Bloggers Should Stop Blogging?

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After writing my post about Brain Dumping, I read this post on Christopher Mance’s blog, “Calling for Death to the Daily Blog.”  In it he talks about an article he read from an Atlanta entrepreneur saying in essence, that daily bloggers needed to stop daily blogging.  It is flooding the internet, they often lack depth, and is unproductive.  While he made great logical points for these reasons, Christopher’s take on it, was to continue because his purpose for daily blogging was a personal exercise for himself.

I found it to be an interesting topic and after reading the original article here, I did agree with a lot of his points.  Ultimately though, I felt the same as Christopher.  I have a personal reason to blog.  If you read my Brain Dumping post, you know that blogging has become an unexpected outlet/release/therapy session for me.  I honestly feel that if no one ever read my blog posts, I would be okay because it has become something that I just enjoy doing.  So, I think it rests more on the purpose and the quality related to that purpose.

If you have time, read both articles and if you feel so inclined, leave your thoughts.  Check out some of the discussion in the comments area on both as well.

I’m Already Failing

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We are not even a full month into 2014 and I am already failing with my New Year’s resolution.  My resolution was to make more art (separate from my graphic design) and I thought it would be a great way to exercise and expand my creative muscle.  When I was young, I used to draw all of the time and always had a sketchbook handy.  I stopped drawing in high school.  I went to boarding school for the last two years of high school, and no, I was not “bad.”  It’s a family tradition and my father and several relatives attended the same school (it’s coed).

Being an introvert, living in a dorm and not having a lot of privacy made it difficult for me to draw.  I don’t like people looking over my shoulder while I am drawing.  In elementary school kids would do that and try to guess what I was drawing as I was doing it.  “Is it a dog?” “Is it a horse?” “Is it a lion?” I would give them the stink eye and tell them to wait for me to finish.  Then, I would get the, “oh, it’s a unicorn with Rainbow Brite hair!”  I could not avoid the over the shoulder’s at boarding school, so I just stopped.

I really want to get back to drawing and that was where I wanted to start this “more art” resolution, but I have not drawn a single thing.  Not one line, stroke or erasure this month so far.  Every evening when I am winding down from work, I procrastinate and say, “maybe tomorrow.”  The same thing happens on the weekend.  1 month in and I am failing.  So, I’m thinking announcing it to the world, might shame me into kicking myself into gear and sketching.

After all, I am super rusty and the only way I will get better and find my “style” is if I practice, right?

I have a dream…

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Today is the day the U.S. officially observes Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.  His most famous speech is the “I have a dream” or Dream speech and today I wanted to share a dream of my own.  A while back for “dream day,” I posted this to Instagram:

I fear that I may never see this day come during my lifetime, but I can still dream that it can come true.  I hate there is a need to differentiate between people.  Why can’t we just be people?  Or maybe instead of a descriptor that is based on race, gender, religious belief or sexual orientation; we used positive adjectives?  Instead of me being seen as black female Colleen.  How about happy Colleen?  Always trying to stay positive Colleen?  Or use the descriptor that person puts out?  Freelance graphic designer Colleen.

When people ask me about myself, I don’t say, “well I’m female and I’m black, my religious beliefs are…”  That’s not how I describe myself or introduce myself.  Most people don’t describe themselves based on those attributes either…unless that is how they want to be known.  I would love to see a day when if someone asked, “do you know Colleen?”  The standard answer would be similar to, “Graphic designer Colleen, yeah I know her.”  🙂

Brain Dumping

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It’s been almost a month and a half since I made a challenge to myself to blog every weekday (while taking weekends off) and I made an unexpected realization during this time.  I often hear writers say that writing is therapeutic for them and when my sister (in law) started blogging, she told me that it had become therapeutic for her as well.  I understood that, but I never thought that would be the case for me.  I understood it in the way that non-work related creative outlets that I engage in, like painting, photography, drawing, etc were therapeutic for me.  I consider writing to be a creative outlet, but I do not consider myself to be talented or necessarily good at it, but I enjoy it.  I think I thought that things you had a talent for could become therapeutic, not things that you were not talented at.  Therefore, I never thought I would see it as therapeutic.

I was wrong.

My brain is always in overdrive and only semi-shuts down when I (finally) fall asleep at night.  My brain is constantly buzzing with thoughts, ideas, and random things.  Blogging here has given me an outlet to dump the contents of my brain.  I worried that I might run out of things to write about when I made the challenge to myself, but my running Evernote list of things to write about continues to thrive and grow.  I dump thoughts from my brain at random times into the list and then choose something when I sit down to write.  I am finding that my brain feels…less full.  I feel like I have literally removed some of the thoughts that were taking up space in my brain.  I’m also starting to think that my growing list might also indicate that outside of writing, I might talk too much.  Does a lack of things to write about correlate to a lack of things to talk about?

It’s therapy.

My brain feels more rested in a weird way and I think it’s because I have been blogging.  I think dumping my brain out here on this blog is giving my brain and thoughts room to stretch their legs and move around.  I never thought that I would be one of those people to say it, but blogging for me has become therapeutic!

2014 Business Makeover: Free Branding Review

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January is the universal month for new resolutions and goals for the year. All over social media I keep seeing “New year, new me” statements and a lot of resolutions are related to appearance. So, I figured why not for businesses? Your business cannot physically work out or eat better (your employees can), but you can evaluate your appearance — your branding. So…I’m going to be your brand consultant in 2014, for free.

Free? No strings attached?

Yep, free and with no strings attached. You will not be added to my email list (unless you want to be), no obligation to use any of my design services, no catch. I will have you fill out a questionnaire so I can learn more about your goals, review what you have and give my recommendations. If you want to hire me to do what a recommend, awesome! If not, that’s ok, but at least you will have a roadmap for some things to do to improve your branding efforts.

What’s in it for me…and you?

For me, creating awareness. I will get you thinking about things you may not have been aware of before. Also, you might just hire me if you think I’m awesome enough (just being honest). For you, you have nothing to loose by having your brand reviewed, only knowledge/insight gained.

If you would like for me to take a look at what you have going on, fill out this quick contact form below: