Advice I Have Not Taken: My Thoughts on Picking a Style

A few weeks ago as I was ruminating over my place in the world, I mentioned that my latest, biggest fear was that everything I’m doing is NOT GOOD ENOUGH (crazy talk, right?... right?) and I’m progressively trying to improve and DO MORE BETTER. 

One area that’s pretty clear to me where I could be doing better is in having a defined style. I think if you read basically any design blog or book, the #1 piece of advice from artists/business owners/everyone is to have a clear, distinct, unique voice and style.

 And as a habitually distracted creative-type… this poses a pretty big challenge for me. Challenge #1: I love experimenting. Experimenting and learning new things is basically all I’ve been doing lately. 

Challenge #2: When you are learning new techniques, or when you are researching, or when you are just following other designers on social media… it’s tough not to be influenced. In my mind it works this way, “oh look, I love this style and it is super popular right now, I should do something like that.”

 Neither of these are necessarily BAD in my mind, and let me be clear, I’m not talking about COPYING someone else’s style (because, let’s be honest, I don’t have the attention span or talent to even go there). 

But when you are reading day-in-and-day-out that you need a refined style… that you need to pick one thing to be good at... it makes you think a lot (and possibly worry some more about being not good enough). 

And to me, there’s at least one style that I think is clearly “me.” And if you have known me for any period of time… this will not surprise you in any way whatsoever. And those are the doodles.

I started this blog to share my cover-the-page-with-weird-shapes doodles, like the ones throughout this post. It’s probably the only kind of drawing that comes naturally to me and that isn’t really influenced by other things I see. 

I just get obsessed with a shape, develop that shape, and then go nuts with that shape. I have done this since I could hold a pen in my hand. I just love, hand-drawn, tiny, repetitive patterns. Like this:

 Now the challenge is: how do I embrace that? How do I develop that in to something? How do I take what else I’ve learned to do and incorporate those things?

The answer: I don’t know. And as I’ve said before… I’m trying to share and embrace the process and worry less about not being there yet. So stay tuned and we’ll find out what happens together. Needless to say, there will definitely still be experimenting.

A Trip to the Barn Sale

Today we final headed up to Frederick to check out the barn sale at Chartreuse & Co. that we heard about back in February. There was a pretty good mix of re-finished and needing-to-be-refinished furniture. Best of all, most of the prices were pretty reasonable. Only a few pieces were over $500. The old library card catalog to the left may have been one of them. Kevin loved the Scrabble pillow on top.

There were more than a few pieces that we really loved. Sadly, due to our complete and utter lack of space, we just couldn't commit to bringing them home. The whole experience made me desperately wish we had a house but it was really fun just to poke around.

I loved this industrial workshop cart. The color was like a deep teal. The little herb bottles were really fun. We actually brought home this window frame for about $30. I'm trying to decided whether to turn it into frames, a chalk board, a magnet board... so many options. Any ideas?

I really love this desk. The top was so nice. We were both pretty obsessed with this cabinet which was a blue-y gray color (there was definitely a weird "antique blue" theme throughout the sale... as if all re-painted antiques should be blue).

So what do you think? Should we have made room for any of these treasures? Ever been to a barn sale? It's literally in a big barn in the middle-ish of nowhere.

Week Twelve: Oh Hai New Obsession

I really can't tell how late I am to this party. I'll claim to be fashionably late. Have you heard of Pinterest?! I finally got my official invite last night and I'm already pinning away. Pinterest is basically an online, social bulletin board where you can pin inspiring photos, recipes and designs, and see what others are pinning.

This is such a great tool for someone like me (read as "scatterbrained messssss"). My previous method of bookmarking inspiration was starring Google Reader items, which I would scroll back through, uh, maybe once a year. Needless to say... it was ineffective. 

Another thing that's great about Pinterest, other than filling in for the MIA-Right-Side-Of-My-Brain (I must have bounced off our trampoline and into the bushes a few too many times as a child), is that I can create as many boards as I want. 

I started with a "Snarky Style" board. Similar to my earlier post about finding and defining my style, I think this will really help me hone and broadcast that image. I also started boards for:

• What's for Dinner
• Sugar Coma Central
• If I Had a House

So to fulfill my "crowd sourcing" obligation for class. Tell me what I should pin! Designs? Recipes? Something a little more off the wall? Also if you are interested in joining, I have five invites so post a comment and I'll send you one!

Week 5: Help Wanted... What's My Personal Style?

This week in class we're talking about making unique content for our blogs. I love this topic because it seems really easy to answer, but also incredibly complex. Easy answer: My blog is unique because I create and share my unique artwork. Obviously, that's unique content. Ok, duh, let's move on to the more interesting answer.


Complex answer: As I've mentioned in basically all my other grad school posts, blogging about design is all about establishing an editorial viewpoint. Whether it's crafty, modern or hip, a design blog has to exude a style. Even more than that, as a personal blog, it has to exude your personal style. Here's a great post Grace (after reading this you'll feel like you're on a first name basis with her too), editor at Design*Sponge, wrote this week about defining and changing her personal style.

Great Expectations (Penguin Classics Hardcover) $13, Coqo Floral Curtain $108, 

Converse Jack Purcell Gingham Sneaker $30, Blue and White Cameo Ring $14

I read an article once (maybe in Domino?) about a team that you could pay (thousands of dollars of course) to have them assign you a two-word "personal style statement." They did all this analysis and then they came up with something like "funky modern" or "vintage preppy" or "Nicholas Cage Meets Sarah Jessica Parker" (yeah, that's not a thing).

Polish Stoneware Bread Plate in Festive Garden $18, Rise and Shine Print $8, 

Edie Earrings in Muse $12, Splash of Sunshine Umbrella $30

Now for the fun part: Please help me figure out my unique "personal style statement!" Hopefully you can get a sense of my personal style by looking at this blog, the collages above (some stuff I own, some stuff I crave) and a few of my designs. I'll pay you by bringing candy to class next week. If you aren't in my grad school class, I'll pay you in adorable pictures of the Snarky Beagle wearing a unicorn costume. I know, her life is so hard.


If you aren't in my class, you can stop reading. The rest of this is boring "social media" chit chat. The second part of our assignment was to discuss how we're integrating Twitter and Facebook. The simple answer there is that I'm not really. I'm using both channels to share with friends and classmates about my posts but I wouldn't really call that "integration." If The Snarky Beagle brand needs a presence in either place eventually, I'll get to that. For now, I'm focusing on the blog.

Week 4: Something I Call Personality

Ok, I have a confession. I still don't know what my blog is really about. Yes, it's about design but it's also about me. I said this was going to be a fresh (re)start, but why throw away what I've already built? This blog is personal because it started with my own artwork, my writing and my ideas.

Even before it was a blog, it was this website I designed and coded by hand in HTML and CSS. I want to make sure that history is not lost. I'm never going to be all things to all people like Apartment Therapy, so my artwork and my vision are really my differentiator (sorry for the marketing-speak).

This blog is about me finding my way as an artist, designer, writer and communicator (I had to add that last one... it's what pays the bills after all). I want to share not only my artwork, but also what inspires me and what I'm doing to get my artwork out there (I know someone out there must like it, I mean, other than my mom). I design for fun and mainly for stress relief, but it would be really cool to turn it into something bigger. I just have to figure out how to get there.

Here's a perfect example. My cousin told me I should start a Facebook page. So I did and now I just find it depressing how few fans I have. How can I make this better? Or should I just delete it? (UPDATE: I made the decision to delete it as I'm  streamlining my online presence, ack more marketing terms, sorry) I just don't know. I also have a Flickr page and a Cafe' Press page. Are these helping me at all or are they just out there floating around lost on the internet?

I know I'm going to have to dedicate more time to developing artwork, content, and maybe even a brand. Let's be honest, time management is not my forte' and the majority of my time is sucked up by work, school, boyfriend, dog, friends, family and apartment. I guess that just makes the journey even more interesting.

So, expect more posts like this, sometimes this and hopefully this.