The Charleston Marketing Podcast

From Freelance Grit To Children’s Lit: A Designer’s Charleston Story

• Charleston AMA • Season 3

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A fired-then-flourishing designer, a flying carriage horse, and a city that rewards creative grit—this conversation with Andrew Barton is a masterclass in turning curiosity into a career. We swap polished origin myths for the real story: cold calls from a phone book, a first agency break with a so-so portfolio, and the moment he decided to bet on himself after an ill-fitting leadership role. What follows is a candid look at freelancing in Charleston, where relationships travel faster than résumés and a carefully crafted email beats a dozen scattered posts.

Andrew walks us through building a client base without chasing every platform. His secret is deceptively simple: make your newsletter actually useful. From printable cards to small illustrations, he treats readers like clients and clients like collaborators, bringing them inside the design process and proving that clear writing drives great visuals. That clarity-first approach shows up in his most beloved project—Hayward the Horse—where a flying tour guide helps kids and newcomers fall in love with Charleston’s history. We break down the self-publishing playbook too: pricing for retail, choosing print specs that elevate the product, and doing the unglamorous work of distribution.

We also tackle the question on every creative’s mind: where does AI fit? Andrew shares the fog he felt when image models took off—and why he now sees AI as an amplifier for writing, code, and production polish rather than a replacement for taste and trust. If you’re a student, solopreneur, or marketing leader, you’ll walk away with practical ideas: get an internship, ship personal projects, invest in community, and obsess over clarity. Subscribe, share with a creative friend, and tell us: what’s the next bold step you’re taking after listening?

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Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association

Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions

Sponsor: ‪SCRA; South Carolina Research Authority

Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton, Rachel Backal, Tom Keppeler

Produced and edited: RMBO Advertising

Photographer | Co-host: Kelli Morse

Art Director: Taylor Ion

Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary and Mathew Chase

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston, from business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and takers choose to call the low country home. They live here, work here, and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to the Charleston American Marketing Podcast. I am Tom Kepler with Obsidian Comms Content Coaching, choose Obsidian.com. Joined here today with my special guest co-host, Amanda. Amanda, why don't you introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_03:

Thanks, Tom. I think this is my first time hosting a Charleston Marketing Podcast. I'm usually behind the scenes, but I'm happy to be here with my good friend, which we'll introduce in a little bit. I'm Amanda Bunting Coman. I'm the Marcom co-chair on the AMA board, and I also have my own marketing company called Social ABCs.

SPEAKER_02:

Wonderful. Great to have you. Uh pleasure to to uh to co-host uh together with you. I should mention uh we are sponsored today by the South Carolina Research Authority, uh SCRA. Uh and many thanks to Jerry FeelsGood for the beats on the way in uh today. Very special guest today, Andrew Barton. You are a graphic designer, an illustrator, a children's book author. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great to have you. Would love to trace your origin story. How'd you get started in all this? What brought you to Charleston? Are you from here? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

How far back are we going? Uh birth. The birth. How far do you want to go? Yeah. Well, uh, I've been in Charleston since 2008. Uh, I wasn't born in 2008, but um I met my wife at a wedding down here the year the year before that. I knew immediately that I was gonna marry her, and then I moved down here and tried to figure out, hey, what am I gonna do for a living? So that's uh that's how I came to Charleston. I was from Greenville.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Terrific. Terrific. South Carolinian. South Carolinian. Yeah, South Carolinian indeed. Yeah, Greenville. Yeah. I didn't really know, honestly, we never came down here. We always went to the mountains west, so I was kind of oblivious to the charms of Charleston before I you didn't even go to uh Myrtle Beach?

SPEAKER_03:

Not really.

SPEAKER_01:

Not really. We were kind of mountain people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Terrific. So what what'd you study in school? Where'd you study?

SPEAKER_01:

I did a a bit of a tour around the Carolinas. Uh I started at Clemson, did a year at um USC uh in Columbia, and I finished up at USC Spartburg. True. So yeah, I did uh I think uh I by the time four years rolled around, I'd given them enough money that they gave me a degree. Um nice of them to do. Yeah, it was great. It was great. I wasn't ready. I didn't I didn't want to keep going. Yeah. Um so it was uh uh interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary thing and uh it was business, design, and a third one that I can't even remember right now. Ooh. All right, great.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah three majors?

SPEAKER_01:

It was like you know, you just do like you've done enough study in each area that they can kind of cobbled together enough credits to get three.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's terrific.

SPEAKER_01:

It was great though, because I did need to eventually I didn't I kind of didn't know what I wanted to be uh when I wanted to grow up, as as many, maybe many of us don't, but by the time I got to USC Upstate, UC Smartburg, I think they changed their name recently, um they actually have a graph design program. They didn't have one at Clemson and they didn't have one at that time at USC. So they had like a media arts program.

SPEAKER_02:

So Were Were you always drawn to the artistic side of things? Were you an artistic kid?

SPEAKER_01:

I have definitely always been an artistic uh creative kid. My dad is a uh musician from uh Miami. Um and he kind of uh he he studied music in school and then he sort of eventually ended up in uh as a cold hard businessman, you know, selling insurance and um and that sort of thing. And so I was uh steered towards maybe more business, more practical things than art. Um and so it took me a while to figure out hey, this is a different time, this is who I am, and I gotta just kind of go for it. So that's great. But uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Great stuff. Um you've done some interesting things, it sounds like you've taught English in Japan. And you know, uh you you you've sort of been all over. Do you want to map out your journey and some of the interesting jobs you've had along the way?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Um well when I so when I went to uh when I graduated from college, um I I I decided I didn't want to be uh I didn't want to sell out to the man, my designs, my art. And uh I remember thinking that pretty clearly and I was like, well, what am I gonna do? Gotta do something. And I had always um I'd always wanted to live um in a in a in a completely different culture, right? Uh didn't have didn't have a lot of cash in the bank, so I was like, well, I gotta go work somewhere, I can teach English. And um so I applied, I looked into moving to Japan and China, and Japan was could I could make a living, pay off some of my student loans, and I applied for one job there, uh got it, and then I then I was just got on a plane. It's kind of crazy. By yourself? By myself, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's insane. Not everybody can do that. Yeah, yeah. Um, I didn't know that everyone can do that because you you everybody can do that. You just buy a ticket and get on a plane.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, but nobody like that's not the thing that they think of. Oh, I'm gonna go to another country. Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I didn't start so I didn't start at the beginning with uh my life, obviously, but my mom is Canadian. My dad's from Miami, so and they met at a uh a Christian Bible school in England. Wow. So it's a global story. It's a global story, yeah. And so we always had um we always had foreigners in our house. I think my my mom, she'll probably never listen to this, but I don't I don't think she ever figured out southern culture, you know. I think that was a bit of a adjustment for her. So we we tended to have a lot of uh foreigners, you know, in in you know, from all over the place Germany, France, England, wherever. And so that was just in uh in our blood, in the Barton blood. I have uh three sisters and uh and so anyway, so after school, I went to that, after high school, I went to that same um school in England for a year, and then I came back and went to college, and then I was like, you know what, I I wanna I'm gonna keep traveling, still have the travel bug, I'm gonna go west. Yeah. So that's sort of how it got there. And you know, along the way I had actually taught English as a second language uh in uh sort of just volunteering in my town, and I was like, I can I can do that, you know. And so did that. That's great. Yeah. Have you been to Japan?

SPEAKER_02:

I have not. It's it's on my list. I'd love to go. Save your money. Yeah, yeah. Apparently all you have to do is buy a plane ticket. Well, that will get you into the airport. Yeah, right, right, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, it's it's crazy. I I tell people that going to Japan is like like going to you're going to Europe, you're going to another country, going to Japan, you're going to another planet. It's another planet. It's crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So did you have to learn the language?

SPEAKER_01:

No, they actually don't really want you to speak the language because you're not really there to teach. You're there to practice conversation. They're perfectly good at teaching themselves the rules and grammar and all that stuff, but they struggle to pronounce it. And so you just need to, it's just like 40 hours of small talk. That's the job. I didn't really know that going in. I'm not Mr. Smalltalk, but uh that was the job. You don't find so far. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but this isn't a small talk podcast. We we get into bolts of things and go deep. Yeah, absolutely. Tell me about graphic design. You you make a you make a living doing graphic design and illustration. We haven't talked much about that yet. Sure. How'd you get into that in particular to say this is what I want to do as a calling?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, I think that I've noticed um in myself and many others that you gotta pay attention to the things you're doing that you're not getting paid for. You know, maybe that sounds obvious to some people, but I don't think it's obvious to everybody. And when I was over there in uh Japan, you know, I was designing stuff, making websites, um, getting experience just personally and even for some publications over there. And so when I came back, I was like, you know what, I gotta do something all day every day to pay the bills. I might as well give it a go. I I like I like I love computers, always love computers. I love making art and other things on computers, and so um just got a job. Uh bit of a story hard to get a job, you know, it's always hard to get your foot in the door. Sure. But did get my foot in the door and it was just sort of off to the races.

SPEAKER_02:

Where'd you get your foot in the door?

SPEAKER_01:

So I my I came home and I went to uh I came home from Japan and went and you know, moved back in with my parents to kind of figure out what was what was next. And I uh I was like, all right, I'm gonna try to find a job. And this is why I was spent the next three months, you know, on the on the computer looking for jobs. And that was I don't know if this I don't know if it's different now. It's not a good way to find a job back then. So then uh my dad was like, look, you got here's the thing. You just need to go open the phone book and start calling people. And that was like the worst thing, the worst thing that he could have said to me. Yeah, just cold calling. He actually said that to me like the day I started looking. I was like, I'm not doing that, Dad. I'm doing it in my way.

SPEAKER_02:

Half our listeners are wondering what a phone book is.

SPEAKER_01:

What a phone book is, yes, that's true. Big yellow thing. Yes, phone directory. And so um, you know, a few months later I was like, okay, I'm desperate, I'm gonna do that. So that day I just went down the phone, you know, went down the list, just pick up the phone, call, ask if they're hiring, got two interviews. You know wonderful. Just two interviews, yeah. Went in, um, was offered a position for both jobs, you know. My portfolio crap. Yeah, it was crap. But you had one. I had one, yeah. I had one. But it half of it was personal projects and um one one job offer was for you know to be like the print guy at uh the graphics guy at a print shop. I actually took that job uh 12 hours in, not 12 hours, four hours in, I was like, this is not this is not a good fit for me. I had not yet told the other company uh no, so then I came to an agreement with the print shop guy and then uh called back uh great guy, Mike Harrison. He gave me my first job on a trial, and uh at that same time I I you know my parents like you can't live here anymore. So I was I I went and got an apartment and I was like, all right, well I'm I'm stepping out in faith here, and uh he he they liked my work ethic and um just took off.

SPEAKER_02:

Tell us about the job. What were your jobs?

SPEAKER_01:

It was a small agency, it's still around. Uh yeah, it's called Shift. Um they back then it was called uh HarrisonCon. And I was you know one of two graphic designers, the junior graphic designer, and it was you know building websites and it was a lot of B2B work. Uh which at the time I was like, this is not very glamorous, but now I I know that's where the money is. Money's important sometimes. Money is important.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it is. So when when did you go out on your own and and what made you take the leap?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, let's we'll do the sanitized version of go with the unsanitized version, that's fine too. Yeah, anyways. So when I moved down here, uh they let me work remotely. I had to drive back up to Greenville every every other week, at least once a month, sometimes twice a month. And that was, you know, we didn't have any kids, and it was fine for a while, but you know, obviously I was looking for a job down here, and it was like very hard to get a job down here then, especially in the creative fields. I don't know if it still is. I have some college.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, and you said 2008, that was like recession time to do that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it was actually things really happened on the kids, especially late in that year.

SPEAKER_01:

So I ended up um getting a job eventually at People Matter, if you remember that. They're uh software. Have you been here a while?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh I've been here a year and a half, but I've been familiar with the economy down here for a while. Okay, awesome. Yeah. Where you where are you from? Uh I lived in the Boston area for 26 years. Okay. And uh grew up in Tampa Bay. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. I mean, I don't even know where where are you from.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm from here.

SPEAKER_01:

You're from here, okay. Not born here though. Not born here, yes. You have to say that.

SPEAKER_03:

My husband reminds me, he's a native born here.

SPEAKER_01:

So Yes, that does happen. There's certain yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But it's funny you say that because we are Boston Red Sox fans and Tampa Bay Buccaneer fans.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, terrific. I I've got a dual allegiance between the Patriots and the and the Buccaneers. So I've got an NFC team and an AFC team.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So that's funny.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Do you have a football allegiance, Andrew? I I do. Um I I I used to not be a big sports ball guy, but uh I've uh I've I've I've grown fond of the Game Cox because I enjoy pain. Yeah, just suffering.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely there's there's a year for South Carolina football teams.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So um yeah, I watch it here and there. That's great. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_02:

So you went out on your own.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Okay, so I was at uh People Matter for a while. Yeah. And I worked really hard there. I got promoted several times. I got overpromoted. I was just kind of in the right place at the wrong time. Yeah. I don't know the Peter Principal. The Peter Principle says that you get promoted to the extent of your incompetence. Okay. Yeah. Um something like that. Yeah. Something like that. And I took a job as the uh oh gosh, what was it? Marketing director was, and I didn't know the first thing about marketing direction, but I I nailed it on all the graphic design tasks. Basically, just you know, you just do what you say you're gonna do, and that's half the job, right? Sure. And um, so after a year and a half, it just was not, it wasn't working. I was failing miserably. I think they probably if I had been, if it had been a less if I'd had less of a work ethic, they probably would have let me go sooner, but I think I don't think they wanted to. Um at least that's what I tell myself. And so um eventually they fired me. I went home in the middle of the day, and my wife's like, you're not supposed to be home. I was like, no, no, I'm not. Let's sit down. I am now. Yes, I'm home now. Um and she was in she is a nurse and she was working full-time. I was like, well, you know what? I think I might have uh I think I might have an authority problem, darling. I I might need to go out on my own. And so um that was a really good time. She um, you know, she was able to help. I we we just knew we were gonna be okay with her job for a while, and we had just bought a house. We just bought a house downtown. It was it was not a good time uh from that regard. But from the moment I just stepped out and you just emailed everyone I knew, hey, I'm opening this business, put up this, you know, bare bones website, and then just people started asking me for work. That's great. That's about 15 years ago-ish. And you've done a lot of work for a little bit. Yeah, right. So yeah, I think uh there's a lot of this is again, I'm I'm kind of out of the I've been out of the get a job game, but just it's kind of a freelance town back then. Is it still a freelance town? Yeah, I'd say so.

SPEAKER_02:

There's a lot of solopreneurs here. Yeah. We've interviewed people.

SPEAKER_03:

And I've read I saw an article the other day about um a lot of freelancers and solopreneurs and how in the future that possibly could be a huge issue because there's not a lot of retirement planning for freelancers and solopreneurs. So my blood just ran cold. Yeah, exactly. Are you both solo?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I know you're solo, are you solo? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's high, high, low, lows, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Oh yeah. Feast or famine.

SPEAKER_01:

But freedom. Yeah, but freedom.

SPEAKER_02:

Indeed. Yeah. Good to good town to have freedom in. There's a lot going on.

SPEAKER_01:

I've got three kids now. I don't need as much freedom as I once needed. But uh, yeah, it's it's a good town to do your own thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you ever get the bug to go back in-house somewhere?

SPEAKER_01:

Not really. I mean, I I get the bug to be in a team. I miss being in an intimate team. I love working with people. Um, you know, Amanda and I are on the Wajiba board together, and it's just it's just fun. Tell them what Wajiba means. West Ashley James Island Business Association.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, terrific. Yeah. I've heard the acronym and and never had the wherewithal to ask what it's like. It's been around for a while. Yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a strange, uh it's a strange word. Yeah. Yeah. People think it's all kinds of things, but yeah, no, it's uh, you know, Frank Wells, it's he's sort of been rejuvenating it, bringing in some amazing speakers. And um, so I jumped on the board and then you jumped on and we we redid the website and it's uh yeah, we took over. It's been new. Yeah, it's just been fun to um it's been fun to be on a team.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, we live in West Ashley too, so it's close to home.

SPEAKER_01:

Terrific. Everything checks out.

SPEAKER_02:

And then on the other side of the peninsula, you know, I I think about some of the organizations you've done design work for Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. Our sister podcast comes to mind. That's right. Yeah. Uh tell us about some of the local work that you've done.

SPEAKER_03:

What haven't you done? What haven't I done? The town of Mount Pleasant too. You've done working on the city.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like I've done a lot of I've done a so there, yeah. So I if I'm putting together my logo cloud, there are definitely some recognizable um some entities on there. Some of them I've just done one project, yeah. And uh that's word of mouth mostly because I don't I've never really been a huge social media person. The thing that's sort of I built my marketing around has been on my email list. I put a lot of love into my emails.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's they're great emails, by the way. I appreciate that. I appreciate that sign up. He has included like free little graphics that you can use for things and like um birthday cards, thank you cards. I I use everything you send out.

SPEAKER_02:

A newsletter that's actually useful.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, things in it that you can use.

SPEAKER_01:

I appreciate that. You can sign up at angelmartdesign.com. Terrific. So yeah, I um yeah, I love I love putting those things together. It takes a while, you know, but uh that's been that's been the main way that I keep in touch with people.

SPEAKER_03:

So but back to some of your back to Charleston.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh tell me help me. What do you want now?

SPEAKER_02:

Local CrossFit gyms, yeah, uh great nonprofits in the area.

SPEAKER_01:

The truth is it's just it's kind of all over the map. Yeah. I think I've I've been I've always been a bit of a generalist, though I especially love um illustration, and I'm more and more as I've become more confident in that over the years, try to work that in more and more. But um yeah, I I don't have a particular niche, you know. Yeah, when I grow up, I'm in a niche.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay, great. Never grow up. Never grow up. Yeah, right. So let's let's get into illustration because some of the some of the illustration work you've done is spectacular, and that that makes me think of Hayward the Horse. Hayward the Horse. Let's let's introduce our listeners and and viewers at at home um to Hayward the Horse. Let's hear the story.

SPEAKER_01:

Hayward the Horse. That is my uh children's book. I released a couple of children's books. There are two, there's two of them. Yeah. And um, if I could just bring it back to AMA real quick. Sure. So um former president. Former former president. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01:

The uh so, anyways, I met a lot of people, like you know, for the first five, six years of um being out of my own, AMA was I just kind of went all on an AMA on the board, on the marketing board, various roles, and then like you said, up to president. But I met a lot of good people through that. Um one of them um was Rick Jones. Do you know you guys know who Rick Jones is? He uh he's a consultant around here. I haven't seen him in a in a hot minute, but uh he would kind of um every once in a while we he's an older guy, every once in a while we get together and he's has very much a coach mentality and he would just kind of you know grill me, ask me what I was doing, and and um one day he asked me uh I was just telling him, Hey, I'm uh I'm kinda tired of making stuff for the people, I want to make my own thing. And he said, Well, do you have any ideas about what you could do or do you have a story you could write or just something like that? I was like, Yeah, actually I do. It just it just hit me. I was like, I got a I got a children's book I wanna write about. Charleston and um the genesis for that, I mean not to get too much in the weeds, but I'm gonna take you to the weeds here, was I've one of my hobbies back to play, play like one of the things that's very important to me is make sure you're playing because playing will sort of tell you where you should be going.

SPEAKER_02:

100% agreed.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's where that's where it's funny. And you have to protect playtime or it just collapses in on itself because it's it's not efficient. There's nothing efficient about playing. Um so anyway, so one of my hobbies over the years has been making indie video games. Terrific. It's like really simple stuff, nothing I would be back back then, nothing I would be crazy proud of. But so I started the uh an indie video game meetup group, dev group in Charleston. Love this. What was it called? Indie Charleston Indie dev Charleston Indie Game Devs. Yeah, Legibba. Charleston Indie Game Devs, I believe. It's on meetups. It's still around? It's still going. I went to a meeting. I went to a meeting last last week for the first time in like 10 years, but like different people have just picked it up. But anyways, we do uh have you ever heard of a game jam or a hack on?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So game jam, we were we threw up, we put a game jam on, and I remember thinking that one of the themes we could do would be Charleston, you know, in Charleston history. And I kind of remember getting blank stares. And I was like, and then it just occurred to me that like perhaps a lot of the people, particularly younger people that were moving in here in droves by then, you know, this is probably 2012, something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

The trend has continued. The trend has continued. Yeah, 40 plus net new people a day moving to Charleston. Where do these numbers come from? Uh Charleston Regional Development Association. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

They got a counter, like a website counter. Okay. Yeah, you bad. You're gonna touch that up with me later. All right, anyways. You don't believe it? You don't believe that? Uh it's not that I don't believe it. I'm just I'm just curious. I just want to know. I just want to know what it is. I have no idea. I have no idea. Um where was I?

SPEAKER_03:

Your game.

SPEAKER_01:

The game. Oh yeah, so I threw out this idea of let's do Charleston, Charleston history, and I just remember thinking, all these people moving in here, they don't like like me, like they don't know anything about the history of Charleston. Like where we live, this place is wild. There's wild how much history there is here. And you kind of just get you get numb to it if you don't do the tourist in your own town, which used to be a thing in January. I don't know if it is anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

They need to bring it back.

SPEAKER_01:

That was that was a really, really cool thing. And and so I had this idea, well, I'm gonna do an animated, um, I'm gonna do an animated video explaining explainer video um about Charleston history. Yada yada yada, that turned into the children's book.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. That's cool. So the main character was Hayward the Horse?

SPEAKER_01:

The main character of the children's book?

SPEAKER_02:

Of the animation.

SPEAKER_01:

That that preceded the No, I hadn't really I hadn't gone that far. Okay. I think it was actually I don't remember, to tell you the truth. I wrote a script, I wrote a script for it, but then I was like, who is the when I'm making things, even for play, I feel like the key for me is to know why I make who's it for? And I didn't I couldn't figure out like who is this video for, and more than that, how am I gonna make money on it? You know. So eventually I figured out, I had kids. That's that's very inspirational in and of itself. And I was like, you know, I'm gonna make a children's book. I'm gonna make it about Charleston, and uh I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make this character, Hayward. Uh the horse.

SPEAKER_02:

Hayward is who?

SPEAKER_01:

Hayward is a carriage horse that uh gives kids and adults tours around town. Awesome. And he has a little magic red bow tie that lets him fly. It's kind of like it's kind of like uh carriage horse plus.

SPEAKER_02:

And it helps with the traffic.

SPEAKER_01:

Magic school plus.

SPEAKER_02:

And it helps a lot with the traffic. That's true. Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah, coming in on 526 just now, I was like, I need a magical bow tie.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh, yeah, so I wrote it, and it was one of those things where as I was working on it, I was sharing it, I was getting above average positive feedback. I was like, this feels this feels strange. This is like above average. I mean, like my clients are usually happy, but this was like very happy. People, neighbors, friends. I was like, all right, well, I'm just gonna follow this, uh, self-published it, and um ordered 2,000 copies.

SPEAKER_02:

Sold out of them.

SPEAKER_01:

I I've ordered many more copies since then. So it's kind of an evergreen book.

SPEAKER_03:

And where can people find your book?

SPEAKER_01:

It's uh it's scattered around downtown. I mean it's HaywardThorse.com is the the website, but it's scattered around.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think I bought one at Drayton Hall Plantation.

SPEAKER_01:

Drayton, that's right. They got it um Annolia, Wonderworks, uh it's down at the market. I honestly I've had a lot of vendors kind of come and go, and I I don't I can't think of all of them right now. But uh the thing about having a children's book is you gotta sell it. And like I selling that's that's awful. Yeah, it's terrible.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I don't like it. Selling's not good.

SPEAKER_01:

So I I knock I went and knocked around on doors one day and then got enough names. It's really easy. You just drop your book off and say, give this to the buyer. This this is what I'm gonna charge, and then they'll let you know, uh, thumbs up, thumbs down. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So you have a second book.

SPEAKER_01:

So the second one, I was like, all right, hey, I thought I did that. Let's let's do it again. Yeah. I wrote the second one. This one is about history. Turns out what I didn't really realize is two-year-olds, three-year-olds, they're not they don't really have a concept of history. They haven't been around for a long time. Time is they're not living in time yet. Yeah. So um, so it's it still sells. It's interesting. Uh I it's more interesting to me personally, but it's not uh it's not as much of a kid killer as the uh as the first one. Kid killer?

SPEAKER_02:

Can we say I'd encourage you to think about the marketing of the term kid killer? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that's what I wanted to know. So you have two, is there a plan for a third or something else? Yeah, at the moment there's at the moment there's not.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I I kind of burned out a little bit on that. You know, I've I've got like many creative people. Um once I once I figure out where the gold mine is, I want to go to find another mountain to dig in. Um, so I I I do I do eventually kind of want to make a Christmas book.

SPEAKER_04:

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that would be a really fun thing to do. I'm not I'm not sure if that's a Hayward book or not. Yeah.

unknown:

Inspired by the decoration.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's right. Okay, we had a surprise guest earlier on it. You did? Yeah. Yeah, we had Santa decorated for Santa. I know him now. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_02:

You met Santa. I know him. That's great. Um tell us about your design. Well, let me back up from there. Self-publishing. Yes, sir. There are a lot of our listeners and a lot of our members uh in in the Charleston AMA who say, I've got a book in me, whether it's a novel, whether it's a self-help book, whether it's a children's book. What's that process like? It's it it seems insurmountable, and yet we keep meeting self-published book authors. So walk us through that process a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

It is a little daunting at first. The uh the the so I met with so before usually before I do something, I'm I want to talk to someone that's done it before. Yeah. Very much value experience. Um and so I met with Jonathan Miller. He has a um book series about uh a dog, Dashan.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

unknown:

Dang it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's he has many books. And that's his full-time gigs. He goes to those are good books. Yeah, he they're great. He goes to and he does he like cuts out the artwork and makes really complicated scenes, and it's uh it's really wonderful. Awesome. Um but he I basically was like, hey, I took him a coffee, said, Hey, what do I what do I do here? And the first thing he said to do was write a business plan. Yeah, I don't want to write a business plan.

SPEAKER_03:

I want to make a book.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I want to write a book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Why is that always the first thing you have to do? Yeah. There's a reason for that, maybe.

SPEAKER_02:

So what did what did your business plan look like?

SPEAKER_01:

I truth be told, I can't really remember. Okay, it was probably it was retail. It's a blur, it's a blur. It was for sure retail sales, but that's uh you gotta sell a lot of books to uh make any money on retail because you know, whatever your whatever the prices on the on the shelf, from my what I understand, you know, they're paying about half that to you. And then you gotta do your the margins isn't great. So you gotta move a lot of books. And um so yeah, so that was that was my business plan. So it still is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Retail. Sell books.

SPEAKER_01:

Retail.

SPEAKER_02:

Period, full stop.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So but I mean I think self-publishing is wonderful. So I mean it's not easy, but it's so achievable if you set your mind to it, and there's you know, a thousand and one services out there to help you get it done. And um, you can do it on the cheap, or you can do it and you can pay a lot of money for it as well.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah. How long did did the process take you from concept of all right, I'm gonna move this from an explainer video into a children's book, Hayward the Horse is the main character. Yeah. What was the lead time between that moment of decision and when when it was on the shelves?

SPEAKER_01:

Probably eight or nine months. Oh wow. Oh, that sounds fast to me. Yeah. I mean, it probably took me six months to make it and then you know, three months for fulfillment or you know, manufacturing. Because I ordered the first few copies I ordered from Lulu, what's it called? Um one of these print on domain companies. Sure. Lulu, I think I think it's called. Okay. Or maybe one of those really popular one that I can't think of right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Local.

SPEAKER_01:

Local connection to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I know what you're talking about. I can't think of the name either. Yeah. We're a week away from Thanksgiving here. I'm gonna write I'm gonna write all this down next time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you're a little hungry. Yeah. Yeah. Don't interview hungry. First rule of podcasts. Is it? Yeah, right. It's not for now. They're Amazon, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I can't remember the name of it.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like uh everyone out there. We'll look it up and add it in later.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we'll add it to the show notes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyhow, um, so those those were just like order them and get them, you know, a week or two later things. So those those I got paperback, um, but I ordered from overseas because I wanted to make sure I got like a um a butt a dust jacket. Yeah. Just to kind of make it look a little nicer.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Any feedback that you get from fans of the of the book to say this made history approachable, this inspired my child.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll tell you what, the one thing that I do hear a lot, I mean like a lot, and it's very humbling to hear this because it I didn't really know what I was doing, is that like kids, they love like especially the first book, they love it. They love this book. That's it. Like little kids. I heard it last night at a networking thing. Uh buddy was like, I was reading this to my two-year-old, he was asking me where the bow tie was, and that the the kid had never reacted that way to a book before. So that is that is uh an amazing feeling, and I feel really blessed to have that experience. I was at your networking event. That's right. It was great. Terrific. So yeah, I think that is, you know, that's that's uh I don't know if that's lightning striking or what, but it's it's a good feeling. And my grandma's like it too. And it, you know, basically what I realized is that when you're writing a book, especially a children's book, you're you're really you're really creating an experience between a child and an adult, you know? And so if that's what you're thinking about, so that's why the book's short. You know, you want that because you're trying to get that kid to bed. Make him sleep and get him to bed. Yeah, teach him something to do. Yeah, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

So you know, the the the book is is is a legacy, right? It's it's gonna it's gonna last a long time. And when I when I think about a legacy, I also think about you know the next generation of who's coming up. Sure. You know, so what advice would you give to somebody in the station? I don't think it's a pro. I I do what I can. Um so somebody who says, I want to be a graphic designer when I grow up, I don't know the first steps other than you know, maybe study it in college, but but but how do I get my start in in graphic design? What what advice would you give to somebody maybe just graduating from the College of Charleston uh or any of the other amazing institutions of higher ed we've got here or just move into the area and they want to get their start in graphic design?

unknown:

What did you say to those gals last night?

SPEAKER_01:

What did I say to them last year? What did I say?

SPEAKER_02:

Shout out to Mike Compton, our ghost host.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Uh last night I was at a uh networking event and there was some uh an AMA networking event, Charleston, American marketing. Find some purpose at Coleman House. And there were um four young ladies from the College of Charleston. I just sat down. I was asking them kind of what they wanted to do and stuff, and some of them wanted to go to marketing, I was like, well, if you still if there's still time, you gotta do an internship. You know, you got you gotta just get out there and get in the real world because just a world of difference between what you can what you learn on the internet or in the classroom and what what people are gonna pay for. And beyond that, there you know, every relationships trump everything, you know. I did two internships while I was in college. One was at a screen printer, one was at an agency, and particularly that agency, like they supported me, they never hired me or anything, but they supported me in different ways for you know a decade afterwards, because we just had a good relationship. And and so I think um do an internship, make sure you're doing personal projects to stay inspired. Sure. And then do some um non-personal projects, even if they uh even if they hurt a little bit, and uh, you know, s sell out. Sell out but stay true to the city. Sell out yourself, yes. I'm I'm only only joking a little bit.

SPEAKER_03:

I like the internship thing because um I did an internship my senior year too. Yeah. And that's that was my first job literally after graduating from college. So the Center for Women.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's so it's so important, and uh it's really cool, you know, just to blow a little smoke. It's really great to have AMA. It's just a great organization for anyone to join. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Agreed. I joined before I moved down here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You get it, Tom gets it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I like when I was a I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03:

There I was gonna say there's an AMA chapter at the College of Charleston, so we and we have a good relationship with them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I mean a uh like I met, so I was Holly Fisher was the president before me.

SPEAKER_03:

Shout out to Holly in Asheville.

SPEAKER_01:

I love Holly, did a lot of work with Holly. And we, you know, we we were we so if you you know, if you're the president, you're the pre-president, the president, and then the post-president, you it's a three-year commitment. And Holly and I were, you know, we're working together on these committees all this time. We never did any work together. And then after we got out, like a year or two later, we just she went out on her own and we started doing a lot of work together. I do a lot of work with her now. So that was the you know, great connection that uh I made there. So you gotta you gotta get out and meet people.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Right? Yeah. And you gotta be good at your craft too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's true. She definitely did craft. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

There's plenty of people out there succeeding that aren't great at their craft, though. Right. And many people are.

SPEAKER_02:

There's plenty of people who are great at their craft who aren't succeeding. And so it's that combination of building a portfolio of good work, but also being known for your work ethic and your ability to connect people, right?

SPEAKER_01:

I I've always so it's it's true. I mean, you gotta have the portfolio. And I I've always sort of my I think my enthusiasm has always exceeded my skill, frankly. And I'm like a learn on the job person. So if I could go back and do it again, I would I'd probably reverse that. You know, I'd probably spend go to a different school that was more focused on design, and and you know, if that if I could do it the perfect situation. But you know what, most people don't have the perfect situation. So I think what I'm trying to say there is if you're trying to get a job, I believe that enthusiasm is more important than skills. I mean, you got you gotta have the eye. I mean you gotta have the some of the basics. But the reason I got my first job in design, you know, as a designer was because my portfolio was okay, but I'd gone to Japan and that just blew their mind. They just that just blew their mind that I'm not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03:

They thought you were a really awesome, cool person, dude. That's why they hired it.

SPEAKER_01:

They did. Um, and uh and I and I was just eager. I was like, I was gonna do anything for this job, and because I didn't want to go back and have small talk in Japan uh for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_02:

So it strikes me that good design is good thinking too. Oh, for sure. I think I think good content is is is clear thinking as well. A lot of your designs strike me as elegantly simple, yeah. And and so tell us about your design aesthetic as as well and some of the thinking that goes into that. Because you as a designer, I'm sure you've got a lot of inputs, you've got a lot of we wanted to impress this audience and that audience, and we want it to say this and that, whatever. How do you distill that down into something that strikes people simply?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a big question, and to tell you the truth, I I'm I'm a pretty analytical person, but I don't spend a lot of time analyzing design.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh maybe I'm just kind of well, I like how sometimes you, Andrew, like with the Wajiba logo, you sent you um sent the board your your process, how it started, the ideas, and then like the second level, and then how you got to where you so talk about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Uh yeah, that's fair. So m maybe like I'm just I'm do it so long I don't even think about it as being a thing, ethos or whatever. But I do I like to, you know, do the discovery, but I like to bring, you know, when there's trust, which hopefully there is, not always, bring the client along um through the process, right? So that means that I really I'm not trying to I I I basically this particularly with logos, because they're one of the hardest things. I try to make sure that they um I try to really figure out what's in their head and what they want and the parameters they have and then um make whatever I make fit what the client what I think they need that they need for to get the job done, but also what's gonna make them happy. You know what I mean? So that's that's for logos. As far as the other stuff goes, you know, layout, um, emails and stuff, I think I believe that clarity is more important than cleverness. And anytime I try to be clever, I fail, usually. I often want to be, but I fit I feel like at the end of the day it's like it's just better to be clear, you know? Especially when things are so noisy and loud and keep it simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and oftentimes a company, an organization, whatever, will turn to a good marketer for that clarity because they they they're dealing with the chaos of running the business and and all the things, and they need somebody to sort of outthink them or or provide some level of clarity amidst that chaos. Would you agree? Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you have experienced this before, both of you. It's like they thank you for your outside perspective. Yeah. For something that you didn't even, you don't do anything to achieve. You're just not there.

SPEAKER_02:

We're not we're not taking the orders and washing the dishes and and all the things. We're providing that sort of outside calm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love um, I really respect, I really respect writing. I I feel like great design starts with great writing. Yeah. You know, yeah. I I think that's almost always true.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Agreed. So what are your sources of inspiration?

SPEAKER_01:

For graphic design? For life?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, both. I mean, it's one the other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's all it's work-life integration these days. Work-life integration. If I'm just out and about doing anything, I'm just I'm just snapping pictures of things that are like a cereal box, corroded sign, and you know, anything that's out there. I'm I'm I'm I'm noticing it, you know, stuff in nature, acorns, you know, whatever. If it's for design, I spend, you know, I spend time on Pinterest. Uh when I'm doing research.

SPEAKER_03:

I always forget about Pinterest. Really? I used to be so into it and now it it just doesn't cross my mind anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't even know where to go anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't. I guess I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02:

I spend a lot of time on Instagram and LinkedIn. Yeah. And what I'm looking for is simplicity of message. Yeah. Right? One of the reasons I like Instagram so much is that you you have to distill it down into something that's really simple and very effective. Because you you're competing against the scroll factor. And and and same thing with with LinkedIn. What one of the things I like about LinkedIn lately is that they um they sort of truncate long messages. Yeah. So unless it grabs you in in the first 10 words, LinkedIn, you literally don't see it. You know, you have to hit more. So as somebody who studied journalism and has spent his whole career in comms, you gotta grab somebody by the lapels and say, listen, sure, this is important. And if you don't, people just keep scrolling.

SPEAKER_01:

Your enemy is the scroll. That's true. Yeah. That's true. Do you do a lot of uh Instagram marketing yourself? Is that part of your strategy?

SPEAKER_02:

I I I wish I could say yes. Yeah. Um, you know, uh Obsidian comms, you know, most of my business comes from LinkedIn. I need to spend some more time on Instagram for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

I kind of opted out of social media years ago if I was ever opted in. Um I you know, when I was kind of spooling up when I started to experiment with illustrating, because I was, you know, I feel like fairly self-taught on the illustration side. I used Instagram a lot, but I just it's just too it's just too much of a time suck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So I just and yet you invest a lot of your time in a newsletter, which is one of the more time consuming elements of marketing. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

It is, but also, and Holly would agree with me on this, that email is still the number one marketing tool over social media, over everything. Because not everyone's on social media, like Andrew said, he doesn't do it that much. So but everyone has an email address. Yeah. And yes, you can unsubscribe and you can, you know, it can go into your spam folder, but email's the number one way to reach people.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And if you're putting thought and care and attention into it, sure, you can really build community that way. And it sounds like that's that's your approach.

SPEAKER_01:

Community is a strong word, but uh uh readership.

SPEAKER_02:

Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's share that newsletter on our newsletter. Let's do it. Let's share that'd be great. I love that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

How often do you publish it?

SPEAKER_01:

So I used to hire a writer. I was I used to hire a writer. Holly, I used to use a Holly to help me with my newsletter, and we were doing it like once a month. Right. And then I was like, you know, I'm just gonna I feel like I can do this on my own. And I can do it on my own, and now I do it like twice a year.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh Andrew, you need to we need to bump that up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's bump the number one marketing tool.

SPEAKER_03:

You need to bump it up.

SPEAKER_01:

I probably do. I probably do. So you'll get more business. I'm not especially it's okay to toot your own.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm not gonna toot it for you yet.

SPEAKER_01:

I got the I got the imposter syndrome. It's that never if you're that if you're jumping in this, that never goes away. I think if you start with it, maybe if you don't start with it, that's good advice too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. That never really goes away. So how do you harness it? You know, how do you work with it rather than against it?

SPEAKER_01:

I will you tell me.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh I haven't figured that out yet either. I was hoping for your advice.

SPEAKER_01:

I think you just have to uh surround yourself with people that take the next step. Yeah, just have to take it. Just don't don't look at the horizon, just take the next step. That's uh that's as far as I've gotten. So those steps are not taking me to Instagram at the moment, though.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. That's fine. That's fine. Let's bump up those newsletter figures. Yeah, baby stuff. Yeah, maybe I should. I don't know. You know, when I when I think about graphic design and and the trends there they're in, we'd be remiss not to cover AI. Yeah. And and so you seem to be if I had to guess, you seem to be an anti-AI guy, but but I'm not I'm not sure that's true. Talk about your journey with AI, your perspectives on it.

SPEAKER_01:

I'd love to know your uh how you got there first. I'm gonna put you on the spot. How did you uh test that?

SPEAKER_02:

You you're very thoughtful, you're very analytical, and and uh the there's there's a part of you that strikes me as a bit old school. Yeah which which I respect and and and really admire. Um but what tell me about AI. What's what's Andrew Barton's take on it?

SPEAKER_01:

I uh what so when I first, you know, like maybe many of us, when I first started messing around with, I think it was mid-journey, maybe like two years ago or something. I just you can ask my wife, um, but uh like for three days I was just walking around in like a a fog, like it's over. It's all over. What am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_03:

The robots are taking our job.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's like this in three years, like this they're gonna be doing design, and I'm gonna, I guess I'm gonna I love making sourdough. I guess I'll open a bakery.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, I could see you with the bakery and a coffee.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't want to work that hard, you know, but maybe maybe I'll have to. I don't know. I love sourdough. Anyways, shout out to sourdough. Shout out to sourdough. Um so but I recovered from that and I so I'm I mean I I definitely feel like AI is gonna be changing and is changing my business. Um this has been a weird year for me, not not horrible, um, but not not like great. And I do think that's one part AI and one part economy, as best I can tell. Um, but I'm for the most part, I'm I'm pretty I don't I'm not about stealing stealing people's work, but I'm also not about fighting the tide. Yeah you can't fight the tide.

SPEAKER_03:

Roll with it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so what does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_01:

In my day-to-day.

SPEAKER_02:

In your workflow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean I've tried, I mean, I use Chat GDP, I use the I think it's better for writing and stuff and thinking and brainstorming here and there. So I definitely use that a good amount. I d I haven't really figured out how to work it into visual art very well, other than just like the the Photoshop the simple sort of fill in the background or remove this splotch or whatever. Sure. But uh I you know I've got a subscription to Mid Journey. I don't ever use it. I don't know that I really have a lot of respect for what they're doing over there, but it's it bl I mean it blows my mind, you know. I think that relationships are gonna be more important than ever. Yeah, you know? And you sort of I sort of have been been hearing whisper that branding's coming back, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's about time. I'd love to hear that. Yeah. Hopefully that's true. Yeah, absolutely. And uh I don't know. I mean maybe maybe it means that people are gonna want to hopefully really value things that are made by hand again, you know, fine art. Like I'm not gonna become a fine artist, I don't think. I mean, maybe I will. I don't know. Maybe I will. Yeah, maybe. But uh I'm not afraid of it. I'm not afraid of it.

SPEAKER_02:

Good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Good. I it's it's here to stay. So how do we work with it?

SPEAKER_03:

I think we should work with it, work smarter, sure. Not not take people's jobs away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I it's yeah, it's it's definitely kind of scary times in some ways, but I mean I really enjoyed using it to help me be a better coder, develop websites. Yeah, like that's really fun. Yeah. That's I mean it's it's great.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it for that. It sort of is a good augmenter, in my opinion. Yeah. Of like you've got some some basic skill here. How does that help you sort of hone that expertise and and and advance your productivity so a a generalist can be uh can have a higher degree of level up. Yeah, can level up.

SPEAKER_01:

You have to know what you don't know, yeah, because it's not gonna tell you what you don't know. Yeah. Um, so I think if you have yeah, if you got some expertise, you can you can really make it work for you. Yeah. So in the short run, optimistic. Good. In the long run, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. We'll see.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We're not there yet. We're not there yet.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, day by day. Any questions, Amanda?

SPEAKER_03:

I want to know more about um you didn't bring this up, about your uh photo booth days. Oh I didn't know that about you.

SPEAKER_01:

When I was yeah, so when I moved down here, I a buddy from high school worked for a photographer in uh Columbia, and he moved to Greenville, and he he's very hands-on and he was like, Hey, I think I think I can like put this photo booth together and we could take it to weddings and charge. Like this is before anybody's fun though. And I was like, I was like, Oh, that's cool. Well have fun. He's like, Well, I want you to help me, like, let's do it together. I was like, I don't I don't want to do that. So he dragged me, like eventually I did, he kind of just dragged me in and I was like, Okay, this is great. And uh so we've you know, just been to like dozens and dozens of weddings, setting up this booth, um uh you know, taking photos and just have helping people to have a great time. This is a great town for it.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's still going on? Yeah, still involved?

SPEAKER_01:

That that he did that for a while longer, but that that lasted maybe about five years or so.

SPEAKER_03:

So five years is still good, bro.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was it was great. That was uh it's different. It's different.

SPEAKER_02:

So we've talked about marketing, we've talked about design aesthetic, we've talked about AI. We haven't talked a lot about Charleston. Tell me about you know, in in your opinion, as as a human being, as as as Andrew Barton, the person, not not necessarily the brand. Yeah, right, not the brand. Not the brand. What are some of the hidden gems of Charleston that that our listeners outside of the city or maybe new to the city aren't aware of?

SPEAKER_01:

She's gonna give away. Should we tell them? First we told them all to come here, and then they did. Yeah. Um, well, so I have three kids and it's it's pretty much all hands on deck all the time. So I don't I'm not I'm not out and about like I used to.

SPEAKER_02:

You're not a big going out guy.

SPEAKER_01:

No. Um, but you know what? Sometimes I hear people talk about the best sandwiches, like chicken sandwiches in this town. And I feel like box carbetties doesn't usually come up. Have you been there? Oh, I love box carbetis, it's delicious.

SPEAKER_03:

I feel like it's a little bit of a little bit of good sandwiches, good salads, good fries. Everything is good. You're in West Ashley. And they have a couple of locations though. Do they? I think one in Somerville or Mount Pleasant.

SPEAKER_01:

I didn't know that, but um, I never hear anyone talking about this is this is a good sandwich, man.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And um I live over by Cafe Roca. Have you been there? They've got some really good sandwiches over there. Awesome. I'll have to check that out. Really good stuff. How much you guys got anything? Anything I need to know about?

SPEAKER_02:

I love shows at the poor house. I I've already mentioned that once, but uh yeah, Five Loaves Cafe in in Mount Pleasant. I was just there yesterday. That's one of my favorite locations. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They used to have a location downtown. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

I went to um Katsubo last night. Is that popular? I don't know if that's popular. I've never been there. Where is that? North it's in Park Circle. Oh it's like ramen. It's very good. Awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, good ramen spot. That's that's good to know. That was good. Yeah. That was good, yeah. Also, Park Circle Lola, which also has a Mount Pleasant location. Great New Orleans, Cajun food.

SPEAKER_03:

Basil.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Thai food. They're very good. They have a Mount Pleasant location.

SPEAKER_02:

Great. Any parting thoughts?

SPEAKER_01:

No, thank you for having me on here. What a pleasure. Um, I don't know. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, thank you for your past uh service to AMA as a president. And yeah, thank you. It was maybe maybe we'll get them roped back in somehow. Oh, I can only hope.

SPEAKER_02:

We need help on the design uh area. We've we've got great volunteers uh in that regard, but but plenty of good word to get out.

SPEAKER_01:

Um I've seen I mean I've seen a lot of momentum building recently, and uh it's been impressive and it's very noticeable from outside. So well done.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. Well come back into the fold. We'd love to have you. Thank you. I'll consider it. All right, signing off.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, thanks, guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Thanks till next time.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks, everybody. Bye now.

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Mike Compton

Co-host
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Stephanie Barrow

Co-host