Weekly Recap - New Baby Shower designs in the shop

Howdy and Happy Friday! Just a quick check in to recap what I've been working on this week. I'm busy wrapping up some outstanding freelance projects in the hopes I can take it easy the last week before baby girl's due date. In addition to a Golf Tournament signage package, I wrapped up this logo: 

This logo is for an apartment complex in Tampa, FL. I love the beachy elegant feel and hopefully can get my hands on some collateral for this property soon. I am also working on the invitation design for the American Cancer Society - Salt Lake City's annual gala. I shared the event logo on my Instagram here. Since we have a handful of elements to incorporate in to the invitation, I suggested a pocket folder. This blue number from CardsandPockets.com should do the trick. Crossing my fingers and toes I can get the team to splurge on a custom wax seal as the envelope closure. I mean, how gorgeous are these stamps??

The last image is from WaxSeals.com's instagram page. You have to go check it out, just a gorgeous feed full of fun wedding and stationary ideas. In addition to my freelance projects I am SO excited to launch a ton of new products in my Etsy Shop. For now, here is a sneak peek of the items to come:

Also new to the shop are some additional Baby Shower designs. I've been selling a ton of these A Baby is Brewing koozies lately, so I thought I should add a few more baby themed designs to my arsenal. Have a great weekend!

Gift for a Princeton Grad - custom stationary

As the busy month of May wraps up, I can't help but think of all the high school and college graduates who will be walking the stage in the next few days. I can remember my High School graduation like it was yesterday. Out of nearly 600 students, I was one of 2 kids going to Texas Tech University. It was a bit intimidating but I just had a feeling Lubbock was the right place for me and I'm so glad I listened to my gut. Flash forward 5 years later (yes, 5! I took a victory lap when I changed my major, sorry Dad.) My college graduation was a bit of a blur, I was so over school at that point and was ready to start a career and get my own pad in the big city of Dallas! 

When a very stylish Dallas Interior Designer asked me to design a custom stationary suite for her client, I thought it would be such a fun project! The client's daughter would be graduating from Princeton University and she wanted to set her up with notecards and a custom Tiger pattern to be used as an envelope liner. Since the client already had an eye for pattern and texture, we settled on a henna inspired tribal tiger. After a long day of drawing tigers, I put together this plan for the client. 

The client asked for a long rectangle notecard featuring the Tiger pattern and a small pattern design as an accent. One fun request was a custom paperweight using the Tiger pattern. I ordered the paper weight from this adorable Etsy Shop, When It Rains Paper.  The process was so easy, I'm considering getting my own Rook Design paperweight made! Here is another look at the finished paper weight. 

We used a soft cotton feel cardstock for the actual notecards. It has such a great finish that feels luxurious but still allows for even pen flow while writing a sweet note. The client seemed really happy with the final outcome, such a great custom gift for a new graduate! 

My journey to full time freelance design and 5 tips to get there!

In June it will be 3 years that I have been freelance designing full time. It is both humbling and exhausting. I thought I should take a minute to walk you through how I got to this Etsy selling/corporate clienting space I find myself in. 

During my BFA in Design Communications, our professors stressed getting a job at an agency or boutique design firm. They won awards, wore flip flops and drank beer at the office... every college kid's dream. But those jobs are extremely hard to find, pay even less and designing pizza coupons for a well known brand isn't always glamorous. So when I landed my first job out of college, which was a small start up selling NFL merchandise, I was grateful to be working. I pretended like I didn't mind pulling hours in a sweaty warehouse, or shooting product photography in a closet. After a year of that I applied for my first corporate marketing in-house design job and loved it. We worked with internal clients to drive traffic to our sites and produced collateral for the field. It was 8 to 5 and I was pretty good at it.

After 3 years I got a bit restless and decided to pursue a life goal of getting a Masters degree. Education is just very important to me and I get a lot of personal satisfaction from having those extra letters after my name. Luckily.... I was smart enough to listen to my father's advice and get a Master's in FREAKING LONDON ENGLAND!

It was an incredible year. Living in central London was such a blessing, my coursework basically required that I go to new gallery openings and every major museum in London. My ocular glands wanted to explode. Throughout the year I found myself contemplating a career change to museum curating or exhibit design. But my heart still hung on graphic design, and when I returned to the US, I landed corporate job #2.

I spent the next 3 years working for a big Dallas hospital on the internal brand team. It really reigned me in, in terms of sticking to a brand and finding new ways to use the same elements. After a few years there, my previous boss recruited me to come work for her at well known .com with a traveling gnome. I was enticed by the brand and a promotion and well... that whole drinking beer at my desk and wearing flip flops thing. 

By now I had gotten married and my husband and I wanted to explore life outside of Texas. He accepted a job transfer to Denver. I had started my Etsy shop with a koozie design for my best friend's bachelorette. Orders started rolling in slowly at first, and then rapidly as customers would reach out with ideas or phrases they wanted me to design. 

Once we moved to Denver I landed a great in-house corporate marketing Design job (go figure). But it really gave me the mental headspace to expand my shop and beef up my own brand. I think that was a crucial part of my freelance journey. Tip #1 Not jumping from my day job too soon. I wanted to make sure there was a viable business that would replace (and eventually triple) my day job salary. We also made the decision that I would keep working 70 hour weeks (40 at the day job and 30 nights and weekends on Etsy) until our student loans were paid off. #adultingsohard. It seemed like I would never be able to quit my job with roughly $90K in loans between the two of us. But we buckled down, shared a car, lived in a cheap rental and paid those suckers off. Tip # 2: Being financially stable and having that burden off my back made jumping to full time free lance even easier. When you aren't encumbered by debt, you can make risky moves!

Which leads me to Tip #3, establishing clients before you make the move. This may seem counter-intuitive, how can you build a client base while working a full time job? Well, you have to hustle and grind. Volunteer to re-do your Uncle's landscaping website. Remember that friend who brews beer, design his label. Not only will these side projects get you in the groove of talking clients through their needs, it will help build your portfolio and side-hustle muscles! I started volunteering for the American Cancer Society and its been some of the most rewarding design work I've done in my career. And it just landed me another ACS office's work, this time for cash money!

So here it is June 2014 and I'm ready to go full time freelance. I had to work out my brand, build a website, establish an invoicing system, get an LLC, aka get my Ducks in a Row. Tip #4. I wish I had been more thorough about this step before full time launching on my own. I was basically putting out one fire after another when suddenly quarterly tax payments were due (hire an accountant) or a new client would ask for a formal proposal (research contracts) or even worse, when my designs were being highjacked on Etsy (hire a lawyer). 

Lastly, Tip #5. Farming it out.

And this tip is definitely something I am still working on: Farm Out What You don't know. Or even better, what you don't enjoy. Running your own business means you are now CEO, CFO, CMO and all the other C-suite functions. There is a reason each one of those roles gets paid big bucks. Its a lot of work. For me, social media has always been a struggle. So I'm giving myself 6 months to get in the groove of posting, and if it still feels like a chore, well someone is getting a check to do it then. I've started talking to photographers to do a new product photo shoot to take my brand to the next level. I don't own a nice camera and there is a plethora of talent in the Denver area to cross that item off my to-do list. I plan to enhance my website in the next few months, and since I don't code, I'm hiring a former co-worker to help out. Again, crossing it off my own damn list! 

So to sum up... here are my 5 tips to breaking out on your own:
1. Don't quit your day job [just yet].
2. Be financially sound. [Even if that means you have to wait another 6 months to 2 years!]
3. Establish some clients. [side hustle]
4. Get your ducks in a row. [Hire an accountant, start a SEP retirement fund, etc]
5. Farm out what you don't know. [pay the experts, its a business expense and tax deductible]

Holler with any questions, or leave a comment below!

New Year, new designs!

Hi there! It has been several months since I have posted on this here blog. But I have a good reason, we are now homeowners! 

This beauty was built in 1903, and is what they call a traditional Denver Square. It has plenty of charm and exposed brick in my basement studio. What more could a designer ask for? Oh yea, a Trader Joes around the corner. Not too shabby.

I plan to post more pics as we get decorations and some life in to the place. Stay tuned! Otherwise I had a busy 2014. Quite a few of my business goals were accomplished:

1.  Printed New Business Cards on juicy letterpress stock!
2. Participating in my first bridal show with the lovely ladies of A and Be Bridal here in Denver. See photos from the event here!
3. Added more items to the Etsy Shop, including new address stamps and invitations. 
4. Hired a wonderful photographer to shoot some images of recent invitations. Here is a sneak peek:

Overall 2014 was a great year, both professionally and personally. I hope to work with even more brides on their custom wedding invitations. Contact me today if you are interested in any of the designs you see here, or would like to get started on your own custom wedding invite. Here's to 2015 and big things to come!