If you’ve been a regular reader of Another Passion, you may wonder what happened to the site. We went from publishing on a fairly regular basis to nothing new coming out at all. Those who follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook will know that I’ve been looking for work elsewhere. So, does that mean Another Passion is dead?

Another Passion started as a side project and grew into a blog with staff writers, syndication, deadlines and a hope of growing even bigger. I wanted this site to be one of the best sources of inspiration for creative professionals and artists.

I wanted to reach a stage where we would be publishing new material daily, while also offering things like classes and workshops. I wanted to build a community around the site and host events. I wanted to do a weekly video podcast. I wanted too many things, more than one person could handle, and before those goals could be reached, I ran out of cash.

The big problem was that there never was a business plan, and so running it was more or less an out of pocket expense. I had a few thousand dollars tucked away, but when that ran out, I eventually had to let the writers go and focus my attention on paying the bills. That’s when Another Passion fell silent.

I get all warm and fuzzy inside, when I think of all the positive feedback I’ve gotten through the 3 years I ran Another Passion. Several people have sent me encouraging messages, signed up as a member, or even offered suggestions on how to revive it. And I would love to do just that. But a relaunch of the site would require some changes.

First of all, it can never again be a one man show. It just doesn’t work. My strength is content, not biz dev, sales or community management. I’d want a partner or two, whose strengths balance out my own shortcomings in those departments. And there would need to be a budget of some sort. One option, which several have suggested, is to go the crowdfunding route. I’m definitely open to that, but I believe that to run a successful crowdfunding campaign, there first needs to be a team and a plan to show potential backers that it’s not just a blogger asking for money. Currently, there is no such plan and no such team.

I had a ton of fun producing Another Passion, and I think it became a great collection of inspiring interviews and editorials. I’m proud of it for sure, and thankful for all those who contributed, whether it was with content, membership, ads or just advice. I met a ton of amazingly talented people, had more fun than I’ve had in any job I’ve ever held, and have absolutely no regrets.

The content that is already here will stay up for the time being. There is still a lot of wisdom and encouragement to be found here, and I’m hoping more artists and creatives will benefit from it for a while to come. But for now, so long, and thanks for all the fish.

Are you hungry for more in life? Do you thirst for new knowledge and inspiration? If you in all honesty can say yes to both of those, great! Or would you say you’re content with your life? Because that is a dangerous place to be.

Until recently, I had a steady paying gig. The client and I worked together for years, and I wasn’t mentally prepared when the gig ended. My mistake. What I took away from this experience can be boiled down to: savings are good, complacency is bad.

Financially, though it was a relatively small contribution, the fact that it was regular made it the very foundation of my personal income – the one constant in what can seem like a mess of variables. With that gone, not only did I lose some income, I also felt adrift and exhausted.

The importance of preparing for your steady gig to end (whatever it may be) was immediately obvious, but I was surprised by the creative fatigue that followed.

I suspect that any venture in which you become vested, will take a toll when it comes to an end. Whether it’s a relationship turning sour, the band breaking up or losing a long time client. It wasn’t actual heartbreak of course, more a feeling of “now what?” – and not taking into account how this would affect my other work.

I had been used to a certain way of doing things, and now had to adapt or eventually suffer some serious consequences. My savings would carry me for a while, but the real and very immediate panic was over losing my drive, and thereby the ability to move on.

When you reach that point, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself. And I did, until I realized that self pity is about the least constructive thing in the world.

My wife said it best: you’re not hungry enough. Years of steady work had made me complacent and content. I had lost my edge. The one that made me produce much more, back in my twenties. Granted, a lot of that was utter garbage, but at least I didn’t just sit around with my hands in my lap. It was time to get hungry again.

I took a look at my list of projects and ideas previously shelved for a later date, searching for ones that could be wrapped up and shipped fairly quickly. Just to get something out the door, because finishing and shipping a project is a confidence boost, itself inspiring and motivating. I also tried to look at my situation as an opportunity to take a step in a new direction, learn and experiment.

My point is, if you’ve got a good thing going, don’t let that keep you from pursuing bigger, better things. Don’t get so content, you lose your hunger and drive. The hunger doesn’t just keep you on your toes in case you lose a job or client, it makes you strive for more and reach higher when life is good. Complacency on the other hand, will cause stagnation or worse – regression.

If you want to know more about my projects read my personal blog or follow me on Twitter. And of course, if you’re looking for a content creator, check my work site.

In my last article ‘Email Marketing Matters’, I discussed the reasons why you should consider an email marketing strategy as part of your larger marketing plan. While the task can seem a little daunting at first, I assure you, it’s really not that hard once you get the basics down! So without further ado, here are some more tips to get you started.

Have a Clear Goal

Before sending anything to your mailing list, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What am I trying to accomplish with this campaign?

If you don’t have a clear goal in mind, don’t send an email. It’s really as simple as that. When you’re emailing your audience, you’re stating that you have something interesting to share that they’re going to want to read or otherwise act on. If you don’t have a clear goal of what you’re going to accomplish, that will be reflected in the content you produce and the perception.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter posts, emailing someone creates the impression of a more direct and potentially intrusive interaction. If you request someone’s attention and then don’t have a clear message to communicate, it is easy for someone to decide that they shouldn’t pay attention to your requests going forward. Do this too often and you’ll lose them entirely.

2. Can this be better communicated in a different medium?

Whenever possible, you want to communicate the right information with the right tool! Want to share the great book you read and why it’s impacting your work? Post about it on your blog, or on Facebook/Twitter/etc. Want to reveal a great new feature or product line? Consider sending an email! Outside of a regularly scheduled newsletter, try and reserve your email communication for the most important and exciting announcements or news about your business.

3. Is now the best time to send this email?

You’ve finished up your latest email campaign and it looks great! It’s 11pm on a Tuesday night and you want to send it NOW! While you’re free to send it whenever you’d like, it’s in your best interest to target sending your emails during the times in which you believe your readers will actually be around to read it. Most of us have experienced the frustration of having too much in our inbox and deleting everything that doesn’t look absolutely critical. Try and work around this whenever possible so your email isn’t the one that gets deleted!

It can take a bit of practice and analysis to determine what’s working best for your readers. If you have the option, try sending the same email to two different groups of your readers at different times and analyze the differences in the resulting open rate and click-through. This will give you a better handle on what works best for your readers and allow you to adjust your send schedule accordingly.

In general, I’ve found it’s best to avoid Monday mornings. Many readers don’t open their email until mid-day on a Monday, and are apt to be overwhelmed by the weekend spam pile. Thursday morning has worked quite well for me in the past for whatever reason, but your mileage may vary!

Keep it Visually Interesting

Hint: A giant wall of text is not visually interesting. As a species we tend to be very visually motivated creatures. If we see something interesting, we’re more likely to pay more attention to both it and the surrounding content. While it can seem a little unfair in some respects that a nice stock image can draw more attention than the content you spent hours putting together, it can also be used to your advantage! You have a far better chance of people sticking around to read your content if they see something that’s aesthetically pleasing and/or interesting as soon as they open your email.

Basic guidelines:

• Use 1-3 great, ‘hero’ images, with your best image being the first thing people see.
• Use the correct format for your images! i.e. No text-heavy images as .jpgs
• Keep the size reasonable – Remember that some of your readers are likely using an older computer and won’t be able to read your email if your template or images are too large.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to be a great visual designer or photographer to have a great looking email campaign. There are plenty of email marketing services out there with professionally designed templates that you can customize to your business, or have customized for you for a price. While it can be tempting to skimp on the cost of email marketing assets, you need to be aware and weigh how that reflects back upon your business. It can be the difference between scrawling your name and number on a napkin and having a professional business card; both are representing your brand and both have a different impact on how people think of you and the product(s) you offer.

Keep it Short!

This is hands-down one of the hardest rules for me to follow. I have a tendency to be… let’s just say a little on the ‘wordy’ side. It’s easy to fall into the trap of over-explaining every little thing, worried that you’re not providing enough depth or information to the reader. However, your email marketing campaigns are absolutely not the right place for this!

You have a very limited window in which to engage and capture your audience’s attention. With the advent of more casual information and communication channels such as Facebook and Twitter, you have an even smaller window of opportunity to capture your readers’ attention! A giant wall of text creates the impression that it will take a long time to read through, often resulting in it being ‘saved for later’ and never revisited, or outright deleted.

When you’re crafting an email message, try to keep the following question in mind: Is this absolutely essential information? If the content doesn’t pass that qualification, don’t include it in the email. You can always include a link to additional information if your readers are interested in learning more!

Always Have a Clear Call-to-Action

Your email campaign should always have at least one clear Call to Action. A call to action is pretty much what it sounds like: Calling on the reader to act on something after reading your email. This can be anything from a link to more information, a way to contact you, or simply links to your various online web presences.

If you’re sending your audience an email, you should have a reason for it beyond ‘communicate some information’. Think of it this way: Would you create an advertisement for your business without including a way for the reader to get in touch with you or learn more about your product? Of course not! Don’t do that with your email campaigns either!
You can also create a clear Call to Action even if you’re emailing readers about an event that will happen in the future, such as a special sale. In this instance, you could include an image of the product you intend to have on sale, which links out to a special page on your website that goes into more detail, or to a Facebook event that readers can use to RVSP and remind themselves of your upcoming event.

Track, Analyze and Adjust

Being able to see the results of your email campaigns is an extremely important part of the process. It allows you to see what content is working, what should be scrapped and if you’re starting to experience reader burn-out. It’s a bit like taking a test: Sure you can answer everything, but if you don’t have any way to tell if you got anything right you can’t learn from your mistakes.
Ideally, whatever tool you’re using will allow you to see the following:

• Delivery: How many people actually received your email?
• Bounce rate: How many of your emails bounced? If this is a high percentage, you may need to revisit your wording and see if you’re using words that could trigger spam filters to incorrectly classify your message.
• Open Rate: Of those that received your email, how many actually opened it?
• Click-through: Of those that opened your email, how many clicked through? If you have a high open rate, but very little click-through, you may need to revisit your Call-to-Action in your next campaign.
• Unsubscribe Numbers: How many people unsubscribed due to your last email? If this number is higher than typical, what might have caused this? Did your content contain anything potentially offensive? Did you repeat content?

By being cognizant of the results of each campaign, you can learn from and adjust your messaging going forward. Learn what works, scrap what doesn’t!

Bonus Tip

Have a website, Facebook fan page, Twitter account or other online presence? Absolutely include a link to each of these in every single email communication you send out. You don’t have to make the links the central focus of every email message, but make them easy to find and verify that the links work for each before sending.

While your reader may already know about all of your online presences, having an easy way to get to each greatly increases the chance that they’ll interact further with you and/or your brand. In short, people are lazy: work around their laziness whenever possible!

Additional Resources

• Constant Contact
• MailChimp
• CiviCrm
• Google Analytics: Email Marketing
• Vertical Response

Siblings Aaron and Sarah Shay slide into the booth with Annie Hughes, prompting a swift shuffle of hats, coats, and instruments. The Mongrel Jews play a total of six instruments, sing, and keep the band going across state lines with fierce devotion, and the support of their fellow musicians.

From street corners, living rooms and stages, The Mongrel Jews started without a name, acquiring one as well as a devoted fan base along the way. Fresh from a successful Kickstarter (watch for the album: The Mongrel Jews Inherit the Earth!) and talking a mile a minute over coffee, Aaron, Sarah and Annie shook off the Seattle cold to talk about the brass tacks of making music sing.

How did you pick the material for the album from your body of work?

AS: There was a little bit of a process. We wanted to balance the songs that we’d written together and the songs that were kind of individually us.

SS: Yeah, and we wanted to make sure this record had all of our best songs. Pretty much up until this point each one we’ve put out has just been ‘we have something new, let’s record it.’ But this time we’re like, okay, we’re going to put some money into this. Let’s pick our best songs. The best record of what we are, that we can, keeping posterity in mind. And if we were going to show anyone what we are and really encompasses us as a whole, or as a demo to send venues for tour—one CD, that just gets it right across.

AH: They do kind of bridge different things, each of our songs. Like some bands are like, they play bluegrass, or they play rock. But I feel like ours are—

SS: We have layers. Like a parfait.

AS: Or an onion.

AH: You can always tell if I write a song, because it’s always glam rock-y and about sex.

AS: Annie’s songs are always about sex; my songs are about drinking, and the Bible. And Sarah’s songs are whimsical and witty.

SS: I think all are songs are witty across the board.

AS: Yes. We have the wit.

SS: And when we try to write them all together it’s like a witty, sexual, Biblical mess.

AS: I think that’s the long way of saying our best songs.

What ways have the three of you found to help you keep working together while living in different cities?

SS: We’ve had band meetings on Skype. God bless technology. Although, actually, rehearsing on Skype—we tried, it didn’t work. Too much of a delay. But we did give it the old college try.

AH: E-mail plans back and forth. Usually if I’m working on any songs, I’ll record them on my iPhone. And then I’ll send everything. First I’ll send the chords, then I’ll send the lyrics, send all that back and forth, any ideas.

SS: It’s definitely slowed down our productivity.

AS: We really are a band that works best when we are all three in one room, banging our heads together. Figuratively. So yeah, New songs are slow, but we get things done.

SS: Portland is close enough that if we book a show far enough in advance, Annie can still make it up. She’s now done trains and busses and ride shares—friends have gone down to visit and then brought her up.

AH: That happened today.

SS: We have awesome, wonderful—

AS: —generous—

SS: —friends.

AS: A great community.

SS: People have given her rides from time to time. We’ve managed to play a pretty good number of shows, for coming up out of state. The only thing I’d say that’s suffered is songwriting.

AS: But yeah, modern technology has proved helpful there. Sending recordings back and forth, trying to keep the flow going. It’s still hard.

SS: But it’s not the same as being in the same room, talking back and forth.

You recently completely a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund your first studio album, The Mongrel Jews Inherit the Earth! How did you plan your campaign, and do you have any advice after going through the process for other musicians?

AS: Okay. My first piece of advice for anyone starting a Kickstarter campaign: have a fan base. That is the most important thing.

SS: I’ve seen people try to whip out a Kickstarter when they just started as a band. It doesn’t work. You can’t rely on your parents and the interest of your friends.

AH: Well, there’s no demand.

SS: Well, a lot of people think, oh, we should get a album right away so we can start sending it around. You need to have a fan base. Even better if you can tour beforehand. We have friends who’ve toured a lot. They do a Kickstarter, and boom, they go over their goals like nothing. Don’t do a Kickstarter for your first recording. We did three home recordings before we Kickstarted our big fancy record. And I feel like that really helped, even though the home recordings we made were kind of crappy, even if they weren’t that great, it was something to give to people so they could take us home, and remember us. Hear our songs when we weren’t around, remember that we existed, and that they wanted to come to our shows. Even though I feel at times incredibly guilty, that we actually sold those recording to people, that people actually paid, because they’re so bad.

AH: It was sliding scale!

SS: Yeah, but I still feel bad people actually paid for them.

AS: Study the successful ones, especially in the kind of campaign that you’re organizing. People enjoyed just having some kind of recording they could listen to when we weren’t around. Even if they were kind of crappy. If you can make it happen, do some kind of home recording, or find a friend whose a student who needs to record somebody for a project. There are a lot of people offering to do that.

AS: We looked at all our friends who had successful Kickstarters. Eliza Rickman, Zoe Boekbinder, lots of people, to find what worked for them, what the most popular rewards were.

AH: Their scale, like what means 5 dollars, what means 50, and what’s in between, because there’s a lot of places where the first reward is 15 dollars, but you’re not getting anything.

SS: Two things I’d say with the rewards, you need to have a balance. You need to have a wide variety. You need a lot of different price points. You need to have one that’s at least 5 dollars or under, for people who want to throw you a couple of bucks, but are like, whatever, they’re not super invested in the project.

AS: Or they don’t have a lot of money.

SS: Or they don’t have a lot of money. Make your rewards interesting, and apply them to your fan base. Think about what your fan base would want. But at the same time, don’t go too crazy.

AH: Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

SS: Yeah. We personally made a decision not to deliver rewards till after the album is recorded, at least.

AS: We made that clear to people.

SS: Yeah, that they would have to wait awhile, because you have to keep your eye on the prize. Remember that the album is the most important thing, or whatever you’re Kickstartering for. That you want not to get lost, getting excited about all these cute little rewards along the way. You still have to make the record first, but you still have to make the rewards interesting.

AS: The actual reward is the campaign succeeding and creating something wonderful.

SS: If you have the sway with your fan base, and people think you’re awesome, you can offer things like a private show in people’s home, or recording a song for people. One of ours, I think we did that for three people, we will write them a custom song. You can either price that really low, if you don’t think it’s a big deal, or you can price it really high if you want to really up the value of that. But that’s a really cool thing to do that doesn’t involve—you don’t want to spend up so much money on rewards that you negate the money you raised. So things like that, like playing a show. We did one where we’ll make you breakfast.

AS: We will make brunch.

AH: Waffles and mimosas.

SS: We actually did have somebody on that reward, but he lives in L.A., and he understands that will only happen if we can get down there. He was totally cool with it.

You’ll be having Myles Boisen (Tom Waits, Corpus Callosum, Zoe Boekbinder) do the mastering for your album. How did you decide that Myles is who you wanted for the album and get him on board with the album?

AS: So, how Myles came to be a part of the project is that I was working on a solo EP this last summer, and our friend Zoe Boekbinder, I was lucky enough to get her to do some vocals on one of the songs. I was emailing her back and forth and she strongly recommended I get it mastered. She said oh yeah, my friend Myles is working on my album right now, just send him an email, let him know that I sent you, we can work something out. He’s really efficient and really well priced. So I took Myles up on that. And low and behold, he was pretty awesome. And he has worked with a bunch of our friends. He produced Corpus Collosum’s record, which is awesome.

SS: We love them.

AS: We love them so mightily. So it seemed like a no brainer, for Myles to be involved.

SS: Aaron just made this happen. And I was like, okay, fine, he’s worked with all these amazing people, if he’s willing to do it, then I’m not gonna—okay, awesome. Cool.

AH: I honestly just don’t know that much about what mastering is.

AS: I don’t know what mastering is either.

SS: We don’t understand the magic.

AH: I don’t know what goes on. I just know it comes back all polished, like a nice stone in one of those tumblers. And that makes me happy.

SS: We do not question the wizardy of Myles’ mastering. We just know that we need it.

How do your Jewish backgrounds connect with your music?

SS: Short answer, not as much as it used to.

AS: Long answer: The Mongrel Jews name came to be… it’s more about our identity and where we came from, then about our music.

SS: When we first got together and tried to pick a band name, we bandied about some ideas, but nothing that came close to really feeling like us. We’d already written our first song, and we played at this sort of open mike, coffee house jam at this Jewish co-op in Seattle. So we were in this room with other Jewish people. We played the song, and people were asking us well what’s your name, and we were well, don’t have one yet. Somebody asked about something—oh, I had something about Ari and I being half Norwegian. We’re brother and sister, our Mom is full-blood Norwegian. And someone said that’s unusual for Jewish people, what’s your other half? Aaron said oh, Romanian, Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, mix, your average mongrel Jew.

SS: And someone else said, hey Mongrel Jews, that’d be great for your name. Everyone in the room is like yeah, definitely. We didn’t start encountering opposition or people who were like, I don’t know how I feel about that, until later. And then we went, oh yeah, we guess that could be offensive.

AS: When we told our parents about—

SS: My Mom—

AH: Your Dad’s face—

SS: Our Mom refers to us as The MJs. She won’t say it.

AS: Our mother’s initials are MJ.

SS: But when we first started we were like, if we call ourselves The Mongrel Jews, clearly we have to include some sort of Jewish influence in our music. Aaron wrote two songs with Jewish influence. Ballad of the Exile Prince—

AH: —and Hot Biblical Mess.

SS: And the song that came to be known as Hot Biblical Mess.

AS: And that’s really known as Sacrificial Lamb.

SS: Annie at some rehearsal was like, let’s work on that song of Aaron’s, the hot biblical mess. And I said, new title! That’s what it’s called now.

AS: And that’s kind of it till we wrote The Mongrel Jews theme song.

SS: Which, the theme song is probably our most Jewish song. Stylistically it’s got some kind of klezmer and brass influences in there, so we sing about what it means to be a mongrel Jew and the plight of the Jewish people being banished around the world, so we keep picking up bits of different ethnicities—

AH: —and how people always tell me I don’t look Jewish. Because I’m blonde and blue-eyed.

AS: The Mongrel Jews theme was really something we really took seriously. We wrote three versions before we came on this one.

SS: We were writing that song as long as we were in a band. And we only finished it less than a year ago.

AS: And it’s really about how being a mongrel is good.

SS: It’s the reason Jewish culture is so rich and varied, because it’s traveled around the world, and picked up little bits. At the same time, that one song, and we wrote those two songs…as we grew as a band, we wrote songs about whatever, whatever came to mind, and the Jewish aspect kind of fell away. Not on purpose. We didn’t specifically say, let’s stop writing Jewish songs. We just didn’t say we need to keep writing Jewish songs.

AH: We’re also not a Jewish band. We didn’t form this band with the intention of forming a Jewish band, it’s just coincidental we’re Jewish.

AS: And let’s face it, none of us are the most Jewish people in the world.

SS: None of us are not super observant. We don’t want to get down into the nitty gritty of our personal beliefs. We were all raised Jewish. We all feel it’s an important part of our identity.

AS: Yes.

AH: I mildly feel like doing violin for this.

SS: We have this friend, Mai Li Pittard. She’s a Floridian Jew with a Chinese first name. It’s really awesome to have her on the record, because she’s sort of the reason we are the band that we are.

AS: We never would’ve gone to that Jewish co-op open mike if she hadn’t invited us.

AP: Ravenna kibbutz?

AS: Yeah.

SS: She was the first one who invited us to the kibbutz, and introduced us to Annie, so yeah, I’d never thought about it before, but she’s been pretty instrumental in our—no pun intended—in our band. So it’s nice to have her on the record.

AS: The other musician we’re bringing on the record is my friend Andy Lowe. He was in my first band, he and I have a really good working relationship, and he is a fantastic bassist. He played bass on the first live performance I did of an original song. It feels good to have him on board as well.

SS: This record is kind of all about people who have been with us through it all. Which is kind of nice. That’s sort of our bands thing. We have that kind of family feeling, with our friends and our fans. We have a community.

AS: That is one thing I’d suggest to any band who wants to have a successful Kickstarter.

SS: To be a successful band in general.

AS: Reach out to your fans, and become a part of your fan’s community. Not to be distant and the subject of their adoration or whatever, but be a part of what they do.

AH: That’s what makes Jason Webley so cool.

AS: And Amanda palmer.

SS: That’s what makes the modern approach to being in a band work. Where you’re not in a label, you’re managing everything for yourself, doing your own stuff, you’re doing Kickstarter, using online tools like Bandcamp, to make your career work. That is awesome. You’re can’t be the distant rockstar. I honestly don’t know anybody who wants to be the distant rockstar. I’m sure those people still exist. They want to be up on stage, and be mysterious. And you can do that, if you have a manager or a label handling all the nitty gritty. But if you’re not, you’re trying to do it the new way, you have to be in there with the fans. You have to interact with people.

AH: That brings our punk into it.

AS: We’re a little bit punk rock. Just a little.

You can find The Mongrel Jews at their website, Facebook page, and their recordings at Bandcamp.

Jade Gordon greeted me with a warm and honest smile on the floor of the Emerald City Comic Con. I first met Jade at a concert where I caught a glimpse of her awesome fan art. It made me curious about her work, so I looked it up, liked it even more, and finally reached out for an interview. She agreed, and in this interview she shares a few glimpses into her process and work, not only with fan art but as an illustrator.

AP: You have a very distinct style that’s fun and very comic book like. How did you settle on this particular look? What makes it appeal to you as a way to express yourself?

I never really know what it is that people see as a distinct style in my work (though I can sometimes see it in others’). I try to break out of habits into new styles, themes and techniques once in a while, but somehow people can still identify things I’ve done. If I seem stuck in a particular style/theme rut, it’ll generally be a lack of tools, space, time… or I’m just not getting the right kind of research done (It can be far too easy to just keep looking at more of the same stuff you like rather than looking for new things!).

The appeal to using specifically a comic book-like style? I’m not sure saying “easiness” would be a good way to explain the tendency toward that. Any ease I have with this style tends to be a time-saving feature as well. Sometimes I just want to make something quickly, or sometimes it is complicated enough that time saving becomes a real priority. Perhaps “fun” is more apt, particularly in the cartooning sense. I often think of single frame portraits in comic styles as more of a “cartooning” venture, and in my head I tend to see an animated version.

AP: You are very active online, from posting your artwork to engaging with fans and fellow artists. What role has the web played for you, as a vehicle for inspiration and network?

These are all forms of communication, if art and creativity is about communication, then these seem natural mediums to put a lot of things into. I’m not sure how else I’d really make connections with fellow fans and artists when it comes to specific topics. The ease of communication via the web is a real bonus. I can deal with it in my own time, in my own way, and make much faster connections than I would be able to otherwise. There’s a pretty big contrast in terms of how it was to create in a void pre-digital advancements, and also a priceless tool when many opportunities and abilities have slipped from my grasp. Being poor and disabled, there’s a kind of
where-there’s-a-will-there’s-a-way awesomeness of what technology can help someone do.

AP: You have become known for your fan art, specifically portraits. What appeals to you about creating fan art? What is the most memorable reaction you have had from someone you’ve portrayed?

There are a fair number of appeals in fan art for me.

It frees me from having to be responsible for it – I don’t have to worry about copyright theft. It frees me from having to worry about deadlines or demands of any kind. It is a form of escapism, I suppose.

It helps me reach both existing fans of stuff I love, and entice other folks who may never have heard of the subject.

It is the best way I can think of to show my gratitude when I cannot afford to literally re-pay people who make awesome stuff that I consume. There are so many people putting out amazing things that make my life better and doing it for FREE, and I can’t always afford to buy their merch, see their live shows, buy their albums, etc. Even if I could afford to buy it all, I don’t know if that would go the full way to expressing how much their work means to me.

I think it crystallized in my mind a few years ago, when – and this seems overly dramatic, I’m sure, but it is how I feel – Adam Savage saved my life. This is a quote of mine from around that time:

“There are 3 main presentations that Adam Savage does that I consider motivational speeches. Obsession, Failure, and his 100 Wishes (aka Made of Awesome). I take away from these presentations: inspiration, hope, curiosity, excitement, desire for learning, and so much more. There have been many dark days for me since disability really took hold of my body these last couple of years, and these videos have had more than a small part in keeping me going, helping me focus, helping me heal from all the ability I’d lost emotionally and mentally to
create.”

When I saw the talk on Failure, it was like a searing arrow to the center of my brain, it kind of mixed everything up and reorientated my perspective in a pretty vital way. I was out of coping mechanisms, and his talk gave me a very different view of my life, and how to cope with all of the stress and disheartening events. My epiphany : I’ve been doing this living things all wrong!

I’m not sure about “most” memorable reaction, but two of my favorites…

When I brought fanart of the character “Codex” from “The Guild” to Felicia Day at PAX in 2008, she practically jumped over the table to give me a hug as thanks. It was pretty much all I could do not to start crying like the gigantic sappy dope that I really am.

When I brought Mike Phirman fanart after a “w00tstock Presents” show, he knew who I was before I even opened my mouth to say “Hi”! I wasn’t really sure how to respond. There is an honest to goodness reason he was nicknamed “The Human Smile”, Phirman is so, so nice! He is both the bearer of facial sunbeams, and the giver.

AP: Your other work includes T-shirt designs, album and book covers, and more. Where do you typically find work, or how does it find you?

Friends, World of Warcraft guild-mates, and people who have seen and liked my work however they’ve found it. I admit I rather enjoy and prefer work coming from the fan communities I’ve been engaging with – we’re generally on the same page not just in terms of interests, but ethics, responsibility, and level of shared technical knowledge.

Previous to that I spent an awful too-much time sucking down job listing feeds, appealing to agencies, and trying to look under every traditional stone I could. It was grueling, and never seemed to bring particularly fruitful results. The best luck I’d had was probably work I’d gotten through the advisers at college.

AP: What is your process like from initial idea, deciding on elements, composition, color and so on, to finished piece? Would you share an example of your approach?

I suppose the best way to tackle this question would be to pick the subject of fanart, as I don’t really know how to answer it for other media or topics just now!

The initial idea for fanart is generally something the subject said, did, sang, or whathaveyou. If I get a really intense mental image – back to that cartooning and animation in my brain – I try to doodle it as soon as I can, while the spark is fresh.

I will also spend a bit of time digging up photo references of the subject when possible. I try to find the full range of angles of a person’s face – from weirs and unflattering to best side possible. I’m never trying to create something unflattering, but it helps to have a deeper dimension of understanding for the shape of a person.

If I can come up with something I like (sometimes even a dozen tries will yield nothing I want to complete, that is always sad!), I will work on the drawing for a while. I have been stuck on Uni-ball Color Pencil Lead, 0.5 mm in Soft Blue for a while. I’ve tried ot break away from it, but there’s something about the quality of the line I’m addicted to.

If I’m just looking for something quick, I will ink by hand, lately with some very awesome brush markers I get from Daiso when they have them in stock (this is getting tough, they don’t carry the same ones often, next time I need to just buy whatever whole case it is they have!). My art bestie Kelly Martin (who is awesome to the power of a at least a dozen! We were in Comic Strip Club in college together!) got me to try them out a couple of years ago, and I use them so much I burn through them all the time. Previously, I would use almost exclusively Staedtler Pigment Liner pens in .005-.3, and the occasional other random marker. After inking, I scan it and do everything else digitally (Particularly with ink work I need to edit digitally because I don’t usually have the fine tuned control of motor skills for detailed work anymore/currently.).

If I want to do something larger scale, or with more precision and cleaner lines, I will try to do that all digitally. That can take a tremendous amount of time. I’m not sure how to go faster without really astronomically costly upgrades to my technology.

I tend not to worry too much about composition until everything is digital, because it is much easier to manipulate. Even then, I’m mostly just trying to keep an eye out for awkward tangents.

I’m not really sure I think much about color. I’ve gotten a number of compliments about my use of color, but to me it seems to mostly end up being ALL THE RAINBOW. I always mean to experiment with things like a more limited palette, or a specific color theory… and then I sort of forget.

Check out Jade Gordon’s website for examples of her work, and be sure to follow her on Twitter as well.

Lee LeFever is one half of Common Craft, the other half being his wife Sachi. Their business is to explain things in a simple way using artwork cutouts and video. A couple’s labor of love has turned into the family business, and now LeFever has a book on the way too – The Art of Explanation. Lee was kind enough to share some insights into his work and life.

How did you come up with the idea of making simple videos to explain complex issues, and where did you find the courage to turn that into a business?

The idea for the videos came from a realization in 2006 that a big factor keeping technology from being adopted was related to communication. There were new tools like RSS, blogs and wikis that were often free, relatively easy to use and capable of creating positive change – and they weren’t being adopted because they were being poorly explained. The geeks were talking about the “how” and the mainstream needed to see the “why”. We call this an explanation problem and we set out to solve it with short animated videos. The “Common Craft Style” format we use today was my wife Sachi’s idea and is the only kind of video we make today.

We were lucky to have some viral success with the first videos, RSS in Plain English and Wikis in Plain English. These videos prompted companies to come to us, asking for videos for their products. It was a bit intimidating, as video production was still new to us, but we saw that it could become a big business for us, so the decision was an easy one. Our second custom video was for Google Docs in 2007 and that video is still going strong with over 4 million views. [editors note: see the Google Docs video at the end of this interview.]

How do you decide which to topics cover, and what does the pre-production of a video look like? How much time goes into producing a video from start to finish?

Last summer we switched gears and became a subscription service. Now professional educators become members of Common Craft to be able to download and embed the video library we’ve built over many years. An important membership feature is the ability to suggest and vote on video titles. This gives us a list of videos that are important to members and the last few titles we’ve produced were based on member suggestions. But we are always making videos that we feel are important as well. We call it “the zeitgeist” – what subjects need explanations most right now? This led us to videos that explain QR codes, for example.

Every video is different in timeline. Each one video starts with a script, which we consider the heart of any Common Craft video. I write the first versions and Sachi and I iterate from there. Some come out fully formed in the beginning, others can take weeks. We both have to feel that it’s ready and that feeling doesn’t come easy. From script we make a storyboard and iterate there too. Once the storyboard is final we can make the final video, including editing, over the course of 3-4 days. Sachi and I do everything in the process. Common Craft videos are 100% the product of Sachi and me alone.

The videos are made with lots of hand drawn illustrations and love. How conscious are you of the visual style, and how has it evolved since you started?

You know, it evolved naturally. I do the artwork and I never set out to establish a specific style. I just drew what I thought would work. Over time, it has developed into a part of our brand and I see it now as something that is unique in its own way. The drawings have become cleaner and a bit more consistent. Our process has evolved significantly. A couple of years ago I switched to drawing on a Wacom tablet and since then, all the images are digital. We now have a library of over 2000 digital images from the videos.

You started out sharing videos for free and now you have a membership based business model. What were your greatest concerns in making that transition, and how did you overcome them?

It’s been an a fun, interesting and educational transition. Sachi and I are business model geeks. We love trying to solve business problems and and Common Craft has been our laboratory. We got started on YouTube and some of our videos are still there, but a few years ago we realized that our business and content should be on our own platform and not YouTube. So we stopped using YouTube and published videos via commoncraft.com. This was one of our best moves because our videos get really good Google juice. Those links now come to us instead of YouTube.

We also realized that our videos are useful – they help educators do their jobs better. So we started to see our videos as products, products that could be optimized for and licensed to educators. This idea changed everything. We oriented Common Craft around licensing content we own and scaling back custom work. We’re dedicated to being a two person company and licensing is a model that scales the business without hiring a team to make more videos. It meant trading custom video revenue today for passive, scalable revenue in the future.

Now we use a stock photo model, where a watermark appears on videos that are free to watch on commoncraft.com. The idea is to make the content free to consumers for viewing and offer professionals a resource for using the non-watermarked videos in classrooms and on the Web.

You have a book coming out in the fall – The Art of Explanation. Could you tell us a bit more about the contents? What is the one thing you hope readers will take away from it?

Yes. We call our videos “explanations” and through making them for years and through having 10s of millions of views, we became students of explanation. We thought a lot about what it takes to make an idea easy to understand and realized that video is simply a medium. The lessons we learned about explanation apply to the everyday life of professionals. The big idea is that explanation is a skill that can be learned and improved. Our goal is to help professionals of all types build explanation skills and learn to apply them effectively. If you’re interested in following along, check out artofexplanation.com.

Make sure to check out Common Craft and The Art of Explanation, and follow Lee Lefever on Twitter.

Whether you’re a writer, musician, photographer or jewelry maker, getting the word out about your work is essential. With the advent of social media, it’s tempting to think of email marketing as a thing of the past. Why spend time writing, editing and refining an email campaign when you can just post the same information online and save yourself the trouble? While I’m a big proponent of a great social media plan for almost any business, the past year has taught me the value in having a complimentary email plan as part of your larger marketing strategy. While social media has rightfully taken center stage in most marketing efforts, ignoring the power and impact of email is doing your business a big disservice!

Segmentation and Tracking

Don’t panic! Segmentation is just a fancy way of saying ‘divide into groups’. It takes a little bit of planning to decide what sort of groups you’re going to want to set up, but it’s something anyone can do with a little bit of forethought and practice!

One of the most powerful aspects of using email marketing is the ability to segment and track the reception of your campaign. Segmentation can be as simple as splitting your email list into two groups and trying out different emails with each group to see which gets the best response, to setting up wholly customized content groups. By allowing customers to choose what sort of content they’d like to see, you help ensure that you’re delivering the information that they’re going to be more inclined to read. In addition, by not sending your customers the information they’re not interested in, they’re less likely to become burned out and unsubscribe from your list entirely.

On that note, the tracking capabilities of most email marketing services provide a great deal of information as to what content is actually engaging your readers and what is actively turning them away. Looking at how your last email was received and being able to compare it to previous efforts can give you a better context for what content your readers are likely to engage with and what content is actively driving them away.

Platform Agnostic

It’s 9 AM on a Tuesday and you log into Facebook ready to post a big announcement. You’ve planned the post in advance, ensuring that the image is exactly the way you want it, and that the copy is just right. You’ve carefully chosen the time window for the post, based on interaction numbers on previous posts. You log in, excited and ready to go, only to discover that the entire layout has changed. You vaguely remember seeing some announcement that this change was coming, but completely forgot about it in the bustle of running your business.

After poking around a bit in the new layout, you realize that the standard image display dimensions have changed. Now your great imagery no longer looks quite so great when the dimensions are scaled up and the file size has been automatically compressed for quicker loading times.

Your post doesn’t go out on time and doesn’t have the same impact you wanted it to. What recourse do you have? None really.

Being dependent on an external party for your primary advertising platform means that you’re subject to the decisions of the platform owner. It may not happen often, but the impact can still be frustrating when you have time-sensitive information you want to communicate. Unless you’re paying for the service, you’re dependent on a platform that could at any point be unavailable or change on you. That’s not to say these aren’t incredibly valuable places to market your business, but they do create an additional level of dependency and risk that you need to be aware of when creating your marketing plan.

In addition, limiting yourself to any one site means you’re excluding any potential customers that are either not on that site, or do not check into that account often. Even in the ideal case in which both you and your customers are on the same site, you’re still competing for their attention with every other Facebook Fan Page/Twitter account/Google+ account that customer is following. The longer a person is on a given service, the more competition you’re going to have for their attention. Email, on the other hand, goes directly to their private inbox. While you’ve still got to provide compelling content in order to get them to open your message, you’ve given yourself another, more targeted opportunity for engagement with your reader.

A More Personal Touch

Social media sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter are fantastic for broadcasting information to anyone and everyone who might be interested in what’s going on with your business. While this is a fantastic way to promote your business, it’s still more of a customer-initiated experience. You’re relying on your readers to be engaged with that particular site, at a given time, in order to see the content you want them to see. The perception of this sort of communication (with the exception of direct messages or @ replies on Twitter) is that it is for everyone. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it doesn’t create the same sense of ‘specialness’ that more direct contact can create.

If you’re actively creating content that your readers are interested in, delivering it to them directly via email is not going to be seen as spam (as long as they have opted in to receiving it! Always have an unsubscribe link, and never subscribe someone against their will). Instead, by providing specially curated content to your email subscribers you have the opportunity to provide a more personal, specialized message that your readers will appreciate and even look forward to receiving.

For example, which of the following two scenarios creates a more personal experience:

Posting a discount code out to all of your social media followers (and hoping that most of them see it) – OR – Sending an email invitation to a segment of your top customers that gives them some insight into the sale event, and an exclusive discount code and/or early access to your wares.

Without the ability to email your customers, the second scenario does not exist. You can attempt to target your communication using location and the time you post it, but it’s still open to the masses. Customers are less likely to engage and feel less personally appreciated when something is available to everyone and they are responsible for finding it.

To get started using email marketing, take a look at some of the tools available, such as MailChimp, Constant Contact and Campaign Monitor. And check out part two of this article, where we dive deeper into email marketing.

Over the last couple of years many different artists have been featured on Another Passion. I recently reached out to some of them, asking how things had been since their feature, and what they were up to now. In the following, you can read what some of them had to share.

Don’t forget to check out the original interviews, and follow the artists on Twitter for even more.

Sean Beaudoin (@seanbeaudoin)

“I’m currently neck-deep in the final edits for my next book The Infects. It’s a zombie opus that is part Superbad, part Heathers and part Dawn of The Dead. It’s coming out September 25th on Candlewick Press. I’m also finishing final edits on Wise Young Fool, which comes out next August on Little, Brown and is a punk rock diary. Also, You Killed Wesley Payne was just named a 2011 Editor’s Choice by Booklist!”

Billy the Fridge (@billythefridge)

“It’s been fun since we last spoke. I got to do some pretty ridiculous shows out of state. The show in Vegas might have been the pinnacle. Right now I’m working on a brand new album with some big time contributions. I don’t want to spoil the surprises, but I’m very happy with it all. Additionally, the studio I work with, Undercaste has just released a mixtape featuring myself and many other artists from the local scene. You can download that at Undercaste Studios. I did a video for one of the songs, which you can see on YouTube in all it’s vulgarity.”

Eva Funderburgh (@genkigecko)

“Life has been extra busy since we first interviewed, but in a good way. Not long after we talked, I went and spent five weeks as an artist-in-residence at the Guldagergaard Center for Ceramic Research in Skælskør, Denmark. While I was there, I had a chance to work on my first installation in ages. I built a giant swarm of flying beasts, all suspended in a massive flock. The piece spent a week installed in one of the local elementary schools.

“This ended up being really inspiring project for me. I loved coming back to installation, something I haven’t worked on since college. It was also my first taste of public art. It was pretty eye opening for me to see the kids taking in the art. It really pushed me to do more with my work.

“Since then, my art has continued to grow. I’ve just had another chance to do an installation, and that piece, Through the Clouds, has just gone up in Gallery 110 in Pioneer Square. My smaller work has evolved as well, with some of my most recent pieces revealing the inner structure of the creatures, changing the way that they’re seen as sculpture. It’s actually been pretty crazy this month, because there’s a big ceramics conference that’s going to be in Seattle at the end of March. I’m in a total of five shows, one of which I’m curating. I’ve just written up on my blog a guide to the five shows.

“It’s a little funny to think about the progress of my work since that interview, because the last question you asked in the interview was where I saw my working heading. I think I hemmed and hawed, but didn’t really give you a clear answer. It was because I could tell I was at a point where I was ready for change in my work, but couldn’t see where it would go next. However, looking back, I can’t of been happier with the growth of my work since then.”

Anita Arora began her pursuit of the arts while crossing continents and oceans, exploring classical dance and music from London and America. Returning stateside from her native London, she set down roots as she continued experimenting with artistic forms.

Anita’s appreciation of art that walked a fine line of social distance led her to begin her artistic work of Morbid Anatomy; finding beauty in the ordinary, exploring human relationships and remixing history and the fantastic in assemblage art, which she describes as being frozen in time.

AP: How do you bring sociology and art together in your work?

AA: In orchestrating individual components into dioramas, I comment on the complexities of human nature through visual prose. We set limitations and construct our worlds with set boundaries yet demand autonomy to be ourselves. This is true of art.

I use antiques in my art as I believe they breathe new life and purpose into ordinary objects from our collective past, in the form of storytelling devices. Simultaneously, it juxtaposes the time-staking craftsmanship with rigid purpose. I see this as the definition of the human condition.

I have a deep appreciation for the obscure, unusual, and anything balancing the fine line of social decency. I find beauty in more than the obvious. Oftentimes, this extends to structures, science, and self-identity – both as individuals and as a society, all the while challenging the accepted norm – both visually and metaphorically.

AP: Why shadow boxes, versus other mediums, for your art?

AA: To me, assemblage art represents a magical realm and doorway into another level of reality. I use bones, nails, wood, metal, dried plants, and organic matter. The act of assembling repurposes objects that were originally intended for entirely different uses. I find that recreating and translating echoes from the past works well with a literal (and limiting) third dimension. This is quite like building any manner of structure…respecting the cosmetic while working within the structure of erected walls of the box. The line between literal and metaphorical often blurs.

This tactile art of storytelling through the use of found objects brings to life a history as accurate or fantastical as your whim dictates, but I’ve found the frozen-in-time sense of assemblage art to be incomparable to any other.

AP: What fascinates you about human anatomy, and where does this fascination stem from?

AA: The human body strikes me as the most fascinating, complex machine. Organic yet coordinated, and so painfully self-aware. What equally fascinates me are the scientific and medical advances in understanding, treating, curing as well as relating to our own bodies – and to each other. The perception of the human body as art, both mechanically as metaphorically, in what we can do as a human race and collectively in society is infinitely fascinating.

AP: What sort of process do you follow when you take a piece of artwork from conception to a completed shadowbox?

AA: In terms of how long it takes, the process itself can range from a burst of inspiration to completion anywhere from an hour, to several months. Regardless of the time involved, my seed of inspiration typically begins with an idea I wish to convey. The challenge is presenting the final piece in just the right balance. I sift through opposing layers while opening the curtain to a less-than-obvious viewpoint. Quite in the same manner in which musicians hear the chords of an idea snag in the mind, I mix and re-mix, adding and subtracting until I see my idea unfold and I refine to satisfaction.

AP: Where do you draw inspiration for the components of your pieces?

AA: Literally everywhere. Once you engage the ability to change your perception of the world around you, it’s easy to recognize symbolism inhabiting in anything from the complex system of veins in a leaf to the morning sun illuminating cracks in an abandoned warehouse window. I see much beauty in the ordinary, and the alignment of ideas with random framing of visual elements sometimes occur in the most peculiar of settings.

For more about Anita and her artwork, you can visit her website, find her on Facebook and check out her Etsy store.

Lyndsay Brown is a one-woman show behind Idle Hands Designs. The local Seattle jewelry designer grew her business from a sideline hobby to a full-time workshop, studying silver smithing, resin work and sculpture as she built both her knowledge and her business. Sporting her client-favored sutured heart necklace and a collection of rings and pendants, she sells her mix of vintage remixed jewelry and new designs to an ever-growing number of fans.

AP: At what point did you decide to take your silver smithing and jewelry design from a hobby into a business?

LB: It was a pretty slow process. I did a full time job and my jewelry for about three, three and a half years before I decided to go full time. It went pretty naturally that it began to demand more of my time; I worked as a rep for a retail store where people started asking me more questions about my jewelry then the skincare line I was representing. In the past five years, I think people have been really tuned into supporting people locally, supporting handmade and local artists, and that shift in consciousness has certainly helped.

AP: What does working in silver bring you, that working in resin does not?

LB: I really like silver because I can add and subtract; I can sculpt it, I can solder, I can grind it down. When I make a piece of silver it’s made to last forever. Silver is durable, it’s something that can be passed down. But resin’s fun because I can do a bunch of different colours.

AP: What was your inspiration for your sutured heart design?

LB: Actually, in school, we did a silver clay project, and that was the first time I learned how to sculpt. She asked us to come up with a three dimensional project, and that’s where it started. One of my friends asked me to make another one, people at work asked me to make more; people were really connected to it and excited about the design.

AP: What is the greatest challenge you have overcome, when it comes to balancing both the business and creative side of what you do?

LB: Because I don’t make a large quantity, keeping the price affordable to family and friends and people around me, not making things overpriced despite making such a limited quantity, not pricing it out of people being able to use it for gift giving. The business end can be challenging.

AP: How much does the creation process itself affect the outcome of your pieces, compared to your initial idea?

LB: I don’t really sketch a lot, so it comes from starting naturally with a disc or sheet of metal; sculpting and organically letting the piece go in an organic direction that the piece takes me. With working with a lot of vintage buttons I’ll go off an inspiration from the shape or era, and design from there.

Check out the Idle Hands Designs site, and follow Lyndsay on twitter.