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#9 - The Roller Coaster issue

Hello my friends,

Yes, I am still alive! I want to apologize for not having given news since november. I totally screwed up! Many things happened in my life and I have to say that was maybe too overwhelming for me!

When I sent the last newsletter, I was finishing my last font Basalte. It came out mid november with a great success I must say. Then I started my #100daysoflettering challenge, while I said to myself I would send the next newsletter at the end of it. Then, when the challenge was finished I had kind of post challenge depression. Coming back to daily routine and client projects was not easy. I even thought starting a new 100 days!

Then, I thought “maybe I should start a Patreon”, to do less client work and more content for my community. I prepared everything, spent a lot of time finding rewards, tutorials, videos, podcast and more. I was really excited. Then, I asked on my Instagram account if people would be interested and I got 12 replies over more than 2000 people seeing my story. And I thought “ok, maybe that is not a good idea”. And I stop everything.

And nearly one month ago the #36daysoftype challenge started. Another challenge!! I said “let’s do it!”. And today I am at letter Y and I am pretty happy with my letters so far!

So yes, that was a crazy roller coaster in my work life lately. I should not have stopped sending you my monthly email. As I probably should not have dropped my Patreon dream in the bin. But let’s come back to all these facts in detail.

Basalte is out!

In november I did launch my third font, Basalte. I was surprised how it had a kind of buzz on the internets. It has sold pretty good since then. It has been a very long work in the making so I was happy it was finally out. I did write an article about my process.

Buy Basalte Family Fonts

The #100daysoflettering challenge

I talked about the why in the previous newsletter but I can now talk about what happened during the challenge and after. These were really good 100 days. I had a lot of ideas, I knew what I wanted to do and to show. Really exciting times I must say!

But what was really astonishing is how it has been a game changer in my daily work. During these 100 days, I made something like 15000 new followers, and got many many messages for work. Some days I had 12/15 messages to ask me for a logo or an illustration. “Of course” most of these people did not have any budget but in the middle of it, there were fantastic projects, with people I wanted to work with.

Show the work you want people to hire you for!

In my challenge I decided to draw letters but also illustration. I wanted to do more of it. I also decided to try to stick to an important topic for me: Nature. So everyday I tried to share my love for the outside world. And most of projects I got since the beginning of the challenge were around hiking, backpacking, surfing, watersports in general, etc. So yes, I can confirm that if you post art about a topic you really want to work for, you attract people who are looking for artists like you.

The demand is still so high and good that now I am full with work until the end of june. And as I won’t be taking new work during july and august (I will be doing a summer break), I now take new projects only for september.

Also, these first months of the year were so good thanks to the challenge that I already paid my professional bills until the end of 2021. Which means for me that for the rest of the year I will only take projects that mean to me. No more work just more money.

So yes, that challenge was a big game changer. I would like to write a whole short PDF book about that experience. I really think it could be useful to many artists and designers out there. Also, I plan to do it again next november and every year from now. And I think you should join me! But we have time to talk about it again.

The Patreon story

Long story made short, after finishing my challenge, I was not totally motivated to go back to client work. I really wanted to put more time and energy in making content for my community. That is where Patreon came to mind. People would pay between 1 to 15€ per month to get a lot of content: podcast, process videos, Q&A videos, a Discord chat, tutorials with exercises, meetups and more.

As I said above, I was really excited about that idea. But there was a thing I was not sure. Would my community follow me in that adventure? I talked to the Patreon team and someone said to talk about it on my Instagram account. Which I did in a story. And I had very little feedback. That did break my motivation I must say. I know I should not have stopped after this, but I thought it was maybe too much to start with. Too much content for too few persons. So I decided I could maybe start with something small and go progressive. And I decided I would start with the podcast by itself and see if later on I could offer the Patreon environment.

The typochondriac podcast

I have been thinking about it for years. But when I was setting up my Patreon page, I thought that was the perfect time to launch that damn podcast. And now I think I am ready to do it. And this is my next step. I will launch it in coming may with a mix between monologues and interviews. I will give you more details next month and you will get the first episode(s) ;-) And if it works, I may launch a Patreon page to help me fund the podcast. And see later if I add more content. Which I would love to do. But let’s do it step by step.

So as you see these 5/6 months were pretty busy and pretty consuming. And among that, I did not talk about the Covid situation, client projects, having children at home for some months, etc. I probably went in too many directions and forgot my daily routine which is important to me. When many projects come at the same time, you are pretty excited but also stressed. I think that was too much for me. Really good times but sometimes too much out of my confort zone!!

36 days of type challenge

Things might be too overwhelming for me, it did not stop me to start another challenge!! But as I learn so many things each time I do one, I could only go for it. And so far, I am pretty happy. It gave me the opportunity to try new things: continue to work with colors, be more illustrative, play with grains, texture, 3D. And everything in Procreate, as usual!! I could not live without my iPad!

So here are some of the work I did I like the most.

Some news and inspiration

To finish this month newsletter, I would like to share with you some accounts that are really amazing during that #36daysoftype. These people do stunning work and are great inspiration for all of us.