I miss having a team. There. I said it.

Freedom hits different when you've had both

I spent most of my career on teams. In-house, agency, contract. I've had CDs, I've been the CD, I've sat in rooms where five people argued over a typeface for an hour and the work was better for it.

Then I went independent. And at first it was everything people say it is. No boss, no commute, no meetings that should've been emails. I built my own schedule, chose my own clients, and answered to no one. That part is real. It's also only half the story.

Three years in, I'd trade a chunk of that freedom for a whiteboard and three people who challenge my thinking. The best work I've ever made wasn't solo. It was in a room where someone said "I don't think that's working" and I had to defend it or let it go. That tension, the productive kind, not the toxic kind, is where design gets good. And you can't manufacture it alone. I've tried. I've asked AI to play devil's advocate. I've called designer friends for feedback. It's not the same. Real creative friction comes from people who are invested in the same outcome you are, not people doing you a favor between their own projects.

I need the friction

I'm a better designer when someone else is in the room. Not for direction. For friction. A CD who says "try again" and means it. A developer who says "that breaks on mobile" before I ship something embarrassing. A copywriter whose headline changes my entire layout because it was better than what I had.

That tension is where work gets good. I don't get that sitting in my home office with a podcast on. I get versions of it. Async feedback in a Google Doc, a Loom video review, a Slack thread. But versions aren't the thing. The thing is real-time, in-person, messy creative collaboration where someone's idea sparks your idea and the work becomes something neither of you planned. That's the drug. And freelancing doesn't sell it.

So here's the thing

I've spent three years building independence and I'm choosing to say out loud that I want a team again. Not because freelancing failed. It didn't. Because I've had both, and I know which version of me makes better work.

I want a seat at a table where the work matters to more than just me. I want to build with people, not just for them. I want Monday mornings to mean something other than opening my laptop and wondering which client to invoice first. If that makes me a bad freelancer, cool. I'd rather be a good teammate. And honestly, I think there are more people who feel this way than the internet would have you believe. The freelance-freedom narrative is loud. The "I actually miss having colleagues" narrative is whispered. Consider this me not whispering anymore