The puzzle builder.

It’s been a little while since I have written an entry.
I had 2 weeks of severe food poisoning which basically knocked me out.
I have to admit, as bad as it was, there was some good to come out of it. I have shed the majority of my winter pounds and now, once again, look pretty decent in a bathing suit.
But back to the life of a freelancer...

Work went from being insanely busy up until May to slowing right down to a trickle. I spent most of the month doing some stuff around the house that needed to be done, playing a few rounds of golf in the mornings and making a bunch of cold calls in the afternoons.
For those of you that do this on a daily basis (cold-calling), I don’t envy you one bit. It really is a tedious and exhausting process.

I also find that creatively, I’ve been jumping around a lot. I went from creating a bunch of ads to doing promotional work, and as of this month, I am mostly creating logos for companies and doing a bunch of graphic design. If you truly only want to do ads, freelancing is probably not for you. You basically take whatever projects you can get but this has never bothered me. I like the variety. I’d rather be getting paid some decent money to go sit at the cottage with my laptop and design a corporate logo in the evenings than be stuck in the city working on an ad in an office environment.

Recently, somebody asked me what I do for a living? I used to say (working as an advertising art director) that I brainwash people.
I have since changed my answer. When people now ask, I now tell them that I build (jigsaw) puzzles.
No matter what I am creating, this metaphor stays the same.
The client sometimes gives me the pieces (the copy, the logo etc.) and my job is to put the puzzle together. Some puzzles are rather small, some are very large and they all have one thing in common...there is no picture as to what the final looks like on the lid of the box. It is simply a blank. I have to figure that part out.

I don’t really know how much work I will get in the weeks ahead. I have had one client tell me that I am in for a very busy autumn. This is the beauty of freelance work. I’ve been told that fall is going to be crazy yet my summer (right now) looks like it could be somewhat slow. Truth is, I’m toying with the idea of taking the majority of the summer off.
The fact that I have that option available to me makes me realize that going out on my own has some tremendous benefits.
Now, bring on the sun.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.