Conversations with Creative Women: Volume Two pre-order special offer!
Eeek! Did you see The Design Files today? The news is finally out: Conversations with Creative Women: Volume Two is now taking pre-orders! Who is featured? Like the much-loved first volume, this new book is a collection of exclusive interviews with some of this countries finest creative minds. The full list of interviewees will be announced over the next couple of weeks, but here are just a few of the stellar creative ladies I had the privilege of chatting to for this book...
Each lady talks about her career path, offers tips and advice, and shares with us details that give us a great insight into the world of a busy, inspiring creative. There's some more info on each of the interviewees on the Volume Two book page. Details of the other interviewees will be revealed in the coming weeks!
The book will be a strictly limited edition print, and officially launched on November 15, but you can pre-order now to reserve your copy.
Pre-order special offer! Those who pre-order before the end of this month will receive their copy wrapped in a beautiful piece of fabric designed by Emily Green, Lara Cameron or Catherine Campbell and printed locally by Frankie & Swiss. After reading the book, I hope you will be inspired to make something from the fabric and share it with us! Find out more and see the designs here. Exciting!
Organise Me: 5 Tips for Turning Big Dreams into Plans
Many creatives are also dreamers. I think it comes with the territory. To be the one who thinks out of the box and comes up with the creative solutions and ideas, you are also likely to have big crazy ideas of your own. But there’s some skill and planning involved, especially when it comes to doing things for ourselves, in making those big dreams a reality.
This is something that I’ve done myself and a topic that’s dear to my heart, so today I want to share my 5 tips for making those big life dreams a priority whilst keeping the planning process fun.
- Buy a notebook just for your big dreams - decorate it, doodle in it, be messy and just let the ideas flow. Don’t think about shoulds and coulds. Think about the possibilities and aim as high as you like.
- Start with the big crazy dream and break it down. Make dot points your friend. Think of five small steps that you’ll need to take to get to the big dream. Pick one step and break it down again into 5 steps and repeat until the prospect of achieving it is not so scary anymore.
- Do something out of your comfort zone. Take a class you’ve been on the fence about; take a drive to somewhere new; order something on the menu you usually wouldn’t; buy something you love, but wouldn’t usually buy for yourself. Doing little things that can make you feel brave or bold and will help you make steps towards your goal.
- Think about timelines and budgets and put a positive spin on them. This is where you can start to feel nervous, but think of timelines as something to keep you on track. Allow it to be as long as it needs to be, and be okay with it changing when it needs to. If you need to save money to get where you need to be, allocate a budget so you know what you’re aiming for and celebrate when you get closer to it. It’s more fun that way.
- Bring the people you love and who support you along for the ride. Share your big dreams, or a part of them with someone you can trust. Blog it, if that’s your style. Find that support network you’ll need when things seem too hard. It’s amazing the help you find when you let people in. Sometimes they’re a great hand holder and sometimes they may just have a short cut that you never considered.
Turning my big dream of travelling across the North America into a reality changed my life. I went from feeling lost, to having a goal, to living that dream and finding more dreams to chase. I truly believe that if I can do it, anyone can. I hope these tips will help you start to look at your dreams as possibilities.
Dannielle is a blogger, serial organiser and passionate traveller. She has a secret love of '90s teen movies and can often be found on Twitter. In 2013, Dannielle packed up her life in Melbourne into one suitcase and moved to Canada to make her crazy dream of a more adventurous life happen. But she quickly found the inspiration she was searching for was in Melbourne and has returned home. She’s recently started a new project on creating a happy (organised) home which you can see here.
Book Review: Not Quite Nigella – My Path To Happiness Through Baking & Blogging by Lorraine Elliott
Food Blogger Lorraine Elliott created the highly successful blog Not Quite Nigella in 2007. In this food-centric book she shares her journey from media strategist to blogger, offering a collection of food memories, amusing anecdotes, and recipes along with a sprinkling of advice to wannabe bloggers.
A food lover from way back Elliott only began blogging at the insistence of her husband, who set up the blog and told her to get writing. When a promised job falls through Elliott focuses more attention on the blog, becoming a fulltime blogger in 2009 and currently enjoying statistics of 250,000 unique readers a month with over 500,000 page views (according to her about me page).
The book is difficult to categorise. Part cookbook, part memoir and part blogging lesson it offers an eclectic mix of information written in an amusing, easy-to-read style.
The stories are entertaining including such adventures as a race around the city trying all the Peking Duck dishes on restaurant menus in one afternoon/evening, or sneaking into a swanky exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery waving just a wine glass and a confident air. Although there are more poignant pieces on offer too, with a tour of the cooking facilities at Long Bay Jail and a visit to old-fashioned eating establishment catering to the pensioner/ex-prisoner clientele with cheap and hardy dishes.
Food lovers will enjoy the book for the variety of recipes offered at the end of many of the chapters: red velvet cake, wontons, pork belly with chilli-caramel sauce and vanilla macarons are just a sample of the delicacies on offer.
Although for this poor excuse of a cook, it was the blogging advice that I found most interesting. There were snippets of information throughout the book ranging from dealing with threats of legal action from large publishing firms to stockpiling blog posts for the times when you are unable to blog (so my day-by-day seat-of-the-pants approach could be hindering my entry into the blogging big league).
The final two chapters are devoted to how to blog and how not to blog. Elliott advises potential bloggers to choose a topic they are passionate about and explains the joy in creating a community and having a positive impact on readers.
The book offers an interesting glimpse into the world of a professional blogger.
Janine Fitzpatrick blogs at Shambolic Living where readers get to feel far happier about their lives when they experience the chaos of hers. She is coming to terms with being the mother of two teenagers, has given up on the dream of a tidy house and still plans to write a book one day.
Women from History: Marianne Brandt
By Julia Ritson She made dustpans, clocks, lamps, and light shades and was to become one of the great success stories of the Bauhaus, the German school of design founded in 1919.
Marianne Brandt was first a student then a teacher of metal work at the Bauhaus. Traditionally, Bauhaus women were popped into the textiles department and Brandt had to work hard to be accepted into the metal workshop.
At the time, the master of materials and form, László Moholy-Nagy, was in charge of the metal workshop.
When Brandt first arrived, fancy table top items were the focus of the workshop. These concise silver and bronze pieces were made in 1924. Articles for every day use.
Brandt was the only female student and wasn't immediately welcomed into the male group.
At first I was not accepted with pleasure - there was no place for a woman in a metal workshop, they felt. They admitted this to me later on and meanwhile expressed their displeasure by giving me all sorts of dull, dreary work. Later things settled down, and we all got along well together.
In the late 1920's there was a strategy of trying to integrate art and technology. They were attempting to make art objects for a mass market.
At one point the school needed decent lighting solutions to fit the new design aesthetic and the brief was given to the Metal team to come up with solutions. Here are the adjustable lamps hanging in the weaving workshop, designed by Marianne Brandt and Hans Przyrembel in 1927.
The idea of making lighting fixtures out of shallow glass dishes attached directly to the ceiling probably came about in the metal workshops of the Bauhaus. Also the the idea of combining opaque and frosted glass, of making lighting fixtures of aluminium and of designing ceiling fixtures with glass cylinders appears to have first been thought of in the Bauhaus.
This glass globe was designed in 1926 and manufactured by a firm in Berlin. Good modern industrial design.
The much imitated "Kandem" bedside-table lamp was designed by Brandt in 1927. It was then produced by Körting & Matthiesen in Leipzig. From 1928 to 1932 this company often sought advice from the Bauhaus for its designs of light fixtures and desk lamps. During these years more than fifty thousand Bauhaus designed lamps were sold.
You can buy one today on ebay for US$2,750.
Julia Ritson is a Melbourne artist. Her paintings investigate colour, abstraction and a long-standing fascination with the grid. Julia has enriched and extended her studio practice with a series of limited edition art scarves. She also produces an online journal.
Threads: A forum celebrating women in art and design
Here's heads up about an exciting upcoming RMIT University event in a couple of weeks time.
Threads: A forum celebrating women in art and design brings together a collection of talented Melbourne creative women speaking on their pathways to success, fine lessons learnt in the process and what drives them creatively.
Not sure what I will talk about yet (!) but I'll definitely be taking notes from the other amazing speakers: artists Miso, Maryann Talia Pau and Isobel Knowles; Kloke fashion designer Amy Coombes; and Heide Museum's Lesley Harding.
If you would like to come along, tickets are just $20 and available here. The event is a fundraiser for RMIT's Diploma of Visual Arts end of year exhibition.
The details:
Thursday September 12, 2013 6.30pm Student Academic Building Building 80, Level 2, Room 7 445 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Hope to see you there!
Interview: Laura Blythman
By Andrea McArthur
This is the story of a creative woman from Melbourne who moved to Geelong and whose design and illustration work has an interesting balance of being commercial and yet quirky and personal all at the same time. One thing is certain though, Laura Blythman's work will make you smile from ear to ear.
Laura is renowned for her vibrant colour palette and cheeky sentiments. Her design and illustration style is instantly recognisable and increasingly sought after, having designed for some of Australia's biggest stationery brands. Laura’s designs can be found nationally through her work with A Skulk of Foxes, Typo, Click On Furniture, Lark, Peachy Gift, Mr.Wolf, Cotton On Kids, T2 teas, Zoo York, Kiitos – Living By Design, Swan Emporium, La De Dah Kids and Stuck On You.
What led you down your current path?
I pretty much spent my whole childhood cutting and pasting and drawing and I was always in awe of everything creative so when it came time to consider careers I just assumed graphic design would be my gig. Of course, as a teenager, my imagined ‘dream world’ of graphic design narrowly involved designing posters and CD covers for my favourite bands and that’s about all. I spent a few years after high school being 'floaty' (and had a short stint as a hairdressing apprentice!) but a friend gently nudged me in the direction of The Australian Academy of Design and three years later I’d scored myself a BA in Graphic Design and a job at Hallmark Cards Australia.
I spent three years at Hallmark designing an unimaginable number of greeting cards as well as gift packaging, stationery and so on. I moved on to designing boutique wedding stationery for Cristina Re and then I teamed up with a friend and we focused on surface and pattern design for papers, stationery and home wares. When an amazing senior design opportunity popped up at the newest stationery brand on the block, I pounced in it! At Typo I got to indulge in everything I love most – range design, illustration and creative direction for a massive scope of stationery and home decor products as well as the design and management of the Cotton On Yardage library, focussing mostly on textile patterns for Cotton On Kids and Body.
During these years I also worked on small, freelance jobs designing branding and collateral for start-up businesses or textile designs and so when I left Typo to have my baby Alexander almost three years ago, I amped up my own brand and I've been freelancing ever since, and LOVING it.
You recently said farewell to the Oh! Hello Geelong blog that you developed and wrote with Penny Phipps. The blog was a great success and was featured on The Design Files. Can you tell us about that?
Yes, sadly it was time to bid farewell to our blog this year. I won’t be writing or contributing content any longer but it has been left in very capable and clever hands. I think readers will love the fresh perspective of the new girls Nat and Jen. I’ll miss it a little but it was one of those side projects that grew huge and life got a bit too busy to fit it all in. I’ll still contribute illustrations as needed and possibly even one day create an updated version of the Geelong Map Poster. I’m moving home to Melbourne very soon so maybe a Melbourne map will be next on the cards. I love creating maps and can’t wait to work on the next one.
What future plans do you have for your creative business?
I’ve had some truly amazing opportunities coming my way of late so the plan is to pretty much stick to the path I’m on. I’m absolutely bursting with ideas and wish lists of things to create and share so I’m keen to find some more time to work on my own projects and become a fully-fledged ‘pie hands’. Variety keeps me very happy. I hope to continue working on more and more collaborative projects, designing and illustrating for fun products and ranges, working with new brands and fab clients and hopefully some high profile clients too! I’d love to work on a new collection of artwork which I will hopefully exhibit somewhere…
Another thing I’m looking forward to once I’m back in Melbourne is making plans to move the ‘studio’ out of my home. I absolutely love working in shared studio spaces as I go a bit crazy on my own sometimes.
Do you have any advice for growing a client base?
I met a lot of great contacts in those first few years of working for other people’s businesses and it has kind of organically grown from there. In many ways your work speaks for itself. If people like what they see the opportunities arise from that. Other than that, be kind but not a pushover and work really, really hard.
Who do you admire in the industry?
Oh, I admire so many clever people, brands and businesses for many different reasons. Internationally I'm loving creatives such as: Ashley Goldberg, Ma + Chr, Jessica Hische, Lab Partners, Dana Tanamachi, Julia Pott, and Lisa Congdon. Locally I'm blown away by the work of so many amazing creatives including: Miranda Skoczek, Bridget Bodenham, Lucas Grogan, Harvest Textiles… Really, there are so many more. Far too many to list.
What has been your most favourite project in recent years?
I really loved the opportunity I was given earlier this year to create a new and huge body of work for my solo exhibition (Love, Lyrics, Neon). So many great things, amazing opportunities and collaborations have stemmed from that mammoth effort and collection of work…
Jobs that have elements of both custom illustration and a high level of involvement in creating the brief and setting the style direction for the job are my faves. Illustrating the Geelong Map for The Design Files was a super proud moment. And I loved part one of my collaboration with A Skulk Of Foxes (wooden iPhone covers) so I’m super excited to release some more products with them soon!
What does a typical day at work involve for you?
I only get a few precious full days of work a week so I squeeze as much as possible into these days. The early hours are consumed with trying to convince my 2-year-old that’s it’s a good idea to get dressed, eat something (that isn't dessert) and hop into the car for a fun day at childcare. Neither of us are morning people at all. After I drop him off I grab a drive-thru coffee on the way back to my studio where I park my butt and pretty much don’t move for the rest of day. I begin with consulting the list of ‘to do’s’ (which I generally create the night before) then I cram in an insane amount of emailing, client correspondence, more list making, drawing, planning, scanning, designing, invoice making and estimate creating as well as a bit of making, packing and posting orders from my online shop.
Every day is different and I tend to share the love between a few clients throughout the day. The day always goes waaaay too fast and I find myself also working into the night once my little boy is asleep. The night sessions are mostly saved for my own projects, drawing, packing orders, making custom orders or just catching up on emails… I love the days when I have to travel for meetings or pop out on client or retail visits as I get a bit of change of scenery.
5 Questions in 5 minutes
Getting Personal:
Studio Sounds, what's playing?
At the moment I'm playing a big mix of inc. Theophilus London, Arcade Fire, Chet Faker, Haim, Alpine, Bat For Lashes, The Smiths, Chvches, Yo La Tengo… I can’t work without music.
What are you currently reading?
I’ve just started to read my late Great Aunty Marion’s ‘memoirs’ for the second time. It’s not a published book – it’s just a massive wad of photocopied typed pages in an big black plastic binder – included are some cheeky ‘note’ pages inserted here and there, written by my Pa, Frank. He doesn’t agree with everything Marion recalls and wrote. It’s such a nice insight into the lives of my grandparents and great grandparents.
What are you looking forward to?
- The release of some fun client and collaborative projects I’ve been working on and also starting work on some new exciting projects, collabs and big fun things. Can’t wait to share.
- ‘Fieldtrip’ Jacky Winters creative conference in Sydney! It will be a nice and mini creative break.
- I’m also starting to plan for my first proper holiday in years – hopefully Bali this time next year with my little guy.
Can you share your go to resource for motivation?
- The usual offenders: Instagram, Pinterest
- Creative blogs like: Design Love Fest, Design For Mankind.
- Also love reading design/freelance advice by: Jessica Hische and Bri Emery/Katie Evans.
What is your local area’s best kept secret?
Hmmm… I’m not sure it’s really a secret anymore, but my favourite place in Geelong for a delicious feed, yum drinks, good music and a nice crowd is ‘There There’ – Bar + Restaurant. Love it. I also love heading down the highway to Melbourne for my city culture fix. I can’t wait to move home (Melbourne) in January and discover some cool new places. It feels like I have been away for a very long time.
To see more of Laura's work or make contact with her please visit: website www.laurablythman.com.au webshop www.laurablythman.bigcartel.com email laura@laurablythman.com.au instagram @laurablythman twitter @hellolaurahere facebook www.facebook.com/LauraBlythmanishere
Andrea McArthur has a passion for all things visual. Type is her true love and goes weak at the knees over beautiful design. Andrea works as a freelance graphic designer in Brisbane by day and lectures in graphic design by night. You will find her sharing design related goodness via @andyjane_mc
Keeping your social media looking fresh
By Susan Goodwin Your blog and website are still your best tools in your social media arsenal as they are the ones that often inform your customer the most about your business and encourage enquiries and sales. So keeping your website or blog looking fresh and working correctly is vital.
Every so often I like to do a bit of a check of the following things on my own website and social media platforms:
Broken website links
I go back into the archives and choose posts at random to ensure they are still working and links are directing readers to appropriate and active content.
Social media icons and widgets are up to date and importing correctly
This is vitally important if you have changed your handle or use a different name on every type of social media e.g. business on the blog, personal name for Facebook, nickname on twitter etc. Consider streamlining your social media by only using one name or variations of your name to avoid confusing your customer. Or if that's not a possibility, ensure all links are directing customers from your website to your social media and vice versa.
Refresh avatar
I've recently made my avatar more professional and relevant to my work. I love my cat, but a photo of her big furry belly in the sun is not necessarily the best way for me to advertise my business to all my Facebook and Twitter customers.
Refresh headers and backgrounds
While I'm refreshing my avatar, I often add a new header to my Facebook page, a new background to my Twitter page and freshen up the header on the top of my blog. Think of these items like the front windows of the big department stores. Sometimes a new and interesting front window is all it takes to entice a customer in the door and make a purchase.
Check SEO (search engine optimisation) words and make sure every word in there is relevant
If your work and focus has changed dramatically since you last updated your website, then consider resubmitting your website to Google. This is a super simple process and can help bump up the way people find you via searches.
By regularly maintaining your online presence and social media platforms, your website will always be working for you and your social media will evoke a consistent and professional look and feel. That doesn't mean it has to be strait laced and boring - it can be full of personality - but your main goal should be making it easy for your fans to find and interact with you with ease. The benefits will be endless!
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Susan Goodwin is the designer, sewer and creator of Rocket Fuel, ensuring you are decked out in style while cycling. Read her blog or follow her on Twitter @rocketfuelstyle.