FROM: Slate Simmonds, Cubicle™ TO: Founders, studios, and designers figuring it out RE: Thoughts from a Fractional Creative Director and Brand Designer I spent the first half of my career cranking out design work on Upwork, Craigslist, Instagram, and Reddit. Whatever I could get my hands on. I was undercharging. I was over-delivering. But I was happy to be making things. Most of those projects had no guidelines, strategy, or foundation. So I started building those things anyway, whether the client asked for it or not. Whether they had the budget for it or not. I innately knew that these frameworks were needed to create consistent creative work. This is when I realized design without purpose, structure, and foundation just feels empty. Disjointed. And empty, disjointed creative creates a rift between a brand and the people it's trying to reach. A rift that can be quiet, persistent, and really hard to remedy. Thus began my repositioning into a brand designer, not just a graphic designer. Strategy and foundational design systems began to replace decorative design and aimless creative briefs. My clients shifted from quick-turn, budget logos, to startups solving real life problems, organizations building foundational brand systems, and creative studios building impactful user journeys. That's my path, very high-level, from graphic designer to brand designer. And eventually, to fractional CD. The difference isn't simply talent, but structure. A fractional CD comes in to create or rebuild that structure that is far too often, missing. I direct, strategize, conceptualize, execute, and build brand experiences that create clarity and equity. I do this work solo or embedded within teams. From scratch or expanding what already exists. Alongside the shift in how I structurally operated, came a shift in how I cared for the work I was making. Care for the larger picture. Care for the end user. Care for the shareholder. Care for the brand experience. Care for the tiny details that most may never notice. And most importantly, care for the energy I was spending to create this work. Leaving a full-time role to do this work on my own again was scary. Five years building and expanding the same brand felt safe. And eventually, repetitive. I wanted to push, not maintain. I wanted to grow. So I left. I left my full-time role. I left a team that I genuinely cared for. I left the country that I grew up in. And I built Cubicle™, giving myself no choice but to succeed in ways I know I am highly capable of. I owe it to my creativity. To organizations that actually care. To my family. And to myself. Rebuilding my own foundation as a creative is allowing me to more effectively craft the foundations of organizations across the globe seeking to grow their impact. Symbiotic growth is essential to life, so it only makes sense that it's essential to creativity. More ramblings to come. Slate pic: 2018 Craigslist/Upwork designer Slate vs. 2026 Slate