After a few months of solid consideration, I have decided to drop the freelancer label and as of today am donning my design and web studio hat under the name of Humaan.
This may come as a surprise, given my advocation of freelancing, however I felt it was the right thing to do to be able to move forward.
As some of you may be aware, I’ve been freelancing in collaboration with my partner, Karen, for some time now and she will also be joining me as a director of the business.
So what’s going to change? Nothing really (apart from the name – I’ll get to that in a minute). I still believe in the values I held as a freelancer and they will be an integral part of the way we operate our new business. Apart from providing great service, exceptional design and building incredible websites, we’ll have a greater capacity to get things done.
And the name? Ultimately we wanted our business name and brand to reflect our values – We’re creative, we do things a bit differently and we pride ourselves in exploring designs and building websites for humans. As strange as it seems, to us Humaan was an obvious, memorable choice.
As for freelancing – in all honesty, I still believe that it is a great career path and that all of the points raised in this article are valid. I have been and will continue to recommend freelancers for jobs that I think are suitable.
For me and my situation, moving on from freelancing has become gradually more inevitable – and I’m looking forward to the next step.
Great choice, I love your work, all the best.
grats! I’m not sold that this will be a beneficial decision for you though. Companies lately, I’m finding, are MORE receptive to hiring a freelancer, than a design firm. Especially a good freelancer such as yourself. With Ruby / Django becoming more prevelant, I find the industry slowly moving towards the freelancing model… as individuals are able to take on projects of almost any size.
Furthermore, why take on a NEW brand? You’ve established your name as the mark of quality, and you have a VERY brand-friendly name. Jay Hollywood, sounds like it could be an individual, or a firm. Frankly, from a branding perspective, I wish MY name was Jay Hollywood. Jimmy Chu, Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel, Versace… these are all DESIGN brands created around the designer that established them. Is our industry that much different than that of the fashion industry? I think not.
My brand name reactions:
Jay Hollywood – 9.5/10 – Great name, immediately mentally associates me with the feeling of big time production. The fact that it is a person’s name keeps it within a small down to earth box. Feels like big value in a small package, which is something I feel every webfirm should convey.
Humaan – Meh… not bad… seems like you added the A to be Klevar… when the reality is that it’s just a potentially cool, short domain name you found. I could take it or leave it.
Either way, congrats, and best of luck!
Congratulations Jay! I think it’s a great move and I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes you.
Also, I really dig the new brand/logo, very clever.
I’m going to have to disagree with you Gav, whilst there will always be work for Freelancers I think that Jay’s decision to ‘incorporate’ to move forward is exactly because a lot of companies can’t afford the risk of relying on a single person.
As Jay said, it’s about sticking to the values of a one man show, being responsive, caring about the quality of the work and building lasting relationships with people.
In the end a company is just a bunch of people doing cool stuff together, whilst being able to share skill-sets and disperse responsibility and operation knowledge.
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The only real flip-side is the fact that JayHollywood is an awesome name, but that doesn’t mean that people won’t just go to Humaan to hire Jay and his ‘peeps’
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Good Luck Jay
Thanks for the feedback and kind words guys, appreciate it.
Gav – I do agree with you in that freelancing is definitely picking up and people are becoming more receptive to hiring them. I think it’s great – for the industry and for business as a whole.
However the freelance model no longer fits my situation and for me, moving towards a business is the right move.
As for the name, we think Humaan works better for our underlying principles.
hmm. I’m not saying “don’t work with others”, you can work with as many people as you please. In fact, delegation is lesson one in business. I’m saying that by keeping the Jay Hollywood brand, you can be a chameleon. Small businesses want a freelancer, big business wants a firm with infrastructure. With the Jay Hollywood brand, you can be what you need to be in any situation. The greatest asset of a small business is it’s ability to be nimble. Which should only be sacrificed when it prohibits you from making your business more sustainable. In this industry it would actually be a non-conformist decision to retain your name as your brand. Non-conformist = different. Different = good.
Please don’t take this as negative criticism, it’s meant to be helpful. I thought you could use an observation from a non-involved 3rd party observer. I think what you’ve created is amazing, and I think abandoning it right now, would suck. But I guess what REALLY matters in all this, is that a short .com is a requirement these days for a web firm, and I’m sure jayhollywood.com is taken.
Sorry Jay, but I have to agree with Gav.
Jay Hollywood is an unreal name and you should stick with it, freelancing or not. Anyways, good luck with which ever way you decide to go.
Cheers,
Klaye
Jay, I love the name, and the logo!
Congratulations Jay. I’m sure nothing will really change, you will still be producing top-notch work!
Anyway, great and memorable name and very nice job on the logo and landing page.
Hi Jay,
Congratulations for new name for your business. But jay Hollywood is good for seo because its used Hollywood keyword
Sounds great Jay. Good luck on your new adventures! The work you’ve done over the last years have been improving so much – impressive skills mister
BTW: Awesome logo and design on the page so far.
Are you pissed that Julia Gillard stole the title of this post for her election slogan?