The Thrill of the First Job

Blog 7 of 30

Getting a client was just one step on the journey. Doing the work for the client was the next challenge. Sadly, the two doctors who interviewed me for the project were given other responsibilities. But I was introduced to Dr Navin Jaykumar, who would be my client liaison.  

Navin was to become a good friend over the years and he was to make the project interesting, challenging and fun. My first few meetings with him were stilted and formal, and I was ever conscious of the fact that he was THE CLIENT.

But over time and numerous conversations in planning the magazine and ideating over what was possible and what was not, the relationship became more casual. However, I was conscious of boundaries. I never let any client know that a large part of my work was done on the floor with a baby on my lap and overseeing another one. That part of my life was strictly confidential as I was often worried that no one would take my work seriously if they good to peep behind the scenes.

I don’t know if Navin ever realised how nervous I was at our first meetings and I have never asked him. But he was enthusiastic, funny and easy to talk to for a young professional. That was enough for me. I did not realise till years later that he was a quizmaster… but I was not surprised for he was a font of information. In many ways he eased my entrance into the professional world and gave me great confidence at a time when I was terrified of dealing with clients!

In house magazines were the fashion at the time – helping people increase communication and the dissemination of information within an organisation. Many were beautifully designed with a number of visuals and photos. But I was determined that it should be interesting to read, informative and actually make people think.

It was an eye hospital, so naturally most of the information was based on eyes, the treatment, and the care. Navin spent hours teaching me so much about eyes. My curiosity was insatiable and on every article that we wrote, I questioned him for hours, Soon I was familiar with the terminology – Glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy and numerous other words rolled off my tongue with ease within a few months into the project. I often wondered whether it was meant to me that was my first project was semi medical considering I had wanted to study medicine.

The first step to the project was to come up with a name for the magazine. I called it Eyelights – a play on the word highlights. It gave me great pleasure that many many years later, when I was no longer doing the magazine, to see that it still carried the same name I had given it back then.

With great care and effort and several rounds of proofreading the first issue came out. It was merely an eight-page newsletter, but when I held it in my hands, one would have thought, that I had designed an award-winning piece of work. The pride was the same. It was my first professional project. No achievement after that gave me greater pride than this simple project.

There were doubtless problems, a last-minute crisis, spelling mistakes I caught on the day when it was going to press. So many little things. How did you cost for a project? How did you estimate time? Profits, margins, targets, goals… I was learning many things. But one client was not enough to support me, I had to find more.