I quit architecture and found myself designing logos for $90

so first things first, i somehow found myself on this blog site writing a blog for god knows what reason. i’m not a writer, i don’t even write my instagram captions. i just post pictures with random emojis and call it a day.

but fine, i’ll channel my 2000s movie main character energy and hope that by the end of this blog i’ll have my life all figured out (unlikely, but we’ll see).

a little about me, i’m an architect. i spent 5 years in architecture school, practised for 2 more, and then one fine day, after coming back from a coldplay concert, i handed in my resignation. so… thanks, chris martin, i guess?

but it wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds. i’d been thinking about quitting for almost 6 months, just didn’t have the courage to actually do it. or maybe it wasn’t even about courage; i just didn’t have a plan. i didn’t know what to plan. i liked architecture and interiors, but after 2 years in the field, mera mann bhar gaya tha (i was done with it).

and if you’re walking away from something you’ve given 7 years of your life to, you’d think you’d have a solid plan B, right? yeah, well… no. i had absolutely no clue what was next. all i knew was that where i was, wasn’t where i was meant to be anymore. and as they say, god makes you really uncomfortable when it’s time to move on.

somehow, he also shows you the way, you just have to keep an eye out. miraculously, two of my closest friends decided to start their own clothing brands, and i decided to “help them out.” you know, just a little logo design here and there, helping with their socials, that sort of thing.

and that’s where it all kind of started. what was supposed to be “helping out” slowly became me spending hours figuring out what fonts would look good on a logo, how to make an instagram feed look cohesive, and why colours suddenly felt like they had emotions.

i didn’t even realise when i went from being “the architect friend who’s helping with branding” to “the friend who’s really good at this branding thing.” somewhere between making moodboards and obsessing over packaging mockups, i started to fall in love with it.

it wasn’t architecture, but it still felt like design. just… a different kind. there was still strategy, structure, and storytelling, only now it came with a little more freedom and a lot more heart.

and honestly, i think that’s what i was craving all along. architecture is beautiful, but it’s also heavy, literally and emotionally. there’s so much process, approval, waiting, and compromise. and i think i had reached a point where i wanted to see my ideas come to life faster. i wanted to create something and just… put it out there.

so what started as favours for friends turned into something real. people started reaching out. small brands, startups, friends of friends, all looking for someone to make their ideas look as good as they felt in their heads. and that’s when i realised maybe this isn’t just a phase. maybe this is it.

of course, it wasn’t some overnight success story. there were weeks where i questioned every decision i’d ever made, wondered if i should go back to architecture, and really regretted handing in my resignation. but then, there were also days when i’d look at my screen, see a brand come to life from scratch, and think that “yeah, this makes sense.”

and maybe that’s what figuring it out looks like, not some big revelation, but a series of tiny “yeah, this makes sense” moments.