I made a mistake + Our future as creators

News from the workshop and some nice insights on where to go with our craft

Hello dear friends,

I did not hear from me the last several weeks. I was on vacation, I needed a break from my work and then I got a lumbago ^^ So here I am today, and not Friday, because I wanted to say Hi! to you :) And also, I won’t have internet on Friday so I don’t want to send something on a day I can’t check if everything works fine.

So here we are and today I would like to write about a few subjects with you and I am sorry for those who have enough to hear about it, but I have to say a few words about my upcoming workshop first :P

Yes, I made a mistake

In one of my last posts, I talked about the fact that I wanted to know why people were not interested in taking my workshop. Many of you did reply, I am sorry if I could not reply to all of you, but thank you so much!

One of the reason really kicked my ass: people did not really understood what the workshop was all about and if it was for them. Yes, I was not addressing anyone. And I want to thank particularly Sirma and Thibaut who helped me to see it.

So what happened: let’s make it simple and fast: I had a bad beginning of the year in terms of revenues and I needed to pay the bills at the end of the month. I did setup that workshop because I wanted to do a new one for a long time but also because that was the time I needed some cashflow.

So yes, I did setup the workshop, wrote QUICKLY a classic description and did launch.

After talking with some of you, I got back on the page of the workshop and I did read the description. And then I understood something:

1. people were right. This was addressing no one and this was far too “generic” of a workshop.

2. That was not the workshop I wanted to do.

Hoho, interesting second point! And what did I want to do as a workshop?

• I don’t want to do “another” lettering workshop where you learn basic stuff,

• I want to share my experience, my skills and most of all the way I do lettering

• I want people to have fun doing lettering and not struggle about the perfection paradigm. Just breathe, relax, keep imposter syndrome and perfectionism on the side and have fun!

• I want to be there for creators so I added a little private online feedback session for each participant to help them continue to explore what they did during the workshop :)

• And I want people to DO fun and playful lettering, typographic illustrations with humanity in them, emotions and feelings. Not only the “technically right” things. Of course there will be an introduction to the rules you need to follow to do a great and readable lettering, but in the era of perfection on social medias, I want to help everyone to do more personal and intimate work, like more in an artistic way.

So I did change the whole description of the workshop to better fit what I just told you. Not sure if it is perfect but I tried my best :D And here we are. If what I just said above talk to you, that you would like to develop a more personal, playful style, that you want to learn how to just play with letters FOR FUN and not for social medias, then have a look again at the workshop page and register if you feel this is for you :)

Our future as creators on social medias

This morning I discovered that talk from Jack Conte, the founder of Patreon and that was so interesting that I wanted to share it with you :)

Social Medias have been really bad to many creators lately and Jack Conte talks about his own journey on the internet since the 1990s and this is crazy how creators connect with their community since then. He talks a lot about the strategies the big guys like Facebook, Instagram or TikTok have and how it does impact us, creators.

Of course, he does talk about Patreon too but he does not insist on it too much, which I appreciate. But right now we are in the middle of a big hurricane around how we do stay connected with our communities. I did choose this very newsletter and I thank you for following my journey but I am still really connected to Instagram and maybe too much.

I talked about it earlier but my posts are working well there, I did make 10000 new followers in the last 6 months. But as Jack Conte says and I think the same thing, it is important to invest in true fans. So for sure, I should invest maybe even more time here and less on Instagram.

But when you think about it, I like how my newsletter is working right now. I try to send a post once a week, which is already a LOT of work for me and I have paid members who received (more occasionally lately sorry) “behind the scenes” posts here and on the WhatsApp group. They also get my fonts, WIP and finished and the founding members get gifts by mail 3 times a year.

And I don’t want to do more or differently. I should probably write more paid posts for sure. But outside that, the offer is good to me.

(If you are interested in becoming a paid member and support my work, here are some more infos for you:)

So if I spend less time on Instagram, it could be a good idea to spend more time creating, right? That is maybe the big advice I got out of this talk. Invest more in your true fans, spend more time creating (and sharing with THEM) and less time chasing numbers on social medias.

What do you think? Don’t hesitate to reply to this email or leave a comment if it talks to you :)

Inspiration of the week → Stephen Smith

To finish this post, I wanted to share some works of Stephen Smith. I already shared some stuff from him but this week it will be all about him and his so powerful type and illustration.

And when above I talk above about more vibrant, emotional and playful type for my workshop, this is what I talk about. And let’s be honest, this is a feel good work for me and we need more of this in our brandings.

This is it for today! I hope you will the content, some news, some insights and some inspiration :) Talk to you next week on Friday and enjoy the sunny days if you have some and don’t forget to go out and explore. This is where the best ideas come!

Take care,

Francis