With over 20 years experience in the industry, Ian Dutton of Hello Munki has been both an in house graphic designer, design manager, freelancer, children's book illustrator and now has his own successful greeting card brand Hello Munki.

Ian talks honestly about the juggling act running a greeting card brand, freelancing plus spinning the plates with being a hands on parent.

Ian's designs have sold in Next, Mammas and Papas,M&S, Sainsbury’s, Boots, CBeebies, Early Learning, Moon pig, Card factory, Tigerprint, Asda, Morrison’s, Tesco’s and more besides!

Ian's Takeaways -

1.Try a new creative process for designing characters, step away from the computer to see how your characters change!

2.Push yourself to promote yourself to studios and contacts.

3.Remember the Freelance fear and try to push past it.

4.Don’t take quiet spells personally, try another contact. 

5. Join a local or online network group. 

6.It doesn’t matter where you live these days for your creative career.

7. If you don't feel creative don’t force it, do something else.

8. You should always still get excited when you see your designs on products, if you don’t then maybe it’s time to change? 

9.Make friends and get to know linked in!!

You can find more of Ian's work at -

www.hellomunki.com/productranges

http://www.ianduttondesigns.com/

www.instagram.com\hello_munki