A crazy year so far, turning 50, and big upgrades.
(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 05/05/13)
When I originally started this blog I thought for sure I'd be able to post something once every 3 months. It's hard to accept that that was wishful thinking. I last posted in December 2012, and at that time, business was picking up steadily. Then in the first quarter of this year, it just went bonkers. I can't even describe how challenging it was. If my business was an image with a Photoshop filter on it, it would have been a Motion Blur.
In February I turned 50 and had some mixed feelings about that. Staying in the design industry, and staying relevant, has been something of an achievement. I know many people who've gotten out of the industry. On the one hand I've gained so much experience and continue to learn new skills as technology evolves. On the other, I feel it's a younger person's field. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I see myself moving out of the "hands-on" day-to-day design work and more into managing our business. In an upcoming blog, I plan to examine this more closely. I'm not the first person to experience this transition in one's career, and I hope to pull together some real-life examples of people who've made the shift and side-stepped the ageism of the workforce.
On a personal, non-business note, the celebrations surrounding my 50th were incredibly fun and full of surprises. The afternoon of my birthday was spent with my wife, who treated me to my first-ever helicopter ride around Manhattan. It's quite an interesting perspective from a chopper — to fly over the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Governor's Island, the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, Yankee Stadium, and then back down to Lower Manhattan. It's a noisy ride in one of those birds, but all kinds of fun. We then had cocktails at Rolf's, and old German restaurant in the east 20s, then a fantastic steak dinner at BLT Prime, also in the east 20s. At dinner, I had my first taste of Krystal when my wife surprised me with a bottle at dinner. It's definitely the best champagne I've ever had, and withe the smallest bubbles I've ever seen. A couple days later I threw a cocktail party at The Campbell Apartment in Grand Central, and my wife brought out an iPhone-shaped cake that was so good and eaten so quickly that I didn't even get a piece of it. About 35 friends, many of whom I hadn't seen in years, showed up for the party and shared the drinks and laughter. A couple days after that, we had a dinner party as well, at a private room at Craftbar. Again, fantastic food, drinks and company. But wait, there's more. We then spent a week in Florida with my family, where the celebrations continued. It was such a good week!
But I digress. Even during the birthday celebrations, work was galloping along at a ferocious pace. The rebranding work that we pitched last December got approved right at the end of 2012. In January 2013, we launched into logo development and rebranding phases for 6 separate membership clubs for a large food and travel magazine publisher. It took 3 months to get them all designed and going in the right direction. It was all going well until it was put on hold in mid-March due to a big new push for direct mail promotions that had been on hold for the 2nd half of 2012. One of the clubs was shut down altogether, which was disappointing since it was one of the more upscale brands, and represented the most radical overhaul in terms of identity and rebranding. That, as they say, is business.
Running parallel to the increased client activity in the first quarter was a full-scale technology upgrade of all our office Macs, including a sexy new Qnap server. Existing Macs got expanded and/or maxxed-out RAM, and all machines were upgraded to Mountain Lion. We also upgraded our design software to Creative Suite 5.5. New iPhones, iPads and iMacs came into the mix as well. The new server vastly improved our office network speed, and allowed us to make critical Time Machine backups, faster logins and data access for working remotely, and a host of other improvements. We had a small hiccup with a poorly executed Qnap firmware update released in April, but with their tech support we were able to revert back without losing any data. Sighs of relief were heard all around the office. We'll also probably be ditching Microsoft Office in favor of Apple's Mail app, which appears to be much more reliable with IMAP mail than Outlook is. We'll also move to the iWork suite for all other non-design productivity tools. We're also now fully iCloud compatible, which is a must for a small firm like ours.
In March I went back for surgery to have the clavicle hardware removed that was put in place a year prior. Thankfully, the post-op recovery time was just a couple days and it barely set us back at all. Now that I've put off the clavicle rehab and reconditioning I was supposed to do in March, it's time to get back in shape and get firing on all cylinders again. Note to self: drink less caffeine, get more sleep, eat fewer grains, eat more veggies, fruits and antibiotic-free meats, juices, greens and food that's good for the mind, body and spirit. When life and work deplete you, you have to replenish. Right? Right.