6 new projects for 2010 that won’t make me any money

January marks the three-year-anniversary of the day I told my employer to “take this job and shove it” (in all ser­i­ous­ness, HB Stu­dios was a fant­astic place to work, but Office Space was what gave me my moment of epi­phany required to take the leap). Three years seems like forever ago, and I’ve learned so much since then, but it’s always good to look back and figure out what I could be doing better.

So, where my major issue has always been burnout (both of the cre­ative sort and the plain old good lord, am I ever exhausted! variety), I’m looking to add more work-play bal­ance to my life. Over the past year, I’ve become better at adding play to my life, and, just in the end of December, I found myself unex­pec­tedly doing things I’ve always meant to do while run­ning my busi­ness, but have somehow man­aged to evade quite con­sist­ently: eating and sleeping on a daily basis, working less than six­teen hours a day, and playing with cre­ative pro­jects that take me away from The Machine.

My poor kit­chen table. It is utterly COVERED in ink stains now.

What I’m excited about for the new year, not sur­pris­ingly, are also the things that I’m pas­sionate about in my life.

1. Ink! Loomis DeSerres had these lovely inks on sale when I was there in December, and I liked the first set I picked up so much that I went back for another. Pen and ink has always been one of my favourite mediums. I’ve been teaching myself cal­li­graphy, albeit in a rather loose and unstruc­tured manner, and hope­fully I’ll find a cre­ative applic­a­tion for it other than writing overly flour­ished notes to the postman. The Roberts Street Social Centre hosts screen­printing work­shops from time to time, and I’m crossing my fin­gers that the next one hap­pens soon. I’m hoping, too, that I’ll be able to buckle down this year and create the designs for my sar­donic Valentine’s cards in time to send them to all my friends (and pos­sibly also my nemeses).
2. Shoes!

   Clearly, my shoe col­lec­tion needs expansion.

   While I will be spending my Valentine’s com­posing snarky cards, my love affair with foot­wear just keeps get­ting hotter and hotter. I figure it’s about time I put it to cre­ative use. Hand-painting shoes sounds like fun—I have a test pair that’s just a half-size too small for me (with a heel that’s just a touch too short for my liking) and I’d like to see if I can make designs that will last. (As a bonus, if this works, I’ll have an excel­lent excuse to pur­chase more shoes!)

3. Books! I’ve been reading Indie Pub­lishing: How to design & pub­lish your own book, and it’s inspired me to make my own. (I have a number of topics in mind, but I’m leaning towards a purse-sized illus­trated shoe bible and a guide to fash­ion­able travel, along with some more per­sonal endeav­ours). When I was much younger, I used to make zines, and though I cringe to read them now, I loved the pro­cess of cre­ating some­thing entirely from scratch. I’ve been inter­ested in book design for some time now, but I’ve yet to land a book-design gig. I figure if I write my own, then I’ll have one to design.
4. Travel! In the last year, I’ve vis­ited six­teen dif­ferent for­eign cities in eight dif­ferent coun­tries, and my appetite for travel has only increased. One of the most delightful aspects of this job is that I’m able to do all this trav­eling, and I’ve had an oppor­tunity to meet all sorts of new people and exper­i­ence all kinds of amazing things—without depleting my bank account too severely. This year, I’d like to see more (I’m hoping for a Death Valley/San Felipe combo, a stint from London through to Morocco, and maybe an abridged tour of South America) while honing my travel-work methods.
5. Busi­ness! I like my work best when I’m doing pro­jects that excite me, so obvi­ously, I’ll be looking for more of these. I’m also looking to do fewer pro­jects at a time, so that pro­jects have a shorter turn­around time, which is gen­er­ally how I prefer to work anyway.

Got an exciting new pro­ject, tips on shoe-painting, or a book you need designed? You know I want to hear from you!

Tags: balance, books, business, design, handmade, life, style