Posts Tagged ‘projects’

My job is not stress-free!

I am pretty much a con­stant bundle of stress. And while I realize your art­icle is more of an advertorial than any­thing, I still have to dis­agree. (more…)

I have a total love-hate rela­tion­ship with Valentine’s Day. (Yes, I know this comes a little late, but I’m about a week behind on everything else right now, so it seems somehow fit­ting.) Yes, it’s trite and silly and you should be nice to the people you love all year long, and not just when you’re oblig­ated to. Hon­estly though, I know I some­times need a little extra push. And the girly side of me is always dis­ap­pointed when I don’t get flowers (I’ve had a lengthy string of boy­friends who’ve com­mitted this sin, thinking that I’d dis­like being given them. Ser­i­ously, who dis­likes being given flowers?)

At any rate, every year, I have the best inten­tions to lov­ingly hand­craft gor­geous cards for everyone, and every year, I never get around to doing it. (I guess at least I have my tra­di­tions, even if they involve dis­ap­pointing myself!) This year her­alded a near-success, as I threw together a card at the elev­enth hour (lit­er­ally, it was eleven o’clock):

Aren’t I adorable?

It’s amazing how good it felt to spend just ten minutes drawing for fun again. Ten minutes! You’d think I could get into this habit, no?

On a side note, I’ve been insanely busy. Added two new pro­jects: a logo and a web­site.

It’s been offi­cially a year today. A year of no paycheques, no health bene­fits, no vaca­tion time. No nine a.m. starts, no staying indoors all day staring at a com­puter screen, no mon­strous amounts of unpaid over­time. (Okay, I lied, all of those things have happened, and worse.) I love that I can say that I’ve been run­ning my own busi­ness for a year and I’m still in love with it.

I’ve had the chance to work with a huge range of com­panies and people over the past year, pro­du­cing a range of dif­ferent pro­jects. I’ve done news­paper ads, illus­tra­tions, resumes, and a whole slew of web­sites, logos, busi­ness cards, and bro­chures. I’ve learned how to use Quick­books, I’ve stream­lined my pro­cesses, I’ve learned some AJAX tech­niques, I’ve rewritten my CMS code base, I’ve read about grids and typo­graphy and golden ratios. I’ve lost out on con­tracts, and I’ve taken on pro­jects that thrilled and chal­lenged me. I make an awful lot less money now than I used to, and I prob­ably work harder. But it’s just so much fun.

How­ever, my one-year-mark is a time for ser­ious con­sid­er­a­tion. What’s my goal here? Where am I going? How is my little busi­ness going to grow up? And, most import­antly, how can I keep doing what I love, stay sane, and make enough money to keep me in chocolate and red wine for the rest of my life?

I am coming to realize that:

1. Del­egate, del­egate, del­egate. I am a creature of many tal­ents, but I am not any of the fol­lowing: Salesman. Accountant. Pro­grammer. Mech­anic. Stop thinking you can do everything, and start spending more of your time doing what you are good at and do enjoy.
2. Nothing comes quickly. Pro­jects will take longer than you expected to reach com­ple­tion. A two-minute fix will turn into a two-hour ses­sion of slam­ming your head against the wall. Some­times you’ll put an inor­dinate amount of time into researching an estimate for a pro­ject you’re not awarded, only to be handed a bigger and better pro­ject a year down the line. A lot of what I do is investment.
3. It is great to be a work­aholic, but make sure you get at least three seconds of fresh air every day.
4. Stop taking things so per­son­ally. Not everyone can think you’re the next coming, and some days, you will just suck. This does not neces­sarily mean that you are a total failure in all areas of your life, and it is cer­tainly not cause for a mental breakdown.
5. Nancy Reagan was right, sort of. Some­times, you should “just say no”. As a small-business owner, it’s easy to fall into the trap of jumping at any­thing that dangles a cheque in front of you, but that’s not really why you’re in this busi­ness, anyway, and it’s cer­tainly not the most important factor to consider.

These are my mon­sters. I’m hoping that, by this time next year, I’ll have mas­sacred at least half of them.

I did the cra­ziest thing this Sec­ular Hol­iday Season: I took time off work. I drank brandy with my Granddad and went pretty-dress-shopping with my little sister. I adopted an almost-semi-regular sleeping pat­tern. I drove a snow­mobile for the first time ever. I went to mid­night mass, also for the first time ever. I curled up with good books (not for the first time ever). I even went a few con­sec­utive days without checking my email.

It was fantastic.

The week before Christmas, of course, was utterly insane. Ever since I was little, I used to spend the month of December staying up late, gluing and building and painting, frantic­ally trying to get everyone’s hand­made presents fin­ished on time. A few years ago, I stopped this entirely. One year, I did all of my Christmas shop­ping at the liquor store (various pretty bottles full of sauce for my alcy family) and gro­cery store (Hershey’s Kisses for everyone I love). It really did make things easier.

I’m not even entirely sure how it happened, but this year, that beau­tiful idea flew right out the window. I had a week, and a to-do list of other things on which I ought to have been focusing, but somehow I found myself up all night again, trying to teach myself to solder and etch glass and quill paper, all with varying degrees of suc­cess. I was stressed out to the nth degree, my hands were black and covered in cuts, I was rationing my sleep and avoiding my work—but I think that it was really good for me, too. It’s been too long since I sat down and did some­thing with my hands, and I forget how nice it is to get away from this screen.

And I think, in the end of it all, I made pretty neat stuff. I made orna­ments (rel­at­ively suc­cessful), and ginger­bread (suc­cessful in terms of my baking ability, which is nil), and mono­grammed glasses. I spent hours making a styl­ized por­trait of my little-sister/best-friend (which I’ll be sure to post once I’ve fin­ished the final details, so maybe by NEXT Christmas). But by far, the most ambi­tious endeavour was a set of throwing stars for my boyfriend.

The target wasn’t hard:

Although I should have put cork on the top layer, and painted that. It’s com­posed primarily of banker’s box lids stuffed with copies of this awful free barhopper’s magazine that I stole from around town, and it’s going to fall apart pretty quickly.

The throwing stars them­selves were a little hit-and-miss. Only one is actu­ally soldered together, and it took three nights of sanding, sol­dering, and cursing to get that right—and as you can see, it still came out angled wrongly and tar­nished and covered in bits of extra solder. The rest are held together with various dif­ferent glues, elec­trical tape, and wires, and though they don’t look as stun­ningly beau­tiful as I’d been hoping for, they’re all razor-sharp and they stick into things you throw them at.

I’m back into the to-do listing and manic, sleep­less nights, but I still feel refreshed, and as though I’m attacking things with new vigour. Over half of my to-do list con­tains unbil­lable tasks, and I keep get­ting ideas for new pro­jects and pro­cesses. Maybe it’s just because the snow is melting out­side and birds are singing, but I feel like my burnout might be rekindling.

Happy New Gregorian Cal­endar everyone!

P.S. Hey, look! It’s a crazy Art Deco logo!

For someone who spends such an extensive amount of her day online, I ignored the “Social Net­working Revolu­tion” for a sur­pris­ingly long time, mostly for the same reasons that I never owned a television—I tend to be a little wary of things that suck up time without cre­ating any­thing tangible.

Oh, and I’m not par­tic­u­larly social as it is. And net­working? I’m starting to think I’m bio­lo­gic­ally incap­able of doing it.

But hey, I own a tele­vi­sion now. I’m no less pro­ductive (prob­ably because it’s off almost all the time) than I was before. So the social net­working thing? I could bite the bullet.

I’ve been making use of both Face­book and LinkedIn for a while now. I recently broke down and got on MySpace, which gives me head­aches to look at, but lets me keep a list of bands I should check out on hand. I’ve been starting to take a look at Facebook’s developer tools—I’m inter­ested in the pro­spect of being able to integ­rate the sites I build with such a widely-used site. And, as I was doing it, I came across Face­book Pages, a new fea­ture that allows you to list your busi­ness. Neat!

In short: Trig­gers & Sparks is now on Facebook.

As everyone who knows me is aware, I am a com­plete feed­back junky. I’m hoping that this will give me a venue to present some works-in-progress and get some other opinions…sort of like a focus group for designs, which is some­thing I could really use.

Inter­ested? Well, of course you are! Feel free to become a “fan” (the ego­ma­niac in me likes that term) and shower me with thoughts, ideas, and opin­ions. Harsh cri­ti­cism always welcomed—I like the idea of making design a more inter­active sport. Get involved here!

Oh, and if you’re more inter­ested in com­pleted pro­jects, I’ve added another logo redesign to my portfolio.

So here’s the thing. I realize in advance that I’m going to come off as a crazy cat lady here. I’ll admit I’ve always been a little nervous about the crazy-cat-lady thing. People tell me that three cats is enough to make you a CCL, and given my pen­chant for losing my beloved famil­iars, I’ve always man­aged to stay far away from that line.

Of course, I forgot to spay my kitten, and she hit puberty one day when I wasn’t home. Sud­denly she was weighing about ninety pounds and her belly was the size of a foot­ball. Bob Barker would have my head.

So Kal­liope is a young, unwed mother. She gave birth to three kit­tens on September 28^th. She was con­sid­erate enough to choose my bed as her birthing room, so I came home to find three tiny closed-eyed little rodenty creatures in a pile on my duvet, a bloody mess on my pillow, and a still­born under my sheet. I did a lot of laundry.

I’ve always been infatu­ated with cre­ation. Given the option, I’d almost always rather create than con­sume, which is why I tend to grav­itate towards writing, drawing, painting, Lego sets, etc. Watching another life be cre­ated, though? That puts everything else to shame. I sup­pose this is the sort of thing people usu­ally realize when they have chil­dren, but, well, I’m too much of a child myself to ever go that route.

While I’ve been feeling unpro­ductive because most of my pro­jects are stalled in some mid­phase, or they’re behind-the-scenes sorts of pieces that I can’t really add to my port­folio, Kallie’s been raising three beau­tiful, healthy, and only mar­gin­ally psychotic tiger-striped felines.

And I’m trying hard not to get attached, but I’ve watched them quad­ruple in size. I was there when their eyes started to open, I knew them when their ears were closed flat, and I taught them to eat solid food. Two weeks ago, they all had earned names.

This is Coper­nicus at about three weeks old:

Sabine, today, posing with her favourite plaything (after her Mum’s tail):

And Mat­ilda boning up on her typography:

More crazy-cat-lady photos can be found on my flickr page, if you’re really so inclined.

Oh, and in actual news, I’ve added two new pro­jects—digitaledge.ca and a logo for Com­fort & Joy (web­site in pro­duc­tion!). But, really, neither of those attack my shoes when I walk into the room, so they really just seem less thrilling, somehow.

Everything seems to be in a bit of a lull. I have so many pro­jects that are almost fin­ished, but need that last little bit of con­tent or that last cycle of feed­back. I’m told that this is normal for the design industry in the sum­mer­time. Regard­less, it makes me feel as though I’m not being pro­ductive, even though that isn’t the case in the least. In fact, I seem to be get­ting a lot of my long-term to-do-items crossed off my list, which is a fant­astic feeling!

Well, I’ve been talking about it forever, and, finally, it’s official—resumes are on sale! Get all the details here.

I’m doing a whole host of revi­sions to my custom client admin panel code­base, so anyone get­ting one of those with their new web­site in the upcoming months will be seeing a more eleg­antly designed and more user-friendly inter­face there. While I’m in there, I’ll also be over­hauling the code base so that it’s cleaner and sta­bler, meaning better, stronger, faster web­sites for everyone!

Oh, and there is one new pro­ject I can show for the time being: another news­paper ad for the post office space. Coming up soon: an explan­a­tion for why I’ve been stealing stickers off all the apples in the gro­cery store, and all sorts more.

I think I’m finally starting to see how everything bal­ances out. I spent a ridicu­lous amount of effort get­ting everything ready for my launch party, and ended up acci­dent­ally locking myself out of my studio at 7am in the pouring rain. I had one nasty cold, but everyone who came to the launch (and there weren’t many, given that I’m a moron and set it in the middle of a long weekend) came in the door with a bottle of wine and I ended my night happy, blissful, and with a studio that actu­ally looks like a studio now, and is full of colour and art and all those other things I like so much. On the other hand, the internet’s out, so I can’t seem to actu­ally make use of it.

This morning I took my beloved Etta (my Civic) in for her MVI and was told she’s no good any­more, and it’s time to buy a new car. But this after­noon? I offi­cially got my LGDC, which means I am now a pro­fes­sional portfolio-reviewed member of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. Time for another party!

And in other news, I think I am becoming a better designer. Lots and lots of pro­jects are in the making, and I can’t wait to show them off.

It’s only the most pop­ular ques­tion asked by anyone who knows me over the past few months. And it’s always hard to answer—my stock response is “It’s too soon to tell”. And it really is, but I’m def­in­itely keeping busy, and new pro­jects keep coming through the door. Every now and again I sit back for a moment and think how lucky I am to be 23 years old and sup­porting myself doing what I love, being my own boss, keeping my own hours, and set­ting my own rules. I never thought this would be what I wanted to do, but I’m utterly thrilled that I get to do it. (more…)

So con­trary to what the local paper reported, I am not, in actu­ality, a firm made up of three people, one of whom is named “Dinah LeChaton”. Dinah has actu­ally been missing since November, and Marigold returned to Ottawa, where she may con­tinue doing some client rela­tions work. I decided it was high time to bring on new staff. So I picked up Kal­liope, an eager new talent whose skills include get­ting her­self tangled in plastic bags, finding a lap to curl up on even when said lap is covered in laptop, and elim­in­ating the evil mon­sters who live under­neath bedsheets.

I am, nat­ur­ally, enam­oured. (more…)

So busi­ness is good, I think. It’s still too early to tell, and there’s so much going on that I’m trying to stay on top of. Quick­books, in par­tic­ular, is eating up my time like some sort of mon­ster. I used to think I liked num­bers, but I think it’s time we broke up.

Lots of new work in the pipeline, along with some old pro­jects that are being wrapped up. I fin­ished a logo and web­site for the Nova Scotia Lib­eral Party Lead­er­ship (rather a mouthful) and am main­taining it as the cam­paign pro­gresses. A few new things should be crop­ping up soon, but I’m going to set pre­ced­ence by staying quiet about them until they’re finished.

Going from a part-time to a full-time busi­ness is as much of a chal­lenge as I expected, but I’m get­ting lots of sup­port from people, and I’m learning as I go. And being able to work at 4am, and take a noon­time nap? Yeah, it’s nice.

I’ve been working on this redesign for a long time. It’s actu­ally been redesigned three times, and of course it isn’t 100% ready to launch, but I’m quite sure it never will be, and it was about time I updated my stag­nating website.

Lots of stuff is new. Everything’s been restruc­tured and rebuilt using Ruby on Rails. There’s a resources sec­tion that’s pretty wiki-like up. There are RSS feeds of the news and the pro­jects. There’s more con­tent every­where. And reason why I’ve been so quiet the last little while?

• folkharbour.com
• bluenosedining.com
• nsyl.ca
• the BusStop
• Inside-Out Cleaning Services
• the Switch
• Traveller’s Joy
• Ninja Monkey Knits
• News­paper Ad

…plus a ton­sil­lec­tomy, and com­puter woes like you wouldn’t believe, and learning a new pro­gram­ming language.

Say hello to Marigold, who’ll be working with me from now on. Marigold will be taking over some pro­ject man­age­ment duties so that I can become more of a hermit.

Say goodbye to Dinah, who dis­ap­peared in November and prob­ably isn’t coming back.

New pro­jects are in the pipeline, and I have offi­cially quit my job in order to go freel­ance full-time. Need some work done? Now’s a great time to ask, while I’m still a little para­noid about that whole not-getting-a-paycheque thing.

I’m excited. Everything is new and I am learning things at such an expo­nen­tial rate. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.