It’s much easier to stick to a habit if you make it a daily habit. For my whole adult life, I’ve been trying to make a habit out of going to the gym and exercising regularly. I had always assumed that exercising 3 or 4 times a week was enough, so I set rules for…
[Continue Reading]Mindset
Red Zone
My bank warns me that my spendings this month have reached the red zone. Actually, not just “reached” — they are at the absolute top of the red zone: I don’t even remember a month when I was in the orange zone, I have always kept to the green one. But this month I had…
[Continue Reading]Sabotage
Recently someone asked for opinions about their designs. But they insisted on receiving “positive feedback only”. What do you say to that? My standard response is, of course, to stay silent. If they haven’t asked for honest feedback, then it’s pointless to impose my opinion on them. But I can’t help feeling that they are…
[Continue Reading]Making a children’s book – some notes
A few weeks ago, my brother and I started working on our first children’s book about cats. This is a good time to write a bit about the process and why we decided on this project. From the start it was a challenge: Both my brother and I are artists, but we make designs for…
[Continue Reading]Start before you are ready
When I started making designs for apparel in 2012, I could see that my designs weren’t that good. Nevertheless, I submitted them all to Teefury. Sure enough, Teefury didn’t want them. I received rejection email after rejection email. But I kept at it and slowly improved. I sent all my designs, regardless of how I…
[Continue Reading]Unique beliefs
I’ve been reading “Oversubscribed” by Daniel Priestley. You should read it too. It’s full of insights that will make you consider your goals and how you approach your work. I will write more about it when I finish it, but here’s one question that was asked at the beginning of the book: What are your…
[Continue Reading]Ask people to be harsh
This is something that happens too often. It goes like this: An artist posts their art, or a writer posts their story. And they ask for feedback: “do you like it?” Or like this: “tell me what you think, please be kind” Some try to guilt you into feeling sufficiently awed: “what do you think…
[Continue Reading]How to spook an artist
I have been an artist for a while and I know a lot of artists. Sometimes, instead of making art, we do what other humans do — talk. Every now and then a topic of this one scary thing comes up and everyone chimes in with methods on how to deal with it. If you…
[Continue Reading]How 50% off sale punishes an artist
It doesn’t. But we will get to it in a moment. First, let’s see why so many artists think that it is wrong and unfair when there is a site-wide sale and items with their art are sold for a discounted price. Every few weeks every website that sells clothes runs a sale. And when…
[Continue Reading]Lulled
Matt worked at a large company producing branded fruit juices. He was a marketing director, one of the four marketing directors there. But when the profits decreased the company restructured, laid off hundreds of people, and fired 3 of the 4 directors. Matt was one of them. They let him keep his business car. I…
[Continue Reading]You will not starve
I watched Brandon Sanderson‘s keynote speech “Ten Things I Wish I’d Known as a Teen Author” and one thing stuck with me. When he was young people discouraged him from becoming a writer, they thought he would be unemployed. They told him that it was a one in a million chance. It’s the same with…
[Continue Reading]Designers give up on passive income
Earn passive income. Upload your designs to one of the websites that will sell your art and you won’t have to spend any more time on that.
[Continue Reading]No sales? Read this.
I belong to a few Facebook groups for designers and there’s one topic that keeps coming up, though it’s usually asked in various ways: “No one buys my designs. Am I doing something wrong?” “How to get customers?” “I uploaded 5 designs already and no sales! Why?” “Is it even possible to sell anything? Does…
[Continue Reading]Step out of your comfort zone
I was thinking about my first two jobs and that it was a good thing that they were just a bit too uncomfortable and forced me to find something else. Nowadays I like stepping outside of my comfort zone. That’s why I make games and why I started this blog. But back then I don’t…
[Continue Reading]My Grandma
Two days ago my grandma had trouble breathing and was feeling tired. My mom measured her blood pressure which was too high and then called a doctor at a local public clinic, described the symptoms, and told the doctor that she gave my grandma Nebilet to lower the blood pressure. The doctor consulted my grandma’s…
[Continue Reading]Pottery Class Story
The story goes like this: in a pottery class students were divided into two groups. Students in the first group were asked to make a perfect pot. Students in the second one were asked to make as many pots as they could. When all pots were compared it turned out that all the best pots…
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