Another year down. Pine celebrates its seventh year of existing.
Seven years. To me, that’s quite an achievement. Life as a self-employed person is never easy. But I think that things are becoming a bit more familiar and predictable. And I think that this ultimately has meant that this year has felt easier.
As always, here’s a breakdown of the highs and lows from the past 365 days of running the Pine Design Studio:
Highs:
Busy but manageable – This year has been busy. But I’ve managed it better than last year. I’ve certainly got better at scheduling work, meetings and admin tasks. Software has helped this too. I use Trello for project management and Toggl for time tracking.
Transparency – I’ve always been pretty transparent with the way I work. And this year I vowed to continue this transparency whilst working with my clients.
Pushing back on deadlines – It might not seem like a ‘positive’ thing, but this year I’ve managed to stop saying ‘yes’ to every client demand and pushed back on unobtainable deadlines. It’s taken a while to build up the confidence to do this, but it definitely helps to free up the creative thought process when you’re not as pressured by a looming deadline.
New clients, old clients, good clients – I love working with good people who are creating positive change in this world and I’m so happy that my client roster is growing steadily and in the right direction. Afterall, my motto is and has been for a while now: “Design for good”.
Some useful downtime – I managed to have a couple of quiet weeks, which led to being able to fully rebuild the Pine Design Studio website. It’s now more inclusive and user friendly, SEO friendly and sports slightly tweaked branding and colour scheme.
Lows:
Print and delivery – The strike action and economic issues that enveloped the UK (and the world) wreaked havoc on a few of my print projects for clients. This mainly happened in November/December this year, but a little bit of adversity never hurt did it?
More work = more admin – I think I said it last year, but us creatives are not geared for admin. The more work I do and the more clients I bring onboard means that the number of admin tasks, emails, invoices, more emails, etc. grows. The negative side of this is that the amount of creative time that I have each day is reduced.
Future Plans:
Collaboration – I have some exciting collaborations coming up with a local ethical web developer, which I can’t wait for! More updates on these as and when they happen.
Woodwork is back! – I’m (hopefully) going to expand my woodworking/furniture making side of my business next year. Furniture By Pine really started during COVID times in 2020, and it’s something that I’m really passionate about. Unfortunately, at the moment I’m just way too busy with design work to devote some serious time to the woodworking. But I'm hoping that in 2023 I can inject some life into this passion project.
Outside of work:
Me and my partner Charlotte are now engaged. I proposed to her on top of Mt. Snowdon at 3am this Summer after we completed the National 3 Peaks hiking challenge in under 24hrs. It was all a bit crazy and I think I caught her at her weakest moment, so she had to say ‘yes’, didn’t she?
We’ve pretty much completed a full house renovation on our 1930’s semi-detached house here in the countryside of Derbyshire. It was a massive juggling act trying to manage life, work and house renovation. But we’re close to completion now. Would I do it again you ask? Nope.
A massive thanks to my clients, suppliers and collaborator this year. It’s been a pleasure working with every one of you. And I can’t wait to create more impactful design outcomes that help to tell your meaningful stories in 2023!
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