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If you're a new reader... hello, it's James here, the graphic designer you most likely found via Creative Mornings or googling for career advice.
And if you're a long-time reader... thank you so much for sticking around! I've wanted to sit down and write this newsletter for months now. First I drafted a "What I've been doing the past 3 months" update (mostly in my head). This became a "What I've been doing the past 6 months" monster, that I could never quite bring myself to finish.
So today I'm sending you two things.
The first is a set of links to help you get unstuck (if you're needing a wee nudge, that is):
And the second is my review of 2017, encapsulating everything from the 3 and 6 monthly updates that have been burning a hole in my drafts folder since November.
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A review of 2017
A year of change.
A new (old) city.
A new (old) flat.
A new job.
Almost exactly a year ago, I moved from London up to Glasgow, where I lived and worked in my twenties.
Being back was strange, because although I still knew my way around the streets, everything else was different. And I hugely underestimated how hard it would be to re-establish myself here.
So what’s been happening since?
Dealing with depression, take 2
For some reason I got complacent about my mental health. In 2012 I had a nervous breakdown, was diagnosed with depression, quit my job, and a whole heap of other stuff.
Does having depression once better equip you for the next time around?
You’d think so, but I think it made me complacent.
Or even worse, it put me into denial mode.
The signs were so obvious that when I phoned a friend to apologise for overreacting to something (depression clue!), after a few minutes he simply said “It’s ok to cry if you want to” and the floodgates opened.
It’s probably a topic that deserves its own essay, but for now let’s just say that I went to dark place. And that it was all the more ironic because just a month before this all kicked off, I gave a talk called “Self-care for the creative soul”.
Ha! Well, life, I think you got me on that one.
I've been taking meds for half a year now, and have put myself back together again. Mostly. Let's call me a work in progress :)
My first bikepacking trip
Okay, onto something much more positive. In 2017 I went on a bike-packing adventure. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for so long, but kept putting on hold because I couldn’t find a friend to go with me.
In the end, I decided I had to do the trip on my own.
The idea was kickstarted when I looked up train tickets from Glasgow to Bristol and realised it was crazy expensive. What if I took my bike and cycled some of the way instead? And maybe even on to London after Bristol?
And that’s how I came up with this plan: four days of cycling, with two nights sleeping out under the stars.
The idea with bike packing is to ditch those big panniers and load up your bike in a more streamlined way.
I treated myself to an Ortlieb saddle bag which slings under your saddle. (A totally waterproof bag seemed like the logical choice for Scotland). And for the front of my bike I opted for a home-made solution this time around… which was simply to lash my sleeping bag onto the handlebar with a leather belt.
Overall, the setup looked pleasingly mean and lean. During the trip I received a lot of jealous and inquisitive glances from touring cyclists with much much bigger loads, and even a few from roadies. (Win).
The bivvy bag thing freaks a lot of people out, and understandably so. You feel so much more exposed compared to sleeping in a tent… as essentially you’re just wrapping your sleeping bag in a big plastic bag.
But there’s something magic about being tucked up in bed with a sky of stars as your roof. (Luckily it didn’t rain on either night).
On the first night I ate at a pub, and then cycled off into the sunset to find my sleeping spot on an Iron-Age hill fort I’d already identified on a map. As I climbed up the hill I went past the last two walkers, and found I had the entire sunset to myself. My bed for the night was nestled in a hollow near the top, overlooking the floodplain below.
Opening my eyes to a sliver of sunrise through my bivvy bag was amazing too.
(The less said about the drunk teenagers who woke me up in the middle of the night with their screaming the better).
That morning I cycled into Gloucester to meet my friend for breakfast, and then on along in the general direction of the Severn River to Bristol.
Just lovely. And it made me realise something...
You can't deny yourself the chance of doing the things that make you happy.
Someone read out a similar motivational quote in the studio recently and I said “Duh!” at the seeming obviousness of it.
But I was wrong… it’s easy to sit back and leave your dreams inside your head. To think and think and think (and overthink) rather than act.
Eventually something gives way — and you realise the pain of not acting is less than the pain of getting off your arse and doing it.
Being a crazy cat man
I don’t think I’d have made it through 2017 without my new best friend, Orwell.
He’s not human though. He has four legs, a tail, and a furry coat.
And I’ve had to admit that I’m on the way to becoming a crazy cat man.
Exploring modern CMS options
Back in 2005 I was getting bored of manually changing the content in Flash websites. (Remember Flash? And those tiny pixel fonts that were only 8px tall?) So I decided to teach myself how to build Wordpress themes. I can still remember how magic it felt to get a MySQL database set up and then hit save in the Wordpress admin panel to update a page.
Anyway, times have moved on. After 15 years or so of working with Wordpress, I've become frustrated by its limitations. Theming is more painful than it should be, and hosting ends up being expensive if you want a secure, managed solution.
A few years back Expression Engine was the CMS on my radar as the shiny-new-must-try-thing, but now it's Craft CMS. So I've dutifully immersed myself in all things Craft.. and I love it.
One of my favourite discoveries has been that some of the most active members in the Craft community are already readers of my blog. (Hi Fred! Hi Josh!)
Craft uses Twig templating, which is a breeze compared to Wordpress's fugly PHP hackfest. If you're familiar with Shopify's Liquid templating, you basically already know Twig. (It's worth mentioning at this point that you can use the Timber plugin to enable Twig templating in Wordpress, and it works quite nicely).
My main beef with Wordpress is that you end up shoehorning your content into Wordpress's limited containers. It was created as a blogging platform originally, not a proper CMS, and this becomes more painfully obvious as you try to do more complicated things. Yes, you can use Advance Custom Fields or other custom-field-wangling techniques to make Wordpress do what you need, but it never feels native.
With Craft, on the other hand, it feels like you are building a CMS from the ground up to precisely match your content. And there's a drag/drop interface to do so.
If you're not a technical person, here's the best analogy I can think of..
Wordpress is like stuffing all of your clothes into shoeboxes, and then stacking them up against the wall. It's a free solution, but you end up stuffing your clothes into spaces they don't belong.
Craft is more like a bespoke fitted wardrobe, with just the right amount of drawers to hold your clothes and shoes, and a little rail for your ties or accessories. (And yes, that might sound expensive, but I think Craft is actually a steal at just under $200 for a client license).
I'll keep you posted on my findings — as I have lots more thoughts on the business of making websites.
A new design role
Towards the end of 2017, I started working at Graphical House, who have long been on my radar as one of the best design studios in Scotland.
(We're looking for a creative frontend developer by the way, so please ping me a note if you or someone you know might fit the bill).
I'm now leading the digital offering at Graphical House — advising on best practice, helping ease the transition from InDesign to Sketch, planning and scoping projects — and generally advising rather than doing.
Someone at work described me as an 'internet druid', and I kind of like that as a job title.
Anyhow, this email is getting crazy long now. Let's wrap things up.
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What do I want from this year?
My friend asked about resolutions last week, but I'm through with them. I don't have any big goals or plans for this year.
The one thing I will say is this: I want to get my health back on track. Especially as I'm in my late thirties now. The two-day hangover is a clear and present danger. So that means…
More walking. (Hitting 10,000 steps a day would be a good milestone, but I'm not going to track everywhere I go, just make sure that I walk whenever possible).
More running. (Even once a week would be a decent start, given my track record, or lack of).
More friends. (Dang, making friends at this age is hard — but I'm working at it).
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If in doubt....
Shout when you would usually whisper
Whisper when you would usually shout
Put yourself in uncomfortable positions (I'm not just talking about yoga)
Express everything you can, instead of letting it fester. Capture thoughts on paper. Capture dreams in pictures. Capture your life in photos. Shoot. Snap. Click. Clack. Get it out into the world, however you can
And keep breathing... in.... and out....
Until next time,
James
PS. The highlight of last year was a stay at this bothy on the Island of Eigg, on the west coast of Scotland. More to follow on this another time...
