Mondays suck. Especially if you hate your job. But the day doesn’t have to be a total waste. You can now look forward to reading about ReadyMakers who have worked their way into f*&%ing awesome jobs—and maybe find a little inspiration to jumpstart your own career in the process—right here, every Monday.
Have you ever wondered how to start a letterpress print shop? Vivian Leung did it, launching her design/print business 9SpotMonk in an apartment in Hoboken. (That’s her above left, with sister and business partner Tiffany.) Eight years later, she attests that growing your own creative business is possible, if you’ve got a head for research—and a stomach for lots of hard work.
VITAL STATS
Occupation: Designer, Printer and Founder of 9SpotMonk Design
Location: Glen Rock, NJ
Age: Oi. 36.
First Job: First job was in college, worked at a small women owned children’s book store in the town where I lived. My commute was a block from my house. I recommended and sold books, wrapped gifts and vacuumed the floor at the end of the day. I only worked Saturdays. Mostly it was me and the owner and for the holidays, both owners were there. I had no idea about children’s books but I learned fast. Sales (still) was not my forte. Parents would want recommendations and then they’d say ‘no’ and pick out their own stuff. I ended up manning the register mostly and that meant wrapping a lot of gifts and making baskets for birthday kids. That I loved and eventually became the go-to person to create baskets and wrap stuff. I ended up doing their window displays long after I stopped working there. I think it’s also there that I picked up my obssession with children’s books. My kids have over 300 books and neither of them can read yet.
Best Job: The two I have now—running 9SpotMonk with my sister Tiffany and being a mother to two kids aged 5 and 3.
Greatest Professional Challenge: Knowing when to stop working. It’s terribly hard to separate my personal time and work time. After 5 years, I am still working on that.
Salary During 20s: Ranged from $7.00/hour at the bookshop and my last corporate job (acd at advertising agency) $115k.
1. Hi, Vivian Leung. How did you get that f*&%ing awesome job?
It was late 2001, and I had just come back from my honeymoon and my interactive department at the ad agency shut down due to the internet bust. Sat at home for about a week figuring out next steps and then registered my business name, 9SpotMonk Design, without knowing exactly what I was going to do. So for the next three years, 9SpotMonk was a design studio doing interactive and print design projects. Then I was asked to design a wedding invitation and I thought, “wouldn’t it be great if I could produce what I created as well?” So a month of research brought me to letterpress, which I’m a little embarrassed to say I had heard nothing about until that point. I needed machinery that I could have in our tiny Hoboken apartment. I drove up to Chicopee, Maschussetts with my grandmother (the only one who would hang with me on that Saturday) and brought back my first piece of letterpress history, a 6 by 10 Craftsman tabletop press. I got a couple of books in hand and taught myself how to use the press. It was an interesting time. I found out how awesome letterpress was and in a few months got another press, and then another. My husband, little 8 month old daughter and I moved out of Hoboken to the ‘burbs and then the big monsters came: two Heidelberg Windmills, two Vandercook SP-15’s and an electric cutter. And that’s how 9SpotMonk Letterpress started.
