Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Marchant.
Hi Joshua, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I got my start much later in life than most people do. When I was in high School at Alta in Sandy, Utah. I wanted to be a lawyer. I was dead set on it; I took mock law classes my senior year and even had an internship at Sandy City Hall. After I graduated, I enrolled in college classes at Salt Lake Community College. I was so eager to get started that I decided to enroll in a bunch of different pre-law classes. My dad saw this and convinced me to take only one law class, just to ensure I still liked the law. I thought that was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. But after some thought, I took his advice. I dropped all classes but one: a criminal justice class. After one week, I quickly realized just how much I hated that criminal justice class. It was nothing but reading laws; it was so boring. I dropped out after the first semester.
After realizing I no longer wanted to be a lawyer, I fell into a depression of sorts. I felt lost, for the first time in my life, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Up to that point, for as long as I could remember, whenever I was asked what I wanted to be in life, I always said lawyer. Now I’m 19 years old, and I don’t have the first clue as to what I want. I was so desperate that I even took 3 aptitude tests in the middle of the night, just to see what the internet thought I should do. The results from all 3 tests came back with the same answer: Acting or Stand up. I felt like I was falling behind all of my friends who were in college and succeeding in life. I decided, “Okay, acting it is.” So I joined an agency in downtown Salt Lake City. and enrolling in an acting class called the Professionals Actors Workshop, or PAW for short. I went once a week for 3 years. You would think I felt happy doing something with my life and for my future, but no, I was still just as depressed and unhappy. When I look back on that time, I believe the reason I never felt fulfilled was that a test told me to do acting; it wasn’t something I went looking for or wanted to do. At the time, I felt like I needed to have something already planned out for my future, and the fact that I didn’t meant I was falling behind or failing in life.
I believe high school doesn’t do a very good job preparing you for what comes after; they only prepare you for two possible outcomes: option 1, college, or option 2, getting a 9-to-5 job. You are expected to know at 18 what career you want for the rest of your life; that is the question, I believe, they fail to help you answer when options 1 & 2 are not what you want. It took me many years to figure out exactly what I wanted out of life, 10 years to be exact. They say if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. So at 28, I took a long look at my life so far. I had worked many jobs and was never truly happy with any of them. This probably explains why I was fired from every one of them—not because of my work ethic, but because of who and where I worked. I hated following other people’s rules; I wanted to make my own rules and live my life my way. Then it hit me: I wanted to start my own business. Unfortunately, that was a very basic answer to my problem. Start my own business—but what kind of business? It took me 10 years to figure out what I wanted to do for a career. How long would it take me to figure out what kind of business I wanted to start? The answer: 5 more years. LOL. From age 28 to 33, I repeatedly started and failed at building a successful business. Everything from a jewelry store to a marketing firm, to even a mobile app company. It wasn’t until I was building the first app that I found what I enjoyed working on. Graphic Design. I needed a background picture for my app, and since I didn’t have any money, I built what I needed using PowerPoint. I fell in love with building out logos and designs, using my imagination to bring my ideas from my head into reality. There is just no cooler feeling than taking an idea or a thought from your mind and making it real—creating what no one else has created before. I was hooked. Now I am 33, and I closed down yet another failed business to pursue a new kind of business. Only this time, it was something I really wanted to learn.
For the first time since starting down this business road, I was building toward something I wanted rather than something I never truly cared about. From age 33 to 35, I taught myself everything I know about graphic design. It was then that I found my true life’s calling—something I fell into by complete accident—I found my life’s work. I call this project Roscoe’s World. It has been almost 7 years since I taught myself how to design. I have learned how to design, animate, tell stories, build websites, film & edit, and yes, even some acting. I have written one, 280-page award-winning children’s book that follows a boy and his dog on an incredible historical journey around the world, an 80-page activity book, a 50-page coloring book, and over 500 different merchandise items on a website I built myself. I am even currently writing my 2nd book in the series of Roscoe’s World. It took me almost 20 years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I went through a lot of ups and downs during that time, and now I have everything I ever wanted for a career. I don’t regret waiting as long as I did to figure my life out. It was all of those combined experiences that brought me to the future I had always been looking for. Because of Roscoe’s World, I’m finally happy, and I wouldn’t trade those experiences that brought me to where I am today for the world.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, it has not been a smooth road; it’s still not a smooth road. I feel that nothing great has ever been accomplished following an easy road. If it were, then everyone would do it. Since figuring out exactly what I wanted to do after finding my purpose with Roscoe’s World, every step of the way has been nothing but a challenge for me. Most issues have been due to money, but besides financial concerns, there have been plenty of other challenges I’ve faced while chasing my dream.
These challenges range from design restrictions and finding the best marketing method to developing an idea that requires learning a new skill. I know now that all of these challenges have helped make me a stronger developer and creator, but I didn’t always feel that way. When I first started working on Roscoe’s World. I was so excited about the possibility that something I was doing was going to work out. This wasn’t due to overconfidence in my skills for building the project; I just couldn’t see how it wouldn’t work out—everyone loves a story about a dog. I finished my book, an activity book, a coloring book, and over 500 different products. What more do I need to make this work? Turns out, a lot more.
My products didn’t sell, and I couldn’t get a literary agent or a publisher to seriously consider my book. After all the failures, I started to look inward at myself as to why this project wasn’t working. I’ve talked about this in the past interviews, but because I am self-taught and never went to school for design or book writing, I always felt like a fraud at times. Due to this fact, I started to believe that I hadn’t written a great book or designed awesome merchandise, despite what I initially thought. I started to have real doubts about my ability to make this now passion project of mine work.
I decided I needed to find out, so I submitted my book for a contest. Hoping to win maybe 3rd or 2nd place, but it turns out I won first place—two, actually—and a 3rd place. One first-place award for Best Children’s Historical Fiction, First place for best website, and a third place for best Overall design. I couldn’t believe it. I was over the moon; finally, someone I didn’t know gave me honest feedback that I could trust. But with every triumph, there is another setback.
After winning my awards, I hoped something would come of it—maybe a publisher, an agent, or even some sales—but nothing happened. After figuring out that the issue was not my skills to produce great products or books. I became super focused on reaching success or the finish line. Each day that passed without reaching success only made me angrier and more bitter. It wasn’t until I was writing my answer for one of your interview questions that I realized that I had become too focused on getting to the finish line that I was forgetting about the journey to get there. My success is not measured by what I have at the end. The end is the end. The journey is what matters.
I may not be where I want to be with this project, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t found some success along the way. I have written two books, designed over 80 puzzles, created hundreds of designs, learned to build websites, and edit videos. I acquired many skills I didn’t know before working on this project, and I taught myself all of them. All of these are going to lead to something great, I know it will. The road is just longer than I was expecting, but now I have learnt to enjoy the ride, speed bumps and all.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a WORLD BUILDER bum bum ba… Just kidding. Actually, I created Roscoe’s World. It is a multifaceted intellectual property based on my dog Roscoe and me. I created a world designed to resemble one dog: my dog Roscoe. Along with the worldbuilding, I have crafted a 6-part story that follows our main characters, Josh and Roscoe, around the world as they work with alternate versions of my dog, Roscoe, who are famous people throughout history. Unfortunately, a couple of cats have also found this world. Chloe and Ziggy, these cats are on a mission to make this world a paradise of their own—a world without dogs. This main story is not just told through traditional books; it is told through many other formats, like activity books, coloring books, merchandise like clothes, bags, and games.
This epic story is more than just a simple story between a boy and his dog. Shh! I will let you in on a little secret. There is a hidden message I want to tell in this 6-volume story. This message (which is hidden from the reader until the very last book in the series) is about helping you come to accept the loss and grief felt after losing your beloved four-legged family members. As I said, Roscoe’s World is based on my real dog, Roscoe, who passed away a year before I even began to work on this project. Once I realized what I had and the story I wanted to tell, I didn’t want to tell a story that would be forgotten an hour after you read it. I want the story to mean something to you personally. That is why all the animals you see and don’t see will be based on real dogs and cats who were once alive but are no longer with us. Chloe was my niece’s cat, and Ziggy was my aunt’s cat. I want to add other people’s pets to the story. Roscoe’s World is not about Roscoe; it’s about everyone’s pets. It’s a chance for all of them to return in this incredible story and share their personalities with the reader.
By the time I finish telling this story, Roscoe’s World will be the biggest project ever created by a single person. Told through many different formats and styles. With each Volume of the story, there will be more outlets for the story to continue to be told. With each volume having more than the last. As you can see, this project is massive. With all the work that must be done, some might think it impossible to finish. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am extremely passionate about this project, and whether Roscoe’s World is successful or not (which it will be in time, I have no doubt), I will finish this story. I have learned many skills in my pursuit of building out this project, and I am sure I will learn many more before I am done.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Obviously, as a graphic designer and writer, the biggest shift will be AI, Artificial Intelligence. But my view on the subject of AI is not as negative as most other designers’ and creators’ opinions are. Now, before you jump down my throat and say, “Oh, you’re just saying that because you use it for Roscoe’s World.” Thankfully for me, I learned how to design 4 years before and write a book 2 years before AI was strong enough to be used in that way. I say thankfully because if I had known about AI back then, while trying to learn design and book writing, and given that I knew nothing about either subject, I believe I would have used AI if it had been available then.
I am so thankful that I took the time to learn the skills needed to produce the designs and books for Roscoe’s World. And even though my views on AI are mostly positive, I do still get very upset when my project is being accused of being done by AI. I did not spend the last 7 years of my life developing the skills needed for this project by working on it every single day, only for my work to be summed up by, “Oh, it’s AI”. It is very insulting.
Regardless, as I said, my views on AI are mostly positive. AI is a fantastic TOOL. That is all it is… a tool. Yes, this tool can absolutely be misused, but for that to happen at this current moment, it has to be instructed to do so by a human. Yes, you can write whole books and design pictures with AI. I don’t recommend it because at this time, you can always tell when something was done by AI. When it comes to writing, AI uses too many adjectives and verbs to describe something in a book. Like the lush, vibrant green grass was rising to the brightest blue sky. You can tell that it uses twice as many words to say the green grass is tall. I have seen books written solely by AI while being marketed by an author claiming they wrote it, and every time, you can tell. As far as designs go, yes, you can have AI design something for you, but it never comes out perfect, at least not at the moment. People have 6 fingers, or the writing font looks weird.
Now, do I believe AI can get to a point where you can’t tell? Sure, I can, but again, at the end of the day, a human has to program it to produce it. That is not AI’s fault; that is on the person misusing AI for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, if you use AI as a tool, it is truly fantastic. I use Gemini for all my internet searches, or if I have a question and I just want a straightforward answer; AI is perfect for that. If I am trying to flesh out an idea—for example, I came up with an original card game for Roscoe’s World. I used AI to brainstorm my ideas and to help figure out my game from start to finish. I did all the design work for over 108 cards, came up with the rules for the game, and used it to test it. Not a single design, rule, power card, or build of the game was done using AI, but did AI help me bring it to life? Absolutely. And I couldn’t be happier with the finished product; none of that could have been possible without AI’s help.
All the bad press AI is getting right now, just remember, they said the exact same thing about the internet when it first came out. Now you can’t do anything without the internet. It’s everywhere, and I hate to break it to you. AI will be everywhere, too, so you might as well get used to it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.roscoeworld.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sin_syndicate
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Roscoesworld
