Yes, of course. In fact I know some amazing designers that have a formal job as an excuse for getting fast and easy money, but they feel better working at home in their own projects, as a painter or a musician do, doing the kind of design they like to do, for their own use and enjoyment. I think it's normal. Then is when the company you work for has to show its ability to sell the product you made. In fact, you are the creative, and in theory you know what you're doing.
Clients usually have no understanding at all of what design is.
It's a question of how you sell your work to the commercials, and how these guys sell it to the client. Anyway, feedback, communication, is the answer. I've been always a technology fan. In fact I never thought I would work as a proffesional graphic designer. I studied telecommunication engineering, but in my free time I've been always doing design as a hobby, I made some work for local advertising agencies when living and studying in my city, Santander, until I got my first real job in one of the biggest spanish advertising agencies here in Madrid.