Tales of a Designer

Life Update

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post here, let alone it being a personal post, however I don’t think it’s a bad idea to let readers know what’s going on with the man behind the blog. I haven’t been completely absent from the internet, as I normally post most of my thoughts on Twitter, but in terms of setting aside time to think about what to blog next…. that time has been scarce.

So, what’s new?

The past few months have been swamped with wedding planning. Before being engaged, I never considered how much of my life would be consumed by it, but it isn’t bad, and actually kind of fun at times. You never realize how much creativity comes into planning until you’re actually in it, but I got a chance to design our website, as well as the invitation identity, with some assistance from Victoria Pater. It was the first print project I’ve ever done, and though it was fun and challenging, I’m glad that I work on the web. Once the full package arrives for the invites, I will post pictures.

In addition to wedding planning, there is still Tridea, which got really busy at one point earlier this year, which brings me to my next point.

When you’re burned out, you know it. You can feel it and taste it, but in order to get past, it you have to acknowledge it and fight to restore your internal equilibrium. Stop, decompress, communicate, and focus. That process often begins with a look inward to learn what gives your life balance, such as family, friends, personal interests, and hobbies—the things that counterbalance your life on the web. via

Freelancing on the side

Not that I’m old or anything, but I’ve been doing the fulltime job/freelance on the side thing for roughly 5 years and it finally caught up to me in the form of mental exhaustion. Between a fulltime job, wedding planning, and freelancing, I was stretched pretty thin. Something had to go, and the best decision was to take a break from freelancing for a while. I will say that it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made recently and it’s nice to not only have my evenings back, but I feel much more refreshed.

My point here is don’t work yourself too hard. Step away from your computer/work sometimes and enjoy life because it only happens once. It’s ok to not be a workaholic, which I’ve had to tell myself quite a bit. And since not working all the time, I’ve come up with a few creative ideas/projects that I would like to work on in the near future, that I can do at my own pace.

So what about Tales of a Designer?

Many times in the last few months I’ve thought about giving up this blog, not because I didn’t want to write anymore, but because I haven’t been inspired by design on the web lately. So I’m throwing around ideas to slightly change the direction in the types of posts that go up here. It would still be design/development related, as it always has been. I am open for ideas though, so if you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to comment.

So that is my life update. Lots going on, but I would love to hear your thoughts, and/or ideas on what kind of stuff you would like to see posted here.

Headed to SXSWi…Eventually

So the time has finally come for 2/3’s of the team to head to SXSWi. Unfortunately we won’t arrive when we had originally planned. Our flight to Dallas was cancelled this morning due to weather, so we had to scramble to get a new flight, and now won’t be arriving to Austin until 11:50 p.m. So it will be a very long day spent in airports and flying, aka, lots of time to blog and catch up with feeds.

Luckily the meat of the panels don’t start until Saturday, so we won’t miss much, although I was very much looking forward to seeing the Repect! panel with Zeldman, and company. I will just have to get the recap from someone.

Here are a few panels that I’m looking forward to:

• 10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals
• A General Theory of Creative Relativity
• Everyone’s A Design Critic
• Pimp My Non Profit – Real Non-Profits Kicking Ass with Online Technology
• Design Eye for South By

Of course there are more panels that I plan on attending, but those listed above look the most promising. So hopefully the rest of my day will go more smoothly than the morning, and I very much look forward to getting into the conference atmosphere and abusing my twitter account.

Uninspired Lately

For the past few months my writing has been a bit slower here, but not without reason. I browse the web quite a bit, and even in my free time, I’m normally web surfing while watching tv or listening to music. As of lately, though, I’ve been pretty uninspired with the web. It’s not that I’m liking the web less, but I’m just not finding blogs and sites that inspire me to write something about it.

What makes blogging a little harder is working all day, where there is no time to blog, and then doing Tridea work in the evenings. By the time all my work is done, I’m a little worn out by the day and don’t have the mental energy to write something interesting here. This doesn’t mean that I want to give up writing on this blog, though I’ve pondered it, but more of looking for other ways to inspire myself to write.

I used to love reading A List Apart, but for some reason their topics as of lately just don’t appeal to me much anymore. Over the past year, I’ve taken more of an interest in the business side of this industry, especially after starting a company of my own. So I might look to writing about more business topics here that are relevant to the design industry.

I still plan to maintain this blog because I do still enjoy writing, as well as being a member of 9rules. I am looking to add a little more life to this site in ‘08. I am also about ready for a redesign which I think will encourage me to write a little more as well. I am also open for suggestions in finding more inspiration to write.