Sarah Almquist

I've gotten a lot of really good advice over the years, and one of the biggest pieces is don't chase the money. I didn't think of this as groundbreaking when I first heard it, but as I get older and I've spent time chasing the money, I've learned that's not how you get where you want to be. I've gotten to where I am now by being a good person and helping people. When someone says they need help with something, I genuinely take an interest in seeing how I could best use my skills in that direction, instead of just thinking about what the compensation is or what this job will give me. When you look for things that align with your spirit, the money will be there. When you chase the money, you're miserable. I've learned to tailor things to what I'm good at, what I love, and how I can best be useful. It's empowering, though there's always that moment of panic wondering what I'm doing in this economy, but it has turned out to be the right path.

The best career advice I've ever received is don't chase the money. I didn't think of this as a groundbreaking thing to be told at first, but as I get older and I've spent a lot of time chasing the money, I realize how true it is. Now I'm tailoring things to what I'm good at, what I love, and how I can best be useful. I haven't gotten to where I am by chasing the money. I've gotten there by being a good person and helping people. When someone says they need help with something, I genuinely take an interest in seeing how I could best use my skills in that direction, instead of just thinking about what the compensation is for it or what this job will give me. When you look for things that align with your spirit, the money will be there. When you chase the money, you're miserable. I feel like that's very true.

I would say stay creative and definitely develop your own voice and your own style. If you're in design, it's really important that you know design principles and adhere to the most important ones, but also don't be afraid to step out of the box and try your own thing. Develop your own style. Do artwork. If you're a digital designer but you're not like an artist, do some artwork. Play with it. Don't just be the cog in the wheel doing the design. Do something for yourself. Also, never stop looking for opportunities. Everything is an opportunity. There's always something to exploit in a good way. If you look at life the right way, everything is a door. You're always stepping through a door. Staying put in one room means you're always going to see the same door in front of you. You have to be brave enough to go through it.

I would say the biggest challenge is that there's so much information out there that you don't really know what the authority is or what's the best thing. We get lost in this information crush, this information paralysis or decision paralysis. A big challenge is knowing what's accurate and what's real. When you're working with design, especially with AI generation now, you have to understand that when you build something that's made according to design principles and to your own style or to what you know is the best use for it, you're definitely doing it better than having it generated. It requires a lot of manipulation to make a message look the right way, and I don't feel like AI is going to do the job yet. It's soulless. These little mistakes or little idiosyncrasies are what make brands human, and when you take that away, you get something that's more sterile and doesn't really have a voice anymore. So I think it's important to keep your own voice and use it. AI is based on human creations and human things, and a lot of it is stealing from artists. If you do your own thing, you're contributing towards something bigger, as opposed to just pulling out a recycled bit and using that.

I would say authenticity would be one of the things that's most important to me, and creating meaningful connections. That doesn't mean new connections, it means the relationships that matter the most in your life, taking care of them, taking care of people close to you, and being a good person. I'm not that person that walks by someone on the street who's on the ground. I check on them. I live in Hillcrest, which is a really cool little area with huge nightlife in a small residential neighborhood, and there are a lot of unhoused people in the area. I always stop to check on them, and sometimes I reach out to my community and ask people if anybody wants to help me help this person. On holidays, I like to bake pies and put them in a little cart, and I go around to the streets and give out slices of pie to people who are out on the street. I think just finding ways to be a good person and help people is always going to stand you well. If you want to know what humanity is, you look at its lowest members, and I think about that a lot.