January 2023 Wrap-up

First post of 2023! I never know how to start these.

So I’ve decided to go from weekly wrap-ups to monthly wrap-ups for now, as just not enough shareable stuff happens within one week. (At least at the moment.)
January was a month of slow starts and high motivation; lots of planning; applying for a new job; signing a contract; quitting my current job; dinners with friends; emailing and calling our landlady about faulty heating; water gushing in the basement for over 24 hours; planning trips; seemingly sorting out a health problem, and re-aggravating it; and so on. We were home a lot, I have to admit, because Berlin is a dreary place in January and our home, when heated, is lovely and has a Playstation.

Anyway, here’s the shareable stuff that happened this month:

Design Process

Last year, a friend who’s recently founded her own company asked me to create business cards for her. This week, they finally arrived!
The process for these was an interesting challenge; I’ve not really done client work before and had to take into account what she likes and her vision for her company, but also of course create something I would be proud of. And all that using someone else’s artwork. It took days and weeks to find a version I was happy with, which feels ridiculous for such a small project, but there was a whole lot of image material and a million ways to arrange it. I spent hours just searching for fonts, trying to find a script font that vibed with the serif and sans serif, until I just wrote her name by hand.
Eventually, after some back and forth over whether to use colour or keep it black and white, we settled on grayscale cards with a bright green core (not visible in the photo), and are now both happy.
Also, if you speak German and find yourself in Berlin with the desire to explore the city with a magical twist, keep an eye on audiocaching.de.

The snake's eye, tiny as it is, is bright green, and so is the core of the cards when you turn them to look at the edges. It's super cool and a pain to photograph.

As mentioned before, I currently have my first gig as a logo designer. Not something I’d ever planned on doing, but you gotta try most things once. The process so far has mostly involved watching Skillshare courses, based on my utter lack of experience, and once again it all takes twice as long as I expected. But after receiving my first feedback in early January, I’ve just sent out the second drafts, which already look heaps better than the first, and we’re now at the fine tuning stage. All fingers crossed that my client signs off on it in the next few weeks, and that I can write about the process soon.

My ancient iPad doesn't know what's hit it in the past couple of months.

Yes, I’m still making book covers. Yes, I’m still very slow. New Re.cover post coming soon once I can be bothered.
In an attempt to get back into Instagram, I’ve been making graphics for reading trackers and brainstormed post ideas. If you go over to my Instagram real quick, you might catch a book review that not only talks about the content, but also the production of the book.

I’ve been reading

A total of nine books in January, reading wrap-up to come.
Currently I’m making my way through Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping, which I’m on the fence about still, and re-reading Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police for our book club.

Other things I’m into

Still playing Life is Strange.
Vulfpeck. “Dean Town” makes my days worth living.