Girl, I does sell plantain and bhagi and ting now, inno

Last week, someone asked if I wanted to work on a design project (as a graphic designer!) and I had a good, loud cackle, because I had just spent the entire day arguing about a truckload of pineapples destined for Tobago.

I told them, “Girl, I does sell plantain and bhagi and ting now, inno.”

We both laughed. But I’ve been saying it all year. Half-joking, fully true. That response captured something deeper about the shift I’ve been living.

I used to define myself as a designer. Brand systems, typefaces, campaigns, talks on fancy stages. And by traditional metrics, I did well. NEDCO Entrepreneur of the Year. International Business Awards’ Startup of the Year. Fifteen-plus ADDYs. So many talks on so many international stages. I’ve worked with dream clients on global campaigns, all from my picturesque tropical island home. From the outside, and honestly even to me, it looked like things were going great.

But “success” started to feel strange: Is it exciting to design for Facebook? Sure. But when you start to unpack how that work helps underpay workers in the Global South—people who look like me, mostly—just to preserve share prices, you begin to wonder who your talent is really serving. You realise you’ve climbed the ladder only to hold up a structure that, for most of your life, has been holding you down. For me, that was a wake-up call.

It was a painful one. That wake-up led me to build a mobile app that didn’t survive. It failed — publicly, messily. It cost me time, money, and trust in myself and others. But in the middle of that collapse, with meetings, reworking strategies, talking to partners, and begging for money, I learned something that surprised me: I loved the work of trying to make it work.

Not just the creative framing, but the boring, sweaty, logistical parts. Pricing. Negotiation. Legal structure. Real-world problem solving. I realised the same creative instinct I used to build brand systems could be used to build infrastructure. To redistribute power. To actually change lives. You know, like design was always supposed to.

So I leaned in. Hard as fuck. And about five years later, here I am. Far more entrepreneur than designer, but still very much a creative professional. And, based on the fact that my work helped with 5 design awards last year, I think I’ve still got it. But, do I need “it” in the same way? Maybe not.

Last year, I worked with my team at Public Good Studio to launch a fresh produce distribution platform. It allows farmers in Trinidad, Saint Vincent, and Dominica sell their goods to large buyers. Nothing complicated: just inbound orders, mobile phone messaging, and fair pricing for farmers. Since launch, we’ve paid out over $500,000 directly to farmers. No crypto arbutrage, no AI chatbots, no fancy landing pages. Just good design solving a real problem, and providing viable, real-time data to Caribbean governments that need it for their future planning..

And in doing it, I realised we could just do that: we could build our own projects, from the ground up. It felt like a strange, full-circle moment. A return to independence, but this time with a lot more experience.

So we’re keeping that energy. I’ve told the team we’re not taking on new client work after we’re done with our current ones. Not because we can’t, but because our vision for change might just be better than theirs. And we want to build without needing permission.

But even that wasn’t the whole picture: the world is shifting: Layoffs. Recession markers out the ass. Inequality. Creative agencies are being gutted. VC money evaporating. And AI creeping into the sacred spaces of our field—ideation, aesthetics, voice. The designers in my life aren’t seeing it the same way as I was: lots of talk about “they can’t replace real creativity” like clients were ever hiring for creativity. The ad agencies are already charging clients for poorly generated graphics (with a better margin, because machines are making them)

But I see tech differently. AI is coming for the execution layer, not the decision-making one. And that was the nudge I needed to go even further upstream. To stop focusing on how things look, and start focusing on how things work. On who gets to decide. On who benefits.

I wanted to bring that energy back into typography; it’s a space I’ve always loved but often felt at odds with. So I did something wild. I started looking for a job. My first real one in over fifteen years. With a boss. With accountability. With the possibility of being in trouble. And a salary. Less time to stare at the ceiling. Great stuff.

The search took all of three weeks (because I’m lucky). Now I work with the team at TypeTogether: not as a type designer, but on the business side. I talk to people about corporate and custom font licensing, about legal boundaries, term limits, and language support. And somehow, I love it. It’s giving me a deeper education in an industry I care about and a real chance to help it grow, connect, and listen to voices outside the usual centers.

Because the truth is, I still design. Just not always pixels or letterforms. I design systems. I help shape businesses. I coach creatives who think they’re not good at business into seeing they already have the tools: they just need a different lens.

So yeah. It’s still me. I just sell bhagi and ting now. I’m not mad at it. But please: remember that when you ask if I’m available to help with that flyer.