I live up on one of the many hills in Brighton. Most mornings, I take the dog round one of the parks near me. Sometimes just a short walk, sometimes the longer route if he's feeling particularly energetic (he rarely is).
After this I'll often go into the city centre to co-work or meet someone for lunch or coffee, or just as an excuse not to start work yet.
And most times I'll see someone I vaguely know. Not a close friend. Just… someone.
From a talk.
From a local designer Slack channel.
From a job that didn't go anywhere.
Sometimes they'll recognise me. Sometimes they'll recognise Rory. (Rory's my dog. He's the real networker. I just carry the poo bags.)
I'm not saying I'm part of any scene. I'm not even sure there is a coherent design scene in Brighton anymore. But I've lived here a while, and I've been to enough things, and I've said yes to enough random invites that now, if I go into town, I usually don't feel like a total stranger.
And honestly, that's quite nice.
When I first moved here, I didn't know anyone. But there was a lot going on; meetups every other week, talks in the back rooms of pubs, people up for a pint and a chat about work.
It felt easy (and necessary) to say yes. I probably over-indexed on it, if anything.
I said yes to everything for a while. And over time, just by showing up, I got to know people. And people got to know me. Not in any grand or important way, just enough that these days, if I nip into town, there's a good chance I'll see a familiar face or bump into someone I once worked with.
Brighton, if you remember, once had dreams of becoming Silicon Beach. There was a phase around the late 2000s where people genuinely thought we'd rival the Bay Area.
That didn't happen. And thank God.
What we've got instead is what we probably always had: independent studios squashed into converted Victorian terraces, freelancers balancing laptops on wonky café tables, people running entire businesses from spare rooms with dodgy heating and chairs that don't match.
Some of the best design I've ever seen has come out of the eclectic spaces in a building called New England House, this rambling old block full of studios where the lifts barely work and the radiators leak, but somehow incredible work gets made. It's closing down soon, which feels like the end of an era.
We talk a lot about scale as freelancers. Grow your audience, expand your network, be known all over the place. Build thousands of loose connections. And don't get me wrong, I love connecting with people beyond these borders, too. The internet promises you can build an audience anywhere, from anywhere.
But I'm not convinced those loose connections at scale are quite as powerful as we think.
Here's the thing: having 10,000 people follow you on Twitter (or X, if you must) doesn't mean you know 10,000 people. Having 5,000 LinkedIn connections doesn't mean you can call in 5,000 favours.
But the person you see every few weeks passing through the park? The freelancer you always end up chatting to at the same coffee shop?
That person might just change the course of your professional life.
I think we underestimate the quiet satisfaction of being known, just a little, in a place you care about. It's a slow burn, but it's satisfying to be somewhat recognisable in one small, quirky part of the country.
Not famous. Not important. Just… remembered. By someone.
The thing is, those stronger local connections have a way of surprising you. The freelancer you chat to at a Brighton coffee morning turns out to know someone in Tokyo who needs exactly what you do. The person whose dog gets on well with yours and mentions your name to someone in New York.
I've ended up with work all over the place because of people I've bumped into while out in Brighton who happened to be connected with someone a few time zones away.
When I go somewhere else, no one knows who I am. Which is fine too.
But then I come back. I pass someone I once worked with on something I barely remember. Rory gets a fuss from someone I definitely should remember but don't.
And I think... yeah.
This is scale enough.
