Where thought, creativity and passion converge
Sundays are definitely for adventures. We returned to this quaint and appealing little shop about 25min west of Edmonton – Spruce Park Ranch Country Store. My wife and I discovered it about a month ago and returned today with my mom to show her. So many ideas for home decorations mixed with some local canned goods and a little café. If you’ve never been I highly recommend the short drive to check it out.
Good morning!
That is to say at least that its morning when I wrote this. The swiftness and convenience at which technology (smartphones, apps), moves is amazing. To be able to sit on my front porch and write a short post to all of you from my iPhone, while sharing the little things like reading, journaling, enjoying a good coffee and soaking in the beautiful morning, well it’s fantastic!
As I sit, soaking in a bit of sun and caffeine, having already sent out a client’s proof this morning, I can now take this little bit of “me” time to refresh and renew the soul. It really is the little things in life that can bring much joy.
Just a quick post from the porch, until next time,
Tim
The last week has been a touch-and-go battle with my website. A disfunctioning update wreaked havoc in the machinations of my site that shut it down for a couple of days. Darn those plugins… on the upside it turned out to be a great thing, it forced me to end the love/hate relationship that I had with my site’s former design. I had been meaning to get to it more than once and allowed myself to be sidetracked for other projects and so it stayed, as it was, until it finally broke. Lesson learned, “don’t leave until tomorrow things that can be done today.” It’s still a work in progress, pieces still to add and streamline, but so far it’s a well functioning, clean form. I hope you like it.
Years ago when I was making my first attempt at freelancing, I was approached by a gentleman claiming he had an incredible opportunity for me to get on board with a “revolutionary” product that was completely unique and would sell like hotcakes. And it was invented by his son
Client: It’s a plastic fish with a tape measure coming out of its mouth.
Me: Right…
Client: But the tape measure isn’t accurate.
Me: Okay…
Client: So fishermen can make their catch bigger!
Me: ….
Client: Yeah, I’m in talks with several Fortune 500 CEOs. They want it on their shelves badly. What I need from you is a design packaging.
Me: I can do that. Here are my rates.
Client: Rates? You won’t do it for exposure? I’ll tell all these high-powered businesses that you designed the packaging, then they’ll come knocking down your door to hire you!
Me: ….
Client: Okay, how about this. I pay you, and I`ll still talk you up to all these people. But then you`ll give me a percent of all the money you make from designing packages because all your business will be from my contacts.
Me: I think we`re done here.
It`s been a while. I haven`t seen his “revolutionary” product anywhere.
Hello!
Wow! It’s been a long time. I haven’t posted here since October 2016, where does life get away from us?
I post on a more regular basis through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter so you can follow those links through this site. I do need to work on posting from here more often. That being said, life has been busy, not just in the world of Freelance and 9 to 5-ing but also in my personal life. I have 3 large projects each year at this time for 3 different towns but should have them all wrapped up in a couple of weeks. I have also been continuing on with reworking my self-published children’s books, so keep your eyes peeled for those as well (not really soon, but soon).
Motivation and perseverance are the words and goals for 2017.
Stay tuned!
Tim
A hearty hello to you all.
It seems my habit of trying to do at least a weekly blog post has not developed into a “habit” yet. My last post having been made back in May, is a good indicator of that I must say. I really need to get better at this. It isn’t that I have a lot to say, more that it would be a “creative journal” of sorts, showcasing things I’ve been working on or wanting to work on.
Over the summer I had a few jobs come up here and there, just small ones, but they were fun to work on. I have two rather large jobs coming up in a couple of months that will keep me quite busy for a few weeks. In the meantime I’m still working full-time as a Prepress Supervisor and enjoying my time at the company I work for.
Well, that’s it for now, as always you can contact me anytime and follow me on my social media pages.
Until next time, see you in the funny papers…
Tim
It has been such a shocking few days so far watching the news coming out of Fort Mac(Alberta). I am very thankful that my brother and his family made it safe to our home in Edmonton. My heart goes out to each and every citizen of that fine town. It is a tragedy of tragedies to be sure and has not ended yet. It will not be days, but rather weeks, I think, before anyone will be able to return. Thank you to all who are fighting so hard and diligently against natures worst. Thank you to everyone who has and is reaching out to those who may have lost everything. May the unity that Albertans/Canadians are showing at this time continue and show the world what we are made of.
One of the definitive boons of being a Graphic Designer is the opportunity to work outside of your current job, if you have one. Freelancing allows, at times, an alternate means of creative freedom, the chance to grow your talents and abilities while being able to control the projects you work on. It is a beneficial release that not all designers are able to take advantage of depending on their contracts.
I have had the opportunity the last couple of years to work on a number of different freelance projects that have helped me as a creator and a manager of my own personal studio. The hardest part that I have found is actually finding and landing the jobs. I don’t know if others in my field have an easier time of it or perhaps I just don’t look hard enough, or in the right places for them. I am hoping to increase my productivity this year and next, with an end-goal of becoming full-time independent in the next couple of years. Building a clientele list must be the hardest part of this field.
Tim
Hello again! Welcome back! If you didn’t notice I was gone, then you need to stop by more often. Here’s the skinny on what I’ve been up to.
The past month found me in search of a new web host as my previous host has moved out of the business of hosting. I was referred to another provider but they ended up being a little pricey for what my current site needs and so the research began. I finally settled on a host here in Edmonton and found the price and process relatively painless… well sort of. Buying the webspace from the host was easy enough and they provided me with my login information quite quickly. I wasn’t as informed as I thought I had been though and shortly found out that I would have to do all the transferring from old host to new host on my own. This is not something I’ve had a lot of experience doing. I started the process trying to use their system (which wasn’t CPanel that I was used to), to try and upload my files but it refused to pull folders as well as files,which left a great deal of my website still residing on my hard drive where I had backed it up to. This brought me to the idea of using an FTP program which I should have started with as this is the most effective means to upload to a website. By this time you would think I’m ready to go right? Wrong. The next thing I learned was that but switching providers you don’t automatically move, or have to move, your domain name, this is optional. Once everything was transferred and registered I was still having problems getting my page to load. This new problem ended up being a reloading error that caused browsers to point back and forth between URL’s and basically loc
king it up. I found a fix online and edited my wp-config file to correct the error, and voila my site is up again.
All of this is to say that it has been a good experience for me because with every problem I encountered I had to research and find a solution which then adds to my knowledge base. Hopefully I don’t have to do it again for awhile…
Thanks for reading!
Saturday! I absolutely love Saturday mornings. Sitting at my desk in my living room, in front of our bay windows while working on Freelance projects, to me, is fantastic! This morning I’m continuing on a 40 page Hockey Tournament Guide. First time I’ve done one of these but I’m quite satisfied with my results so far (cover image above). I hope your day is as fun as mine.
Tim