dog and stuff. She loves playing. Yeah, I think she'll really like it. That is so cute. I cannot wait for photos.
9:57
Oh, there'll be so many photos and videos.
10:00
My final random fact. Some people may know this too, because I did write a blog post about it. But it was a few years ago now. A few years ago, we decided, after actually my very firste-course launch, I've designed this bootcamp, I think I made $20,000. And I was so excited. And we went on a family trip to Disneyland. And it was so good. It was like, the kids dream. We finally get to Disneyland. And I was like, sick the whole time. And my husband Lee was like, How to know where Disneyland.This is once-in-a-lifetime a lifetime thing. And I actually found out I was pregnant in Disneyland.
10:47
Surprise.
10:50
Surprise, baby number three.
10:53
And because it was a surprise, it was all the fields going on. Yeah, it was definitely a trip. We will remember forever. Yeah, yeah. The girls will remember it too, the big girls.
11:06
Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. And my last random fun fact is I ate my very first and probably very last snail last week.
11:21
Actually, to that, how will you in a situation where you were offered a snail? Oh, yes. So it wasn't just a random one I picked from my daughter. And just to clarify,
11:33
we went to like a family holiday party with four winery. And my boyfriend Ken decided to get the cargo because it's like this French restaurant. And I was like, Oh, that's gross, good luck with that. And then when the time out, he's like, keep pressuring me to try one. And I always have to, like, just push those random fears out of my head. Like it's just it's just food like, you know, this classy restaurant. Something terrible.
12:02
That slimy food.
12:07
Little bit slower. You know why? The texture was like probably what you'd assume a coat snail would be, the texture would be like a bit funky, but it was smothered in garlic butter. So definitely didn't taste bad. Tasted perfectly. Yeah. But guys, yeah. Garlic makes everything taste good. But the worst thing was about, you know, 10 minutes after I've eaten it. Kind of like feeling around your mouth. Because that's a bit of snail stuff.
12:49
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I don't think I would be that adventurous Honestly, I'd like to think I would, but I don't think I could.
13:01
Awesome. Well, I hope you guys learned something new about us. Hopefully, it makes you want to stick around and listen to us some more. Because we have so many exciting episodes planned for you. And hopefully, we can help you work smarter and not harder. And like I said, learn from us. Definitely will thank you guys for being here and listening to random fun facts. I promise not to talk about eating snails again.
13:33
And yeah, we'll see you.
13:36
Thank you.
13:44
You've been listening to the Designer Boss Podcast with Anna Dower and Emma Kate. If you'd like to learn more about us and our upcoming digital summit for graphic and web designers, head to our website designerboss.co