Since it's a new year full of new opportunities I've been putting a lot of though into self promotion. I have so many ideas and lists of things to do but I'm stuggling with where to start. I need to update my portfolio, come up with some type of mailer, and try to promote myself when and where ever possible. Heather has made a great book of creative goals for the year. My goals for the year are obtainable but it will just take hard work. I'm trying to focus on my illustration work, while maintaining my design work. Doing a marketing plan for both businesses has been a challenge. There's so much overlap but I don't want to combine my design and illustration business. I guess my styles are so different between the two that they really don't match and would look odd if promoted together.

I have decided that I'm limiting (and eventually phasing out) my web design jobs. Lately I've been frustrated with it and it seems so temporary yet ongoing. With print work you do it, it's printed and it's done. You're finished. You have a physical piece in your hand. With web, it's an ongoing process with changes and updates and sometimes they can effect the layout of the site and then you have to work around it. It's just getting to be a pain for me. Oh, and the agony of making sure the site looks good in all browsers and all platforms!!

One of my first action items is to come up with an eye-catching, inexpensive (to make and mail) and something easy to reproduce that will be mailed to potiential illustration clients. I've been skimming though the past years' HOW self promotional issues for ideas and haven't been able to come up with anything. If I had a beautiful large format color printer that could print on any stock imaginable then I'd be in buisness, but I don't. I guess that's part of the creative challenge though.

I leave you with some girls who create:
Digital
Collage
Felt
Paint
Watercolor