15 Comments

These days I have the luxury of not needing to promote myself for design work. But I have also had the long term struggle of balancing all of my divergent creative tangents under one roof. All of the usual permutations of website formats and multiples — and of course the self hosted versus portfolio platform seesaw.

As both a casual viewer and when I have been part of a hiring process, I prefer the eclectic, everything in one somewhat organized box. It says “real living human” to me.

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Thanks for the insight! I really like “somewhat organized eclectic box” so that’s what I’m going to shoot for as I make updates in the future.

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Jun 13Liked by Mitchell Volk

Cheers, Mitchell! Thanks for the shout. We still need to get that coffee. This too! https://www.flakphoto.news/p/my-sweet-midwest

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Let me know when you're free! The photo event seems awesome. I've been telling me wife that I wish more stuff like that was in Madison and you're making it happen.

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Loved getting to look through your professional work and thank you for sharing the wonderful link about self-promotion. I too struggle with threading the needle. "Here's what I CAN do but here's what I really WANT to do." Your illustration for how to sleep is great! As always, so many great things to check out and read. I appreciate it.

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Thanks, Matt! I like the CAN vs WANT. Maybe I could split my site into two pages, one with all the branding stuff and one with all the random stuff I've posted in this newsletter.

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That's what I've ended up doing. I can't tell you if it's been successful but at least it helps folk know I'm a complex human being.

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Jun 10Liked by Mitchell Volk

Thank you thank you for posting what comics you're reading! I've picked up some of your list from my library.

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author

Yeah sure thing! Thanks for checking them out.

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Jun 10·edited Jun 10Liked by Mitchell Volk

I SO GET THIS. I wear several hats and how to position what you do and who you do it for can be daunting when you are trying to reach various audiences. I get the challenge with 'threading the needle' - if you add it all up, you are a multimedia professional designer, or something like that. Self promotion is hard, instead you might want to think of it as sharing how you help others solve problems with your creative approach and talents. And the good news is that you updated the page! Yeah! Fabulouso!

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Shifting my perspective from “promotion” to “helping others solve problems” is super helpful. Thanks for the feedback!

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Only 30? That’s a success in my book!

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But, more seriously, I feel the same way about my website. There’s a lot in the “practice” that doesn’t make money, but it’s all related.

Forgive me if I’ve brought him up before—my memory is crap—but Mitch Goldstein posts a lot about this stuff.

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I totally agree with it all being related, but I’m not sure if everyone will see that. But should I care? I recently read his “How to be a Design Student” book and it was super good.

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Yeah, despite loving and agreeing with what Goldstein says, I still have that internal debate all the time.

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