On the death of Squirrel and the Embracing of Freelance

2025-03-27

Some of you are aware that for approximately 9 weeks I was attempting to work under the name Squirrel Animation Co. Not many of you are aware of how much emotional and mental pain it was giving me.

It was restricting. It felt too vague and too specific all at the same time. I continuously had to answer the question, "Why Squirrel?" and for the life of me, I never came up with a quick answer that fit. The word "animation" was a problem too. I do so much more than simply animate and many of the clients I'd like to pursue have little need for animation itself. Many want design work or video editing or FX or compositing work. Animation is just one skill among many that I possess.

And then a very smart friend asked me a question to which I did not have good answer. “Why are you building a new brand when you already have one?”

Oof. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. Squirrel was nothing. Squirrel didn’t have 15 years of experience in television. Squirrel didn’t lead teams to awards. Will Postma did that. Squirrel didn’t have past team members and colleagues remembering fondly the time they spent on a project together.

So why the company? Why the name? It has a lot to do with my perception of freelance work. Call me ignorant, but that world seemed like such a race to the bottom to me. Perhaps my view was tainted by toxic platforms like fiverr and its ilk where people on the other side of the world are forced to crank out as many low quality products as they can just to scrape by.

The bigger reason is that I likely just didn’t know the value of my name. Truly, life had taught me to be bashful about my accomplishments. You’re not supposed to go around tooting your own horn unless you preface it with “Pardon me while I toot my own horn.” Aside from that, I’d also have this constant nagging fear that if I were to share an accomplishment, some former teammate would jump out of the bushes and yell “FRAUD!”

Can I get an amen from all the artists with imposter syndrome?

If you think that’s nuts, I want to know what that feels like. If you think that’s painfully relatable, you’re my people. Goodness, please don’t dim your light and I’ll try to stop dimming mine.

So here we are. I’m Will again. Emmy winning, multi-hyphenate digital artist, mad genius for hire. I’m scared to death and we’re all just going to have to be ok with it.