First-Person: Katy Davis
Freedom 101 How Portfolio Center gave me a career. And a life to go with it.
Before PC, I was a 9-to-5 girl. After PC, I could have become a 9-to-midnight girl at any of a number of fabulous ad agencies. This is the obvious route for those who thrive on industry awards and all the fame and glory that go with them.
That was not my path.
I was 34 and a newlywed when I started the copywriting program at Portfolio Center in the summer of ’98. At the end of my tenure, I was freelancing for BBDO Atlanta and enjoying the fact that I wasn’t an official employee. Next came my one-and-only full-time copywriting stint—at Atlanta’s Sawyer Riley Compton (now Blattner/Brunner SRC). Working on The Ritz-Carlton Hotel account, the most important lesson I learned at PC hit home: The well is deep. When you write 17 rounds of headlines for a trade ad, you realize that time and effort are your friends. Your ideas do get better. Comforting, right?
The Layoff.
November 2000. I was called into my creative director’s office and told that due to financial stresses on the agency that I was being “let go.” Okay, so it didn’t feel like the kind of release you feel during vacation or a spa day. More like a kick in the gut by an angry mule. Still, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
My plan was to freelance until I found another full-time agency job. There are plenty of decent shops in Atlanta, so it was just a matter of time. Meanwhile, I was blessed to have some PC teachers in town who hired me for a job or two. Then a week or two. One creative director even told me that I wasn’t charging enough, and she insisted on boosting my hourly rate. A girl could get used to that.
Me, my brain & my laptop.
There I was, happily freelancing. Some days I wrote ads at home, but I was still an office girl at heart, yearning for the anonymous camaraderie of the new laptop workforce you find in coffee shops everywhere. Little did I realize, my current situation was just the sort of lifestyle that is conducive to (gasp) a life. I could spend guilt-free evenings with my husband without worrying about what my agency co-workers were muttering under their breath. I could run stupid errands during the day without worrying about getting back before my lunch hour was up. My husband and I could start a family without worrying about how much time the corporate world would allow me to stay home with the baby.
And we did have a baby. Lucy. She is three now and she can read already and backseat drive and jump off high-dives. As a freelancer, I get to spend a lot of time with this amazing creature. My husband, who is a photographer (Chris Davis, PC ’89, cdphoto.com) and the one who nudged me to attend PC, is also a freelancer and has the chance to hang out with her, too. Often we get to hang out together as a family. In the middle of the day on a Wednesday, even.
I work while Lucy is at her preschool Monday-Friday. Mercifully insulated from office politics, my time is spent writing and concepting. Sometimes I concept by myself, sometimes it’s over the phone with an art director in another city. Most of my clients are small ad agencies and design firms around the Southeast with no writers (or maybe one or two) on staff. We do everything over the phone or via email. Sometimes I will fly somewhere for a face-to-face meeting, which is fun because then I get to wear nice clothes.
The best for last.
A couple years ago, my husband had the lovely idea of moving from Atlanta to Wilmington, North Carolina. A beach town. A college town. A film town. And it's here that I just received a Telly for a video I co-wrote for—of all clients—our church.
Not a Pencil, but I'll take it.
