Feeling good today. This is a welcome improvement from yesterday and even the day before. Not knowing how long it will be this way, I’ll say I’m grateful and hope it continues as long as possible.
Today was one of those days where my job was awesome. Good vibes and good people made for a spectacular day at work – one of those days where you actually feel a sense of satisfaction for everything AND you know people are genuinely happy to be talking to you. Bonus round: you’re happy to be talking to them as well. I wish all my coworkers had that same feeling EVERY day, but that’ll happen right about the same time we all win the lottery.
Meh.
Anyway, today was not just great but productive as well. Four thumbs up. There are three people in my department, and one of them is on vacation from 5/10 – 5/22. That means getting normal work done is kind of a major achievement, so today rocked because I got daily stuff + past week’s stuff + some weekend stuff done PLUS I got things ready for my coworker for when she comes back. I also managed to get some web-related things done that I’d had on my “Round Tuit” list, which is like mentally leveling up right there. Yes, please buy me this keychain:
I need to own this.
Image via squidoo.com
Sheesh. It’s now 10pm and it’s time to fluff up the cloud I’ve been on all day to get some sleep, hopefully this good feeling will continue tomorrow… but sleep isn’t happening for me right now.
A friend of a friend emailed me a few weeks ago – she’s getting married soon, and asked if I’d be able to create a monogram for them. The past few hours were spent Photoshopping up some designs and researching stickers and envelope seals. It was a good design buzz, something I didn’t realize how much I missed. There’s nothing like getting lost in pixels for hours, and it made me a little sad to remember that my computer at home is dead and also lacking all design software.
I’ve been borrowing J’s laptop for months now, which means all this stuff in my head is going out through a borrowed outlet. Design software is so far out of my price range right now it’s ridiculous. Yes, a friend has offered to lend me their Educator’s Discount to get a lower price for buying it online, but it’s not like I have any excess funds. All I want to do is go back to making digital art, because I know for sure it will mix in with my non-digital stuff, and life will be perfect.
It’s been windy, so I’ll put the whisper out there… yes, I will work on projects in exchange, and accept payment in the form of a new computer with Photoshop and Illustrator.
Let me clarify.
I don’t need anything fancy.
I don’t need the whole suite.
I just need a decent machine with decent memory/storage that runs Photoshop and Illustrator. My primary machine for years now (seriously at least twelve) has been a PC, but I *have* used a Mac in years past, and am generally always quick to pick up stuff like that. Whatever gets the job done, you know?
Anyway. Pass the word. Here’s my plan (and I probably will make it into a Craigslist ad or something). If you get me Photoshop & Illustrator (yes, I can get a discount online) and a machine to run it on, you get to use my artsy-design skills for pretty much any project you’ve got your brain set on – for the amount of time it takes to pay that off.
So let’s say Photoshop & Illustrator cost about $400 (with the discount), and a random laptop (Dell example) costs about $700. Not counting tax or shipping or what have you. If you go by the $50/hr rate I usually charge for basic stuff, that would get you 22 hours worth of work from me. Let’s even round it off a bit: I will spend a full week, every night after work until I go to bed at 11ish, working on your project. If you consider that’s probably another six hours a night for seven nights, that comes to 42 hours – so really… that saves you about a thousand bucks. (Estimating it would be an extra twenty hours at fifty bucks an hour.)
Maybe it’s late at night, but to me… it kind of makes sense.
What do you need? Brochures? Flyers? Logos? Invitations? Icons? Clothing? Accessories? Murals? Do you have albums of old photos that need cleaned up and salvaged? Do you want me to Photoshop tattoos all over you so you can be a ‘model’ online? I don’t care. Hell, I’ll craft you up a whole pixel-art CITY.
You get some awesome work, save a bunch of cash, and I get the equipment I need to keep producing awesome work. It’s a win/win. So yeah! Why not, right?
Aaaaand …yes, this one’s a long shot, but it’s getting mentioned… if you want to know my bucket list item, it’s a big snazzy amazing interactive LCD tablet that costs like $2500. Yes, it’s basically a monitor that you can draw on – it’s not an actual computer. So that would need to be in *addition* to the stuff I asked for. But like Gretzky put it, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
This is the future. You’re looking at it. This freaking thing is a TECHNOLOGICAL MIRACLE – bask in it!!
If somebody is amazing enough to buy that tablet AND a computer AND the design software, I will craft you up whatever you need (and I hope you need a line of skateboards or surfboards or purses or tote bags or team t-shirts) … and I will work on crafting it for you for two months. Five nights a week for eight weeks. I even have hookups with a local printer and local sign shop, so yeah.
You know how clients go “I want this thing with green stripes and pink polka dots and in five hours you’re going to need to actually make it blue stripes with yellow polka dots and please don’t count this extra revision as an extra revision because I just kind of wanted to see what it would look like, oh and can you make the font bigger and add a kitty”? Right, well normally people charge for revisions. This means you can get me to work with you AND HAVE UNLIMITED REVISIONS during that time.
Here are some links of stuff I salvaged from the great Crash of 2010. I can make you whatever you want though.
https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=189331344433930
https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=10330637988
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This isn’t me saying I’m the end-all-be-all of graphic or digital design… but I’m pretty good. I’ve done this stuff for a long time, off and on, and know for sure that I have a good eye for it. After almost fifteen years of digital art experience, I feel like it’s okay for me to say that my work is above sub-par [and almost always turns out better than you expect].
Yes, I have multiple monikers, but whatever. Here’s hoping the breeze goes with my sail and not against it. *crosses fingers*
Retention 