A very exciting box of goodies arrived last week, full to the brim with Ursus Americanus t-shirts! You might recognise the bear from the necklace that I brought out a few weeks ago. I had fun with the hand-drawn type on this one, Ursus Americanus is the latin name for the American black bear.  Hopefully this’ll be the start of a few more t-shirts designs appearing in the next few months! Check out mine and Adam’s modelling capabilities, Adam demanded that I get this shirt produced in men’s sizes too!

I have one more usage for this bear design which should start manifesting in the next few days (just waiting on some materials to arrive), and I’ve just got finished on another necklace design for the great outdoors range!

I’ve also been working on some bits and pieces for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, including this corgi brooch. I didn’t want to get too far into the whole ’2012 Diamond Jubilee’ thing, but thought I’d make some little things that could encompass the Jubilee, Olympics & general Britishness. Although, saying that, I have been doodling some laurel leaves and diamonds for a little screen print…

I’ve had a pretty busy week so far, working on some new web design work & catching up on a few Finest Imaginary projects that I’ve been itching to get finished. I’ve also been sorting out the next installment in my Working For Yourself series which I’ll hopefully be publishing tomorrow!

PS. You can get free shipping on finestimaginary.com with the code ‘freeship’ right up until Valentines day! Don’t say I don’t treat you well ;)

Sarah knows I’m a wordpress whizz-kid, so it was only natural that we went down the wordpress route! The brief was an easy to update website, somewhere she could add testimonials, and an easy to use contact form for potential clients.

One of the challenges posed with this project was the ratio of text to images, it being a copywriting website it’s obviously going to be pretty text heavy. I opted for a no-fuss main content area, where large chunks of text were broken up with emphasised areas and colourful bullets. The font is clean, the stand-first is, well, stand-firsty and the font size is just on the right side of large.

For that extra bit of interactivity I added in a testimonial scroller that Sarah can continue to add to, and an interesting navigation animation. I also had a little fun with some media queries, go ahead, resize the window.. neato.

Bramble sat on the mousemat the other day and kept slowly turning to warm different sides of herself, the mouse was eventually kicked off so that she had more room.

Pumpkin has started playing fetch with me recently, she keeps bringing one of her toy mice up to me and meowing really loud.. I throw it down the stairs for her and she runs after it, I can hear her playing with it a bit downstairs then she’ll bolt back up the stairs with it in her mouth and drop it by my feet. Definitely breaks up my working day!

I decided they’d be put to better use on my bedside, and thought they might be nice spruced up a bit!

I’ve got a whole host of acrylic paints that I use on Finest Imaginary jewellery, it’s decoart crafters acrylic, so decided to use them on the drawer fronts. I love the consistency of it – not as thick as most acrylic paints – and the fact that it gives a really good colour on just one coat.

(you can tell a  lot about a person from what’s on their bedside!)

Adam’s super jealous and wants a set of his own now, maybe I’ll do those in a different style? I thought about masking off sections for chevrons and triangles. We’ll see!

Ps. the photos above are from instagram, if you don’t have the app you can follow my instagram photos here http://instagrid.me/finestimaginary/

Cyril Squirrel-Fox, image from Donna Wilson’s website.

Her work is lovely, so it was great to see that she was going to be coming to Hudds University to give a talk all about how she’s developed her business and give advice to others. Anyone could attend, not just the students, so Debbie and I went along armed with our notepads!

The event was sponsored by Tiger Print, an offshoot of Hallmark cards who deal specifically with Marks and Spencer’s greetings range. I think that part was mainly aimed at the current university students, sort of trying to sell them a graduate scheme… sounded pretty good, I guess, we never had that opportunity on my university course.

Donna then introduced herself, and her brand, and talked through her career. Graduating from a BA up in Scotland she ended up with a job in London after not being accepted onto a MA at RCA. This didn’t deter her though, and with the experience from her job she managed to apply successfully with a fresh portfolio a couple of years later. From there, she began selling some items to support herself through the course, setting up a mini-studio in her home. After her course she set up a Real Life Studio and began making more and more, and contracts kept rolling in. Donna told us her pearls of wisdom that she’s learned through the years, and these are the points that struck me:

• Keep your overheads low for as long as you can, work from home studios, your kitchen table, where-ever.
• Integrity is everything.
• You’ll be surprised what sells.
• You don’t need a business plan to be successful.
• Collaborate.
• Trade shows, whilst expensive, can be very lucrative. Buddy up and share a stand.

I left the talk feeling inspired (ladies doing bidniz FTW!), happy that I had quite a lot of my own views affirmed (always good), and full of subjects that I’m going to be discussing in some upcoming working for yourself posts. Now, go check out her website (and buy me a Cyril Squirrel-Fox..).

HelloWilson (better known as Rachel) is a graphic designer and illustrator and has departed leafy Oxford for the bright lights of London, although she grew up in West Yorkshire. Having done a first degree in English Literature she escaped a career in publishing to return to her first love of designing and making things.

Rachel’s graphic design work includes print, branding and web design for small and medium sized businesses. Her intricately  patterned illustrations are inspired for the most part by nature, particularly sea creatures. She is especially fond of drawing octopuses. 

Rachel has written us some fantastic tips about reassuring new and potential clients, and ensuring that you make the right impressions from the outset. You can check out her own blog here, and catch up with her on twitter, too!

Lots of creatives worry about gaining new clients, where to find them, what ideas to pitch and what fee to quote, but I’ve found a recurring stumbling block that can threaten a project before it even gets off the ground is client confidence. I work with quite a few new start-up companies and individuals looking for branding, print or web design who haven’t worked with a designer before. Often when a prospective new client approaches me they need reassurance, after all they’re going to be committing budget to something they can’t see or judge the quality of yet.

It seems everyone has a nightmare story to share with anyone considering engaging a professional creative. Designers who don’t listen, who foist work on a client that doesn’t fulfill the brief and then scarper. So it’s essential that you make a good first impression. You know you’re a great designer who will listen, answer emails promptly and deliver something the client will be thrilled with, but you need your potential client to know that too and feel confident that they’re making a good decision in commissioning you.

Like most tips lists this is all common sense but, like most common sense advice, it’s easy to forget. Make sure you’re doing all these things and you’re on your way to winning fun new briefs.

1. Arrange a no commitment chat – make sure a potential new client realises that just by talking through a potential idea with you they are in no way committing to anything. It’s a good opportunity for you to get to know one another and for them to work out if they’ll be comfortable working with you
2. Be transparent, explain your process – I find it really helps to explain my design process to the client, making it clear that within it I build in opportunities for them to comment on progress and make amends
3. Communicate – I’ve won several prospective clients’ attention and confidence just by responding promptly to their initial email; after all it bodes well for the rest of the project
4. Be approachable – make it clear that you’re happy to answer any question the client has, no matter how random
5. Be realistic, with your pricing, your deadlines and the service you’re offering. You might think you sound super cheap and efficient but the client might just think you sound too good to be true
6. Be professional… but don’t show off – It can be tempting to try and impress a client with your encyclopedic knowledge of design but swamping people with jargon can just be plain off-putting
7. Be confident about your ideas – if a client is unsure it can be really helpful to present yourself confidently and have belief in your ideas (remember: you’re the expert!)
8. Listen carefully – make sure a client can see you’re really listening to their ideas, ask some questions and make suggestions
9. Good word of mouth – if you’ve got some great feedback from past clients show it off on a testimonial page. I know they’re a bit cheesy but I know the first thing I do before I buy anything is read the reviews…

Thank you Rachel!

Do you have any hot tips for client reassurance? Or is there a subject that you’d like covered in my working for yourself series? Let me know in the comments!

The fabric for quilting is just basic cotton, I think, nothing really special about it! Anyway, it came in pre-cut squares which I then sliced in half to triangles. Here’s how the construction will look for a panel…

Can you see the chevron? It’s pretty subtle, and it’s made form the contrasting light and dark quilt fabrics… it’s actually more noticable when the image is blurred slightly…

I’ve just started sewing the triangles back into squares, using a smaller seam allowance than the usual quilting seam allowance of 1/4″ (god damn quilting rebel! I’m using around 1/8″ instead… booya!). It’s going well, next step is to press the seams and connect the squares into the panels!

It was really pretty, though, and there was even a little hut in the shop. Not being much of a tea drinker myself (I have my moments) I opted for a mocha which was served in a cute enamel camping mug.

Vanessa had a tea, which looked very pretty in its clear clinical teapot. It came with a timer, too, so that it had the correct brewing time! ah!

The cakes looked spectacular, too, especially the blue meringues!

They have a full time shop in the Northern Quarter which I’ll definitely be popping in next time I’m in Manchester!

Level 2 is full of planks, planks are hard, and my shoulders are weak. The two don’t mix very well. I’m improving, though, and can see some shoulder muscles coming through! Day 2 of level 2 was killer, the pain in my upper body from the first day was definitely noticable, but I carried on regardless (and by regardless I mean whimpering and saying fuck a lot). My planks are improving now, and I can almost do a full set of this awful exercise called plank jacks without collapsing. Wahey!

In other news, Adam and I are having a few days in Lake Garda (Italy) next month, and by a few days I mean fly out on a Friday (for me, anyway) and return the following Monday. The only reason we’re going is because Adam has a work thing out there, and I’ve never been to Italy at all! We’re planning on taking a trip to Venice (I mean, I’d like to see it before it sinks or something), doing some walking around, eating some pizza and generally just having a break. I get to fly out on my own which always excites me, the last time I did it was to Australia. I have a silly 4/5hr layover in Frankfurt though, I guess I’ll get some work done?!

So I’ve bought all my materials (a huge piece of wadding, the patchwork fabric, some special other bits) and I’ve gotten a rough design together…

I’m going to be chipping away at this for the next few months I think, I’m already worried about how I’m going to do the actual quilting part (I’ll definitely have to move my sewing machine into my lounge rather than in my tiny craft room), I’m tempted to go down the tying route depending on whether I can move the quilt under the sewing arm or not!