Founder and Creative Director of Design Agency 'I Am Female', Annie Bartley

Hi, I'm Annie, founder and creative director of 'I Am Female'. We are an award winning, queer-led design and branding agency, powered by women. I've been a graphic designer for seventeen years and have run my agency for four years now. As a neurodiverse individual, self-employment has been 100% the right choice for me.

Can you talk us through your journey into self employment, and how using your neurodiversity as a strength has allowed you to have really an incredible career?

So I actually fell into the world of self employment when I left uni. I was given an opportunity to be a designer for a magazine, and that was on a freelance basis. I hadn't even heard what freelancing is, but I jumped in and I took it. 

But at the same time, I was going through my first massive mental breakdown, and I was going through a lot of medication trials, and if I was employed, I wouldn't have been able to hold down that job. I was working very strange hours, only two weeks a month due to appointments etc. At that time, I was wrongly diagnosed with bipolar and schizoaffective disorder which threw a spanner in the works. It wasn't until my thirties that I got properly diagnosed with ADHD and ASD.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but looking back, it makes me realise why I've never had a full time job, and why I've worked so well for myself. I think that's because I my brain works in a very logical, linear way. When I've been in a long term contract, I always see what doesn't work, but also how people work better. And often people don't want you to make things better. They want you to do your job. So for me, that doesn't make sense. 

The fact that I was able to curate my own way of working, and also from a client perspective, that really helps me. My neurodiversity is really beneficial for them, because I can get them from A to B more efficiently and more cost effectively. 

In the world of social media and presenting everyone's best life, it's almost set people up to fail. Do you think there's just too much pressure on people to not make mistakes?

I think social media is, especially when it comes to running a business, can be wildly delusional and it's also a massive tool for comparison. You also don't see that maybe someone started what they were doing 10 years ago, and now, only have you found out about them. This is a trap that I still like fall into. 

We all do doom scroll. But I'm very still in the physical world, and do a lot of in person networking. I do a lot where I'm present in real life. And I do think it's difficult for the newer generations, where it is very digital, so you're only presented with, 'oh, look at me, I earn 10 million pounds' and it's not realistic. I've been doing this for nearly 17 years, and I've had the agency for nearly three and I still don't earn a million pounds and probably never will. 

Don't compare! But you know, we're all exactly where we're meant to be in this moment in time and you have to trust in the process, and also just understand that this takes time. And as an ADHD person, I hate that, because I am so impatient.

How do you find self employment offers you flexibility in your life? Do you find that it gives you the freedom to manage your professional and personal life?

I think for me, it is really kind of everything. I have a four year old daughter who's now at school, so being able to either have to pick her up or work around the school holidays has been a blessing.

I think if there's anything from a negative aspect, it is that you really have to learn to create a boundary between your personal your professional life. I think for a long time, I didn't have two separate areas. 

What advice would you give to those considering starting out in self-employment?

So I think the first thing is to get whatever's in your head out on paper, like actualise it. Make it real, make it something that you can see. I think it also helps to break stuff down. What it is that you like, what possible way forward you might entertain. Focus on your why? Why do you want to do this? Because your why is everything, and I talk about this from a brand perspective as well. Like, why are you doing this? Why do you want to do this? Because when things get tough and, like me, you're crying in the corner. You go back to your why, you're like, this is what I wanted to do. This is why I did it. And that really helps scrape you off the floor. 

How do you manage your neurodiversity? Do you have any coping methods?

For me, it's a lot of simple things. I do a lot of art. Doing something so organic as freehand painting, I think that just allows me to, not think, but also actually allows me to ruminate on the client ideas and stuff like that.

My go to thing is to nap! Sleep has always been a way of measuring how I'm feeling. If I'm not sleeping a lot, then I feel really anxious or maybe I'm going through some sort of depressive episode. So it's really a good indication. 

Other times, it's good to just change my environment. Sometimes I need a night out with friends to take my mind away from work and it sort of resets me. Giving yourself time to breathe, away from your desk is vital.