Is It Thursday Already?

Actually, the clock just slipped past 12 here on the Left Coast. And I am just completing the finishing touches on my first ever cafepress website. It's been an event that has been long time coming, but not that's it's started it's impossible to stop. I literally have found myself working almost 24 hours a day, attempting to balance both the upsurge of cafepress potential as well as my ongoing freelance business. I think it's telling that the amount of time I devote to each has skewed heavily in favor of my little cafe's pet project.

If I might do a little late night musing before the release of the first site (at least the exterior homepage...sections still need organizing), I am struck at how immensely fulfilled I feel. This is not to say that somehow I didn't register accomplishment before now. Nor is it do classify launching a website template as my crowning achievement in life.

In fact, I have been an artist, graphic designer, and writer for many years now. Yet it was only after I begun this cafepress journey do I finally see Brazen Path's purpose. rather than the bordeom and coldness of corporate clientele, or the one-and-done lifestyle of a wayward freelance contractor, there has been a lack of audience in my life. The need for creative freedom with the elusive steady paycheck is a balancing act I've pulled off for a few years.

But indeed this post isn't about the wonders of money, though cafepress is certainly helping to alleviate all lot of concern at the moment. rather, in a world where a designer's work, at least the entry level caste, is almost always handcuffed into accepting jobs with no residuals or no guarantee of steady work. Often their designs disappear into the jagged abyss of company branding regulations or client edits, inevitably leaving a stripped down withered version of the design you intended. Other times, there is no way to get your heart completely into the project. I freely admit that there is something entirely unwholesome about perfecting real estate brochures for million dollar homes in the crux of the housing crisis.

But to sell a design you've poured your heart and soul into, like the Mutts of Politics line that currently features three of my outstanding pups, that is a new revelation. I design now not for myself, my income or even my future earning potential. No, I do it for the dog on the beach, who I might happen to stroll by and see wearing my Hope dog jersey. Or walk past a political rally and notice my shirts and buttons casually littered throughout a crowd. It is in these moments that we designers spend countless hours honing our craft, and it is in the smiles we see that truly justify why we do what we do.

Enjoy the rest of the week...make sure to get out and vote!