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Episode
95

Motivation to Escape the Rut

An interview with
Sophia Ahamed

Introduction

At some point in your career you might get stuck in a rut. Stuck in a pattern doing the same thing day in, day out, without making any progress. But because change is hard, it’s easy to become comfortably unhappy, and let the days pass.

This is what happened to Sophia Ahmed. She was in a dead-end job, and at a low point in her life. But after dramatic personal life events she was pushed to reflect on her life, and so made the necessary changes to get out of that rut, and make a change for the better.

In this interview we discover how Sophia started Monograph&Co, her own design agency where she works with talented partners to provide the best possible design service. We also uncover how she left a dead-end job to start her own thing, the motivation needed to get out of a rut,  then end the discussion talking through her process for designing a brand identity.

Sophia Ahamed Interview Transcription

Ian Paget: You now run your own design agency, Monograph & Co. For a lot of designers, that's the ultimate dream I think, to have your own design agency. So I'm curious to learn from you, what was the events that led you to set up your own agency?

Sophia Ahamed: I think there were quite a few events. A lot of them were personal I think on a very personal note. But in a general sense, I think that for me, I was just very uncomfortable with how things were going in my life at that point.

I was working at a job where it was just no longer giving me what I needed. And it was just time for me to move on, and I didn't want to move on and get another position somewhere else. Had my own ideas, my own dreams. And I think I was just in a very uncomfortable spot. So it just pushed me to jump and to take that leap.