FIELD NOTES 001:

The mixtape-circuit aspirant who ran in the same lane as a handful of early-2000s regional DJs with actual credits to their name (real ones, not imagined) became one of the first clients to offer the designer something rarer than money: consistency. He had enough of a catalog to make the work feel legitimate and enough delusion to make it feel dangerous, and that combination kept the relationship going longer than it should have. When it ended, it ended the way those arrangements always end — not over a creative disagreement but over a payment one side decided was optional, dressed up as a principle. The designer left with a sharper understanding of scope, kill fees, and what it means when a client measures their own importance by how much they can withhold.