For the past few months, I’ve been planning and plotting and getting myself excited about the prospect of another big trip. Those who know me are well aware of my fondness for travel, and I haven’t gone anywhere interesting (Ottawa doesn’t count) for some time. I had big plans (South America, Death Valley, Mexico) that […]
Stories
What’s on the outside counts, too!
Two years ago, I made an incredibly rash decision. I was standing in front of a row of boxes, a little worse for wear due to an excess of celebration the prior evening. A sick feeling settled over me, and I decided to run with the impulse. Two hours later, I was a blonde. (Actually, […]
A Policy of Truthiness
Things I’ve learned lately: apparently, the internet likes breasts. Who knew? When I posted my Getting Naked entry a few weeks ago, my website traffic spiked impressively. I’ll admit, I was a touch nervous about publicizing my extracurricular activities, for a second, for fear of negative backlash. North Americans in particular can be particularly prudish […]
Seven simple steps to better design, sans designer
Lately, I’ve found myself giving a substantial amount of design feedback to non-designers. While I always maintain that you ought to leave design to professionals, sometimes this just isn’t feasible for one reason or another. So, in the interests of public service (prettiness making the world a better place, and whatnot), I’d like to offer […]
A Vagabond with a laptop (and nice shoes)
Last summer, I ran away from home. 5 weeks, 7 countries, 6 currencies, 6 languages, 9 different beds, 4 planes, 7 buses, 9 trains, 5 ferries, 3 cars, and innumerable rides on the buses, trams, and metros of different cities later, I returned: blisters on my feet, forever altered. My business weathered the experiment better […]
Getting Naked
Before I decided to become a designer, I held a whole array of jobs over the years to make my rent. I wrote for an online magazine and acted as “webmaster” for a local IT company during high school. I was briefly a knife salesman, before I realized I can’t sell anything. I worked at […]
Making every hour count (or how to stop counting)
For a girl who never wears a watch and doesn’t care much for numbers, I’m obsessed with time. When you bill an hourly rate, of course, this is only to be expected—after all, the time = money equation becomes far more self-evident when you know exactly what an hour is worth. In theory, this focus […]
Learning from (loving your) mistakes
In the interest of continuing my forays into self-directed and hand-generated projects, I’ve been taking a screenprinting class at the fantastic Roberts Street Social Centre the past few weeks. It’s been fantastic, and I’m so glad I took a class instead of learning it myself—while I do love teaching myself new skills, the setup would […]
To Market, To Market: An Experiment in Failure
This year has marked my first venture into “selling stuff”, instead of just “selling myself”. It’s been a little hit-and-miss: my Valentines seemed popular (they were listed on Ooh! Shiny! and in the Etsy blog, and I’ve heard loads of positive feedback), which was immensely exciting, but they didn’t sell like mad. (They didn’t really […]
Chasing the elusive Sandman
The past month, I’ve slept an average of three hours a night, and have worked an average of 90 hours a week. My Valentine cards took more time to produce & prepare than I’d expected, although I’ve heard so much very encouraging feedback that’s it’s been quite delightful, especially as it’s my first-ever foray into […]