Let me tell you a story…

At the end of 2007 I gave away a free ebook to my customers over at IgniteLiving.com, another site of mine. At the time, the site was only a couple months old and had exactly 17 RSS subscribers.

My plan was to offer a great ebook that would attract some visitors and possibly some business. So, I wrote the book and designed the hell out of it. I gave it a slick cover, nice fonts and typography, a cool color scheme and made it available for free download.

When the post went live, a whole lot of nothing happened. Which is sort of what you’d expect of a site with 17 subscribers. But within a few days the ebook had been download dozens and dozens of times and my RSS subscriber count was going out the roof.

Even better, and far more important, were the comments and emails that started coming in. Relationships were blossoming all over the place, and before I knew it I’d made fast friends with quite a lot of people. And as will happen anywhere real relationships are born, a few of those connections were very valuable and are providing income to this very day.

All of that from one 30-page ebook that I published almost two years ago to a handful of people.

Of course, I designed it myself so it didn’t cost me a dime, but even if I’d paid $500 for it, it would have been well worth the price. (Oh, and don’t worry…$500 is NOT what I charge to design a 30-page book

Now, let’s ask the obvious question. Would all that profit have happened, would all those relationships have been made if my ebook had been some hideous beast? No way in the furthest reaches of the icy plains of Hell.

So, read this and remember it well:

Every single thing you produce right now, whether it’s an ebook or something else, free or not, IS a pre-launch to any future project you have.

The quality of what you do and produce right now is a barometer and compelling factor (good or bad) for anything you sell down the road.

So, yes, be productive and be proactive. Get your stuff out there, but make it good, because people DO judge books by their covers.

And if you need help making it good, contact me and I’ll certainly help you out. You will probably get famous and end up on TV.

Web 2.0 style, which is/was great in its own right, gave us a lot of slick glossiness that was almost too perfect. It’s only natural that a new style would emerge, one that would act as a counterpoint to all that.

That’s where these sketch icons come in. They’re the perfect contrast for any Web 2.0 design you may have, and they’ll fit right in with anything you’re working on that needs a more organic feel.

About the hand-drawn icons

These were all drawn by me. On paper. With a pen. Then I scanned them in and cleaned them up (but not too much) in Illustrator.

Each icon is a jpeg and comes in two sizes: 48×48 and 96×96 pixels. Each is dark greyish on a white background. You want more info than that, you’ll just have to download them!

I hope you enjoy these and are able to add some human touch to your design projects. And when you do use them, feel free to send me a link and I’ll feature your work (if it’s awesome).

Download Your Free Sketch Icons Here!
Downloaded 6363 times

Been playing around in After Effects a bit recently, and it is the bee’s knees I tell you. Brilliant program with which you can make pretty much anything look entirely bitchin. You put in some lousy pictures, add your dumb ideas and push the “Make Something Awesome” button and stuff like this is what comes out. Just click the image above to watch the animation. It’s about 3MB and may take a sec to load.

Have a look-see and let me know what you think. Oh, and as a warning there is sound in this file, so if you’re at work or next to a sleeping baby, take note.

Technical stuff for those who I know will be curious:

• All animations were done in After Effects.
• The flock of birds is actually just one static bird vector designed in Illlustrator. Brought into After Effects, that single bird acts as a particle which is continuously emitted using Trapcode Particular. And then some mathematical trig-like expressions control the randomity of the flapping and the flock as a whole, so they don’t all fly as one and look too contrived.
• “Music” or sound effects or whatever that is was composed in Reason and keyed in After Effects.

Hope you like. Much more of this stuff to come.

But the truth is, ebooks are our specialty.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ve bought a few ebooks and downloaded even more free ones over the years. With all this exposure, I bet we could agree on this fact:

All ebooks are not created equal

The vast majority of ebooks I’ve seen are either hideous or just adequate. Very very rarely have I seen one that was professional enough, in my opinion, to market.

Well, hideous doesn’t work. And just adequate isn’t going to earn you a lot of customers either.

So I’m announcing, right here in bold type:

The Charfish Ebook and Document Design Service!

What’s the difference between your average ebook and a professional one? I’ll show you.

Here’s the average ebook:

The average ebook looks a lot like that one, right? It’s black on white and looks like the author just chose a standard Word template and called it a day. No color, no visual cues to pull the reader along, nothing. Just….blah.

Anyone can make an ebook like that. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t.

Here’s what you need, a professional ebook designed by Charfish!

Now, that’s an ebook! And those improvements are only a handful of the dozens that are possible.

We’ve got more posts, more examples and more information about this service coming up soon, but consider this our official announcement. Charfish is here, and from what our clients are saying, we’re dominating the ebook design field.

If you have any questions or any projects on the cooker, we are here for you and ready to get started on your ebook design. Contact us now to reserve a spot for the new year!

And if you want more info about our design services, Subscribe Now to get our posts hot off the press.

If content, as they say, is king, then the readability of that content must be a close second. After all, it doesn’t matter how good your content is if it can’t or won’t be read.

So here you are. You’ve written the blog post to end all blog posts. Or the sales letter that will surely make you six-figures over night. You post it online, sit back to watch the readers flood in, and KAZAAM! Nothing. No sales, no reader comments, no bump in subscribers, nothing.

You look at your site to troubleshoot it. It looks good. The text size is big enough to be read. The content is great; no typos. You already fixed the problems of having chartreuse, mauve and bile colored fonts all in the same paragraph. It all looks good.

But…there is something, isn’t there? Something a bit funky is catching your eye, and you may not quite be able to put your finger on it.

What’s the culprit? Very possibly it’s line height.

Okay, so that intro was a bit dramatic. I don’t know if line height alone is going to destroy your site and create a zero-sales situation. But it is going to wreck your site’s legibility. And if your site can’t be read comfortably, then, yeah. You’re going to lose readers and money.

100% on the line height test means you fail

If you go into your site’s style sheets and search for “line-height” you may not find it. This isn’t a good sign, as it means your text is defaulting to 100% line height.

I know, 100% sounds good, right? “Hey, Mom! I got 100% on my tests! And I still have 100% of my body parts!”

Well, I assure you, if your line height is 100%, you get a big F on this test. In fact, you’ll probably get suspended from school when the dean finds the 101 Surefire Ways to Have Lousy Typography on Your Site book you have hidden in your locker.

Default, 100% line height sounds good and like it must be right. But in this case, it means that you’re settling for some odd standard that was probably set a gazillion years ago by some guy who carved out stone tablets.

Standard default line height on the web looks awful. It’s cramped, constipated, blocky and doesn’t breathe.

Want proof? Here’s what all the text on this site would look like if I’d left it at default.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec pede magna, porta non, tincidunt vel, ultricies non, nisl. Ut porttitor enim quis lacus. In risus. Proin at tortor ac ligula malesuada varius. Praesent ipsum erat, iaculis quis, condimentum vitae, placerat quis, tortor. Proin sagittis lobortis massa.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec pede magna, porta non, tincidunt vel, ultricies non, nisl. Ut porttitor enim quis lacus. In risus. Proin at tortor ac ligula malesuada varius. Praesent ipsum erat, iaculis quis, condimentum vitae, placerat quis, tortor. Proin sagittis lobortis massa.

Yuck, right?

So what is a good line height?

So now we come to the solution portion of the post, where we discuss how much line height we really need. Too little line height, as we’ve seen, is not a good thing. But too much of it is also a bad thing.

You want enough space between lines so that your text isn’t cramped, but not so much space that each sentence looks like its own new paragraph.

A good rule of thumb is to set the line-height of your web copy to 140% or so.

The text you’re reading right now is at 145%. (It may be different if you’re reading this in an RSS reader, I don’t know.) I chose 145% over 140% on purpose and for a couple reasons.

First, my body text uses a serif font called Georgia. Serifs inherently make the letters seem slightly bigger, tighter and more busy. Sans-serif fonts aren’t quite as busy visually, so you may not need quite as much line height.

Second, Charfish is a spacious site. I wanted even the text to breathe well and have plenty of white space, which suits the somewhat minimal design. The eye isn’t confused here by closely-packed sentences or dangly letters that run into the lines below. It just works. And that’s what proper web design is all about.

And speaking of proper web design, we’ve still got eight more posts coming up in this Better Website Series. Subscribe now and you won’t miss a single one of them!

Before we get rolling on this post, let’s define what an eye trail is. No, it’s not where you take your eyes out for a nature walk. Nor is an eye trail what Hansel and Gretel left in the woods to find their way back home from the witch’s house.

An eye trail is the path your eye takes as it’s lead from visual element to visual element.

Note the passive sense of that: your eye is being lead. It’s not necessarily what your eye is looking for.

Let’s look at some eye trails

I’m going to show you some screenshots, and as you look at them note what your eye does and where it goes. It’ll all happen pretty much on auto-pilot so pay close attention. Here’s the first one.

Hopefully that first screenshot looked really really familiar. If not, please take a moment to ensure that your eyes are, in fact, in the open position. When you looked at the Charfish screenshot, there’s a high probability that your eye traveled the following trail.

Am I close? Did your eyes follow that trail? I certainly hope so, as I designed this site to do just that, and if it doesn’t I’m an abject failure. I wanted the eye to go immediately to the biggest/boldest element: the header. Why? That’s my brand. It’s who this site is and is the most readily recognizable and stable element. When people come back to this site they see the brand and think, “I’m at Charfish.” Or maybe they say, “Wait a second, how’d I end up here? I hate Charfish.” Either way, the brand is recognizable and I win.

Then the eye goes over to the sidebar and the RSS icon. That’s perfectly fine with me as I want people to know (1) how to navigate, and (2) that they can subscribe. Subscribers build community and ultimately make this a better and more useful site for all involved.

Then there’s the content itself, with the post’s image probably being the first way-stop for your eyes. And again, that’s fine. If you choose an effective image, it will interest the reader and they’ll want to find out what your post is all about. And it’s easy to find the post as the headline is a different color and bolder than the rest of the copy.

Now here’s a different sort of screenshot. Again, pay attention to where your eye is automatically lead.

Your visitor’s eyes will go to the biggest, darkest or most vibrant element first. Then the next one and the next one. I know, that’s not much of a screenshot. It’s just a bunch of grey boxes of different sizes, but I did this on purpose to make a point: this isn’t confusing stuff.

You don’t need to find color combos that are NASA-approved, or mathematically determine the proportions of every single font on your site, or calculate what the air pressure will be at 8:30 in the morning in Tonga to figure out where your visitor’s eyes are going to go. They’ll go to the biggest/darkest/most vibrant element first. Then the next one and the next one.

Now, here’s the third screenshot.

I’m sure you recognize that screenshot. If not, please check in immediately with your doctor as you may very well be dead. I choose Google’s homepage for a very good reason: it’s damn near blank and there’s really only one big element on it.

And, yup, there’s still an eye trail.

I’ll bet your eye traveled this well-planned path while looking at the Google site:

Actually, I just had a great idea. You’re about to get an extra bonus.

Let’s compare Google’s homepage with that of their rival Yahoo!.

Um…yeah. Nice job, Yahoo!. Their eye trail would be perfect if my eyes were training for the Ironman triathlon. Did your eyes make a path like mine did?

That’s why Google is reigning king of search engines, and why I personally never go to Yahoo! Unless I’m taking screenshots with which to make to fun of them. I look at Yahoo!’s home page and ask myself this question, which is a good question you should ask of your own websites:

What the hell am I supposed to be doing?

Yahoo!’s page is almost entirely navigation. There isn’t really any content. When I was making this experiment for the first time, the only element my eye was drawn to read was a headline explaining that Hugh Jackman is the sexiest man alive.

Now, while Hugh might very well be sexier than me, Yahoo! is making a pretty bold assumption that I give a shit. Moreover, their entire homepage, as evidenced by their tortuous eye trail, makes the assumption that I don’t have a clue what I’m looking for, so they might as well just show me everything.

Google on the other hand knows we’re smart and leaves it up to us to find what we want. Google figured out a long time ago that all we really need is a search box. And the eye trail is also their proof.

The practical application of eye trails

So what do we do with all this information? And why do we care if we’re not a search engine, or if we’re just trying to get some average traffic to our average site?

Well, it matters in a few different ways.

Page views per visitor

Whatever stat/analytics program you use (you are using one, right?) you should note what your total page views per visitor is currently. Is it low? Say below 2?

Low page views per visitor can really only mean a couple things:

• Your content sucks
• Your content is discursive and covers too many topics
• Your content is great, but people are having trouble getting around in it

I mean, think about it. If your content is excellent and on topic, there’s no reason why someone wouldn’t play around in your site for longer and find even more great content. If you currently find yourself saying, “My content is great but people don’t really seem to stick around much,” you may have found the culprit: eye trails. Without an eye trail, your site is hard to read, hard to get around in.

Time spent on site

Again, we’re assuming here that your content is itself pretty solid. But if you’re seeing high bounce rates and low time-on-site stats, your content isn’t the issue. Ease of use is.

Marketers

Money-making alert! Lousy click rates, low sales and copy that doesn’t perform might very well be the result of poor eye trails. Sales copy is designed to be read and to acquire clicks. While strong copy will ensure this happens for the most part, without eye trails, those long-form sales letters don’t often get read. That’s why you see so many of them with images, bulleted lists, fat red fonts and fancy “click now” buttons. These elements all pull the eye through the page, while along the way the reader picks up content that gets him interested and ultimately leads to a sale.

So what do we do now

Well, for now, nothing. Before you go making any drastic changes to your site, let’s finish up this series. The upcoming posts, while they don’t deal directly with eye trails, do touch on elements and ingredients of those eye trails. It’s a pretty good bet that after you’ve read all ten parts, you’ll have a solid idea of what needs changing.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a few things. If not, well, I’ve got nine more opportunities to say something intelligent as this series continues. Subscribe now to catch the upcoming episodes.

Somewhere, wallowing in the gigantic sea that is the internet, is your site.

It’s not alone. It’s got a lot of neighbors and more than 100,000 new ones every single day. Is your site down there at the bottom, in the cold darkness with the suckerfish? Or is it up at the top where food is plenty and the sunlight still streams in?

If I were to venture a guess, I’d say your site is somewhere in the middle. After all, you’re here at Charfish and you’re reading this blog post. That means you probably already care about design. And if you care about design, you certainly aren’t wallowing around at the bottom of the ocean with the rusty old anchors.

But what can we do to get your site a little closer to the surface, where the sun is warm and you’re more visible to the world at large? Well, lots of things. Way more than 10 but that’s the number we’re going to deal with in this series.

The 10 ways to make your website look better series is going to deal with each of these in detail:

1. Eye trails
• Does your site effectively lead your visitors’ eyes? And if so, where does it lead them to? It may seem like a small detail, but if you’re not leading them somewhere, you can bet the one thing they’ll be looking for is the “Back” button.
2. Line-height
• Wouldn’t it be nice if you could add a bunch of luscious white space to your site with one simple line of code? Well you can, and it could make a world of difference.
3. Color Unity
• Gone are the days of using every color of the rainbow in your site. People know better now. But while you’re busy not making that mistake, are you making others? Or, the more subtle possibility, is your site just being…average?
4. Paragraph breaks
• Everything your language professor taught you was wrong. Okay…not everything. But he certainly made a bad call on this one.
5. Images
• It’s good to have images in your posts. But where do you put them? Are you actually making your website less usable and less friendly by poor image placement?
6. Contrast
• There are no faster ways to make a website less legible and more annoying than dealing poorly with contrast. Here’s what and what not to do.
7. Advertising
• There’s nothing really wrong with advertising on your site. Anyone who tells you so is jealous of your income or is just a generally smelly person. That said, there are numerous ways to advertise really really poorly. This post will teach you about effective advertising design and show you how to make a few extra bucks. This post alone is well worth its weight in pixels.
8. Font fun
• We know about bold and italics. But is that all we can do to make our fonts a little more fun and our sites a little more user friendly? Nope, and I’ve got a couple ways for you to improve your site in about three minutes
9. Discipline your fonts!
• Fonts are fun and there are plenty of insanely bitchin ones out there. But how do you choose which is best for your site? Which ones go in the header and which in the body copy? How about the headers and impulse copy?
10. Size problems, aerial photos and magnifying glasses
• Look, I may have lousy eyesight but you don’t need to rub it in. And what’s with the medley of sizes and shapes? Is this an IQ test or something?

This is going to be a great series, full of simple and fast changes you can make to your site to bring it to a higher level of professionalism.

You’re not going to want to miss any of these posts so Subscribe now!

While there was really nothing wrong with the old site, it was nonetheless a bit drab. It was drab in a pretty interesting way, but for a design blog, still pretty drab. The mundane quality of it actually deterred me from updating the blog as much as I’d like. It’s really no fun writing content for a blog that personally makes you go, “…meh.” It’s like putting on a silk suit after a hard day’s work in the sun, and not taking a shower first.

The new Charfish theme is based off a theme by Derek Powazek called Depo Clean. I’m a super picky guy when it comes to clean code and having things arranged in a logical manner. I’ve been disappointed by popular and often expensive Wordpress themes which have code so messy that altering it was like a trip to the dentist. Derek’s theme is not like this. It’s clean and beautiful and working with it was a pleasure. You Premium theme sellers should take note.

Things that may be of interest

• The Archives page is stellar, if I say so myself. Which I just did. It’s neat, tidy and shows everything I’ve done here at Charfish.
• The Portfolio has been redone and updated with some recent work. A lot of the work in the portfolio was produced as a joint effort with Men with Pens and has been noted as such. To read more about my relationship with Men with Pens, read the original post by Pen Man James. I couldn’t say it any better than he does.
• A slick new 404 Error page. Hey…just because it’s an error page doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, right?

What’s not new

The content itself is the same as it was, although I did delete a couple posts that were redundant to things already in the Portfolio. I also got rid of a couple categories that were bulking things up unnecessarily. But everything that was here before is still here in one place or another. If you discover any broken links in the coming months, give me a shout. In exchange I’ll shower you with my choice of either money or thanks.

The hook. That’s right. I actually had one very specific request to NOT get rid of the hook. (Thanks, Kelly!) It’s still here. Not as much as the old site, but it’s here and wearing a new tux. By the way…if you need proof that branding matters, this paragraph speaks volumes.

Now what?

If it seems that Charfish is a foundering blog or small design firm that does one logo every trimester, don’t let appearances fool you. This is a very busy little design firm and things don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

That said, I’m first and foremost a writer. So while I may be designing a lot behind the scenes, I’d sure like to be writing more. And that’s what I’ll be doing, so you can expect more blog posts on a regular basis. Topics of note will be:

• Basics of Design
• Real, usable, applicable tips on freelancing
• Tutorials on Illustrator, Photoshop, Cinema 4D and After Effects
• Case studies on real-life projects
• Process studies
• A gazillion other things

What I’d like help with

While the readers here aren’t many, I can say that we’re a closely knit little bunch. As you can tell from the redesign, I do care what you think. I’d like to open up the comments to your thoughts on the redesign, topics you’d like to see here, etc. If you don’t feel like baring yourself to the public, feel free to drop me an email instead. But either way, I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for sticking with me through the rough stages. Here’s to the future!

Where have I been?

I’ve been right here. Yup, the whole time.

There. Wasn’t that fun?

In all truth I’ve been busy. Insanely so. 18-hour days sort of busy. At the current moment I’ve got 16 projects cooking all at the same time.

They say if you need something done, give it to a busy man. Well, that’s me. In the past couple months I’ve done everything: album covers, book covers, book design, some writing gigs, about 8000 website/blog designs and about triple that in headers and banners.

I haven’t blogged because, well, I’ve been busy with the things that pull in the dough.

That’s not totally cool to you readers, though, is it? From the comments and emails I’ve gotten here at Charfish, I know a small number of readers (zero) care about how much money I’m making or how busy I am. The more popular posts here are about how to run a business, how to design, things like that. Having realized that, I can start cranking out some more content for you.

Where is this blog going?

To the moon, that’s where. What I’ve got planned for the next couple months:

A brand new design

Why a new design? Because it’s time, that’s why. For a design blog, Charfish is a bit subdued. The new version will also be subdued, but subdued in a way that totally kicks subdued ass.

Want to see a preview? Here you go:

That’s all you get.

Cinema 4D experiments and tutorials

I’ve had some questions about how I’ve done certain 3D models and designs, and in response I plan on releasing a series of tutorials about just that. The tutorials will cover not only software specific workflows and such, but will also discuss why certain decisions were made compositionally. A 3D model still has to be captured properly and with an eye to final layout.

After Effects experiments and tutorials

There seems to be a growing fascination with After Effects and I’m a victim of that myself. I try, every day, to at least do a little something in After Effects. It is a limitless program with which you can create some of the most insanely interesting effects with just a few minutes. I’m going to be sharing some of the experiments I’ve been making as well as creating some tutorials around them. The tutorials will be created if there seems to be interest so be sure and comment.

More frequent blog posting

Yay! One of the reasons I haven’t posted much is that, frankly, the upcoming blog design will house the blog posts I have in mind much better than the current one. Charfish is going to be more of a multimedia experience with tutorial videos, animation experiments, etc. and the new version will do them justice!

Case studies of real-life projects

Another type of question I get quite regularly is, “How did you start?” or “What’s your background?” The answer, which I won’t get into here, would certainly surprise a good 90% of you. The new blog will answer all those questions.

And so will my book.

Wait, what book?

I’m writing a book about how to run a successful design business. I will probably call it something really appropriate, like:
How to Run a Successful Design Business

Running a design business is about 10% design and about 90% other things, like workflow, bookkeeping, marketing, customer relations, etc.

I love the business I’m in because I’ve figured out how to extract maximum happiness from it. And the income is good. And the clients and connections you make are great. It’s not just another job.

BUT, it certainly could be if you do it wrong, and that’s where the book comes in. There’s really no reason to be self-employed and stressed out beyond belief. I mean, why not just get a “real” job? You’ll be just as stressed, but at least you’ll have a steady paycheck, right?

There’s an art to running a design business. Especially when you’re doing about 90% of it yourself. I’m hoping my new book will help shed some light on the subject and help out newcomers to the field as well old-timers who may be feeling the stress.

Another book about design

Another book? Yes, another book. Why? Because you all keep asking for it!

“What do I need to know to get started in this career?”
“Do I need a portfolio or diploma or something?”
“Am I a failure if I don’t know about the golden proportion?”

These are the real questions that prompted the book.

Here’s the thing: I don’t have a background in graphic design. Nor am I all that smart. I couldn’t develop a software application if my child’s life depended on it, which makes it very fortunate that I don’t own a child.

My design career started the very second I got a client and no sooner. Everything I’ve learned about design and websites and code and all that stuff was learned on the job. What’s the point? The point is that I’ve learned through fire and brimstone how to deliver.

Now…I’m not perfect. I’ve been fired by a client before. I’ve had a client drop completely out of communication with me for reasons that I can only assume are my fault. But…the percentage of happy customers is a mile long and the list of the latter type is, as of this writing, 3. Long story short, I know how to design, but it’s not because of any schooling or formal training.

I put off this career for a LONG time, thinking I didn’t have what it takes. That I was too inexperienced. Or a thousand other excuses. Once I started, everything I needed to know came very quickly.

I’m hoping my book will shortcut this process for you. It’s really a distillation of everything I know. Honestly. It’s probably going to sell for about $10,987 because of all the info I’m putting into it.

To the future

I have to thank you for your patience so far. I haven’t posted in a while, but despite that, my RSS numbers are on a steady increase. That means someone’s doing a better job of spreading the word than I am. Thank you.

But your patience will be rewarded with an all new, improved beyond all recognition, Charfish Design. It’s only a week or so away (crosses fingers) so…just a little more patience, please.

I’ll see you on the other side with some insanely great and useful content.

This site and the company behind it began as a design firm in mid-2007. Actually, Charfish was around long before that, but 2007 saw it registered as a legal, tax-paying LLC.

At its inception we (or rather I, since it was still a one-man-band at that time) were a design firm. My intention was to do top-end web and blog design. I did exactly that for about two weeks.

And then they came.

Clients. They kept coming and they kept bringing more. Questions like, “Well, you’ve designed our banner, why don’t you just design our whole site?” became more and more common. As did, “If you can design websites, you can probably design books as well, right? Why don’t you design my ebook for me?”

One job grew into another job, design clients became writing clients, they told their friends and as we hammered out one job after another my dream of being a successful designer started to fray around the edges.

How I define success

For some people success is being staggeringly rich. Others think it’s having a company, or quitting their job, or finding a lake of oil buried underneath their backyard. For me, success is simple:

1. Make money doing what I love
2. Help others along the way
3. Have my business run smoothly enough that I’m not tied to it at all times

The first two on that list were checked off as “complete” my first day in business. The last one has been, frankly, a joke. There were very few clients of mine who didn’t receive an email from me at 11pm, midnight or even much later. Those aren’t standard business hours for most people, but for us entrepreneurs it’s all too common and I don’t really want to go that route.

The line in the sand

As part of my personal life policy, I don’t do business while I’m out with people. If I’m being a friend, I’m being a friend. If I’m on a date, I’m on a date. I never interrupt a good conversation by answering the phone. I don’t email during dinner and I don’t do business calls unless I’m at the office doing business. It’s just poor manners to do otherwise, for my friends and clients both.

But the line started to blur. I’d feel my phone vibrate or hear the email “ding” notifying me that someone had written and I’d think “Shit…should I get that?”

As a solo entrepreneur I was doing far more than my 24-hour days were comfortably allowing. And seeing as how I like to sleep at least 6 hours a night, my remaining 18 hours were starting to blow chunks. Each day would see a little of:

• Marketing
• Correspondence
• Administration
• Studying up on emerging technologies to keep up with the game
• Editing
• Writing
• Designing
• Keeping up my blogs
• Working on my side projects (of which there are 3 MAJOR ones)
• Invoicing
• Consulting
• Fielding random questions

This stuff adds up. And every day there was more and more.

To the rescue!

How does a control freak like myself give up some of his business to run under the auspices of others?

Very carefully.

The process consists of finding people who are good at what they do, who lead clean lives, and trusting them and letting them do their jobs. That’s exactly what we’ve done and I’m very very VERY pleased to announce the addition of two new creative types to the team:

Paul

Paul is a budding designer. By “budding” I mean “new but entirely bad ass.” In a professional capacity I met Paul shortly after he’d completed his first website. My first impression was to be a bit frightened because in the few months he’d been studying design, he’d already become really good at it and would surely put me out of a job one day.

Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, ask ‘em to join, right?

He’s a great guy and is funnier than anyone has ever been ever. He’s also drug-free, insanely ethical and great at communicating (ask me what those have to do with business and design and I’ll say everything). His command of typography is already thoroughly advanced, and he’s got a memory like flypaper and never needs to be told anything twice. Actually, he’s sensible enough that he usually doesn’t even need to be told once.

The World, meet Paul. Paul, the World.

Sarabeth

At the age of 21, Sarabeth was responsible for the editing, proofreading and production of a series of booklets that would be printed and distributed millions and millions of times. It would be impressive if she had done all that for a series of booklets in English, but she did the same thing for booklets produced in French, Italian, German, Spanish and I think even Klingon. It’s more than likely I could ask her to write me a book in Sumerian cuneiform and she’d have it done within the week. Needless to say, Sarabeth isn’t afraid of huge jobs, responsibility or impossible deadlines.

She’s a student of the Chicago and AP manuals, she knows her proofer’s marks, and she can spot a misplaced comma from across the country. If she had a nickname it would be “keen eye for the misplaced modifier guy.”

And to top it all off, she’s getting pretty damn good at the Xbox.

What happens now?

To all appearances, nothing will change. Our work will be just as good, our turnover just as fast, our communication just as friendly. In fact, as good as all of those things were before, they’ll probably even get better now that we’ve got some breathing room.

On a project-by-project basis, Paul and I will be handling the design work. I will most likely continue to tackle the larger web projects while Paul will start with print and graphic production. Sarabeth will lend her writing/editing chops to content writing, editing, ebook production and that sort of thing.

I will do all quality control and nothing will leave the shop until I’ve checked it, smelled it, looked at its sell-by date and tested it for STDs.

Please join me in welcoming Paul and Sarabeth to the crew!

I can’t end this without saying a big thank you to all of our past and current clients. This would have been impossible without your support, your trust and your own visions of success.

To the future!