Anyway, I hope the slides are of some use even without hearing me talk about typography on the web. Since my presentation was an overview, be sure to check out the reference material linked at the end for more in-depth information.

I hope you got something out of it!

In December 2009, I (just like everybody else) was thinking about the end of the year and the things I had and had not accomplished, and what I could do better in 2010.

There were all these big things I wanted to do. Lots of crazy ideas that went unfinished. I realized that I am a bit ambitious. (Incidentally, it frustrates me when I meet people with a total lack of ambition, but that’s a different topic for a different day.) I want to do so many things at once, and do them well. I want to change the world with my art, take my family to live in Italy for a few years, open a coffee shop in West Nashville, go on mission trips, design typefaces, get in really good shape, learn languages, become a public speaker, be a better husband and father, etc.

But here’s the thing: for all my dreams and ambition, I’m not very motivated. I may be ambitious, but quite honestly sometimes I’m lazy.

I spend too much time surfing the ‘net and reading RSS feeds and watching movies and goofing off instead of actually getting my self in gear and taking action on the things I truly want to do.

I think it’s going to take some major work and discipline on my part to structure my time better so that I actually do these things.

Like the tagline that permanently branded Nike into our collective conscous: JUST DO IT.

Sure, the tagline has become something of a cliche over the years, but it’s still extremely powerful. Don’t dilly-dally. Don’t be lazy. Don’t make excuses. Just do it.

I need to set aside a block of time each day to work on my art. Make myself work at targeting my freelance services at the right people. Get up early each Saturday morning and do maintenance on the cars. Be fastidious about keeping the checkbook balanced.

So if this means I have to give up “fun” (but time-wasting) things like staying up late watching movies, I’m okay with that. The outcome is way better: I’ll actually be accomplishing something. Give that lizard brain a swift kick in the amygdala.

In addition to working on being more motivated, I need to stop making things so hard. I have a tendency to over-complicate things by creating elaborate processes that have to take place before I can really get into a project.

For example, when I am working on a painting project, I can make a big to-do out of prepping the canvas, toning it the right color, drawing on paper, transferring the drawing from paper to canvas, spraying that down, and applying many layers of paint.

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with that approach, I think sometimes I make it too involved and machine-like.

I’ve made my approach to blogging way too involved in the past. When I first started Mysterious Flame, I would scribble posts in outline form on paper, then type it in a text file with Markdown, print it, proof it, make edits, print and proof it again, then post it.

This isn’t a terrible approach, either, but it is a bit laborious, and I think it took a lot of the fun out of writing for and maintaining Mysterious Flame. Could be why I lost steam with the project: I had to make every post a perfect essay.

MF went by the wayside. As has my painting, which is my real passion. I haven’t done a large painting in ages. I have done several small paintings, but even those have been a bit laborious with the way I’ve done detailed preliminary drawings on paper to transfer to the canvases.

The point I’m trying to make is that while planning is good, over-planning can really slow things down and put a damper on creativity and spontaneity.

In fact, I think this kind of over-planning is really a type of procrastination, delaying responsibility. The lizard brain is trying to keep me “safe.”

Note: I was originally going to post this about 2 months ago, but lots of things came up. Now that this redesign is up and running, I’ll let it fly.

It’s the time of year when people go posting all sorts of end of the old year/beginning of the new year type stuff on their blogs. Normally I’d resist that sort of thing, but not this time. There’s too much I want to change in 2010.

Driving home from a family Christmas party at my aunt’s, my wife and I began discussing what all we want to accomplish in the upcoming year, by December 2010. We have a few major things we want to accomplish. We agreed that putting them out in the world like this would help us be more motivated to accomplish them.

So without any further ado, here they are.

What we hope December 2010 will look like:

1. Hope has matched her former income from her old job (before she left to be a full-time mom) with income from lia sophia

2. Brad’s Chrome47 (freelance) work matching former income from his old job prior to being laid off . Includes wrapping up a few current projects in order to move forward, as well as launching a marketing campaign to generate new business. Sure, this could all change if I land a full-time gig. But with the way the economy has been lately, that might be tough. I’ve been without a full-time job since June 2009.

3. Brad painting 3 small paintings each week (almost daily) and posting and selling online. This requires a commitment of about 2 hours a day on average.

4. We have saved up enough for a 10% down payment on a house

Smaller Goals

• Pay off laptop by March
• Get oil leak fixed on Honda (January/February)
• New tires for both cars
• Keep both cars better-maintained

Image source: Veer.com.

I launched this little blog about two years ago, basing it on a site design that I created roughly half a year before, using the essence of design 3.0 of this site. (Does adding the blog make it version 3.5?) That makes this incarnation of bradblackman.com about two-and-a-half years old, which is an eternity on the web. (How many redesigns has Facebook seen since then?!)

Funny thing is, I got the idea for this redesign right after I launched the blog, and I am only now putting it into play. It’s been through a lot of reiterations since then, and it looks nothing like the original sketch, but the basic idea has been the same: make the whole site dynamic, and tie it all into WordPress somehow. So I did just that: use WordPress to put everything in the same database, from the front page to the portfolio to the blog posts. (For example, the portfolio page uses a special template to show only items in the portfolio category, which is excluded from the other pages.)

Along with this new site comes a renewed dedication to my work, both online and off. A combination, really. My plan is to do more art, especially the little pieces I started doing last summer, and posting them online. I figure if it gets me creating more, it can’t hurt, right?

I’m just glad I’ve finally gotten this finished, so that I can focus on making more art again.

But is the site really finished? Probably not. There are a few posts that could use an image to go with them, but I think my time is better spent doing other things right now. I’m sure this site will continue to evolve, although probably not at such a glacial pace now that everything is in WordPress. I can already see directions it may take, such as putting the blog posts on the home page directly. There’s a chance I may resurrect the old desktop wallpaper downloads page.

But for now, I want to focus on making art and blogging about it.

24” x 36”

oil on canvas

2007

“The Wheel” is another tourist attraction on lower Broadway, taking up residence in a building from the late 1800s. I love how this style of architecture is particular to Nashville, yet similar buildings are found in many small towns from the same era. While this an admittedly touristy part of town, there are a lot of great textures and colors to take in, not to mention great people-watching. With this piece I tried to integrate my love of typography by paying more attention to the signage and lettering. Since I painted this, the establishment has changed their sign. Unfortunately it lacks the kitschy 70s/80s charm the old one had.

24” x 30”

oil on canvas

2006

Situated on 2nd Avenue in the heart of what is known as “The District,” The Old Spaghetti Factory holds a special place in the hearts of those who have grown up in Nashville. Built in the late 1800s, the space was formerly a warehouse but has been a restaurant for nearly 30 years. It’s full of great Victorian furniture and a trolley. For this painting I wanted to veer from the expected approach and show the delivery entrance to this popular venue.

24” x 36”

oil on canvas

2007

Take a walk down Broadway, the heart of the tourist district with honky-tonks and tacky gift shops. You can’t miss Boot Country with astonishing deals like “Buy One Pair, Get Two Pairs Free.”

The funny thing is, the only people you see wearing cowboy hats in Nashville are the tourists. Or the people who really want to make it as country music singers. Everybody else just looks like everybody else.

40” x 20”

oil on canvas

2005

There is something fascinating about overpasses, especially when the morning sun hits them at a low angle, and interesting forms emerge from the shadows. I painted this when I began noticing the intrinsic beauty of everyday structures that we take for granted.

30” x 40”

oil on canvas

2004

Nashvillians will recognize this as the interchange where I-440 and I-65 meet on the south part of town above the area known as Melrose. This piece marked a turning point in the development of my work, since it was not dominated by bright colors but by a muted palette. The composition definitely leans toward an abstract-realist mode since it is representative of something, yet there is a tendency toward abstraction.