Hey Friends
I Hope 2022 treated you well and that you’re excited for this upcoming year.
2023
This past year was great for both my personal development as a human, growth as a designer/artist in my personal work as well as growing my freelance and content side of the business as well.
Everything wasn’t sunshine and rainbows though, there were definitely some tough months this year in my personal life and as a freelancer. Nothing quite prepares you for being stressed out in your personal life while simultaneously worrying about when you're going to get paid because you haven’t had a client in 2 months or your money got locked by Square (Fuck you Square).
On a positive note though I wanted to highlight some cool things that got accomplished this year
2022 Accomplishments
Designed over 100 pieces of personal design work
grew my Instagram account to over 80k followers
grew the YT channel from 4,000 followers to over 26,000
Uploaded over 100 combined YT videos and Podcasts
Saved money for some upcoming vacations in 2023
Posted more consistently on this newsletter and the Patreon
Did more stuff IRL like hanging out with friends and going to events
+ Some other stuff that Im gonna keep personal and/or I can’t remember right now haha
Overall though I think I learned a lot this year and after reflecting a bit on what went right and wrong in 2022 I wanted to set some goals for 2023.
The thing about setting goals is there is a fine line between aiming for things that are so difficult you’ll probably not achieve them and be disappointed and then the other side of setting too easy of goals you don’t challenge yourself. With that being said though here’s my best shot at it lol.
2023 GOALS
Create at least 75 Personal Design Pieces
work with more and better clients
reach 100,000 subscribers on YouTube
Get invited to do some kind of conference/event/speaking gig
make 6 figures in income
be more active (Going for walks, rock climbing, riding bike)
Read more books
Hope you completed some of your goals and if not there is always next year! Feel free to comment down below some of your goals for 2023 or write me back:)
What I’m Working on
So I started on this cool client project recently where I am getting to create a bunch of social media assets. It’s been fun so far because the client this giving me a lot of creative control so I’m experimenting with some analog animation stuff, poster designs, and overall some nonboring stuff.
It’s nice when the client actually comes to you for you and is open to experimenting with new contemporary type designs stuff and doesn’t want to just play it safe. Another dope designer is also making stuff too so I’m excited for both of us to share when it's all live one early 2023
We started with making a collaborative mood board on Are.na and I gotta say I love it. They even suckered me into buying the premium subscription. I used to not like it much because it felt confusing /overcomplicated while too simple at the same time. Getting the Are.na chrome plugin has changed the game though. I can basically save anything interesting I find on the internet into nice curated little channels. If you haven’t used it before I suggest checking it out.
I have also been diving into a lot of old books and just walking around outside for inspiration. I get a lot of inspiration from old magazines I’ve found, design books I’ve collected, and then just walking around Los Angeles snapping some photos and scribbling down ideas in my notebook.
Where do you all go for inspiration? I’m curious to hear what some of the readers are into so feel free to link me anything cool!
Podcast
I just released a new podcast on Patreon! In this, episode I chat about AI art, the relationship between art/design, my thoughts on design repost accounts, and more!
If you’re new here my normal podcast is on hiatus and I have been just publishing solo ones here and there on Patreon. If you like this newsletter at all I’m sure you’d enjoy the Patreon and the podcast. Plus it supports your boy with a few bucks a month for all the content I try to pump out.
Also If you wanna check out the archive of all my old pods both solo and with guests, you can watch those here.
Either way, I hope you enjoy them and I appreciate all the people who watch and have watched the podcast in the past.
Stuff to Check Out!
Andrew Callaghan’s “This Place Rules” HBO Doc
Tweet of the week below
Closing Thoughts
New Year New Mii
Much Love, Glue.
Weekly Wrap Up
Last week’s video, New one tomorrow!
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