The Work-Love Balance

- Jamie Ellul

As an industry that’s a slave to deadlines, there’s inevitably been a lot of talk regarding a work-life balance in the design world over the last decade. Graphic design is an industry known for its all-nighters and weekends spent putting together pitch decks. And as a designer and father of two myself, work-life balance is something I’ve strived for these last eight years. In order to move towards this enlightened state of being, I’ve made quite a few radical changes to my working life, working a four-day week since my son turned one – not as easy as it sounds for a creative director running a small agency. then, five years ago I left my own agency in London and relocated with my family to leafy Bath.

It’s this last change that has inspired me to write this article. For the first two years of my four-day week, while living in London, I felt like I had achieved some sort of work-life balance. I felt like I’d nailed it. I had a day to spend one-on-one with my son every week, and apart from a few phone calls, a bit of frantic signing off of creative work via my iPhone and the odd client meeting with a sleeping baby in a pram, it seemed to work alright. The downside was that the other four days I was at work were pretty full on – early starts and late nights were common, and quite often by the time ‘dad day’ came along on a Thursday I was tired and grumpy.