Hello Lovely!

 

I hope this message finds you well. September was so busy. Is that the same for you, or did you grab some quiet time? I went away in a T-shirt and came home in a thick jumper, so my break seemed longer because the weather was changing.

 

I went to Hay on Wye to look at the 30 bookshops and failed to get to each one. The town on the Welsh/English borders is famous for many bookshops, which is a big draw for me. I was curious about the branding and how the booksellers work together, if they do at all. What can Hay on Wye teach us about competition? Quite a lot!

 

Imagine 30 designers (or accountants or copywriters … whatever you're looking for right now) in one location, and you had to find one to work with. How would you decide?  What made me go into 25 bookshops and not the other five? 

 

I came up with a List of Book Shop Vibes. You know I love a list!

I wrote that list on day 2 because I had neck ache from looking at spines sideways and - words I thought I'd never say - there were too many books!  Returning to the brief or mission is the key when you have too much choice. What is the 'thing' you need to do? 

 

For me, that meant growing my library of font and design books. Unfortunately, I don't have an actual library; instead, it's a shelf in the hallway of my house, and it's packed with design books that are useful references and sources of inspiration. Without my brief, I'd have missed my best buys—Font Cosmic, a collection of serif fonts, and Lewis Blackwell's 20th Century Type , both of which are very heavy! 

 

Another example from Hay on Wye was word of mouth. I had no intention of visiting Addyman's Books, but when I asked in Booths about design books, they recommended them, and I found a great collection of design-related material. I bought 1971 by David Hepworth in Booths because they were so helpful, and it was also on my list.

 

If design is on your list, can I help you? I am booking for November, we can work many things, here's some ideas

Hit reply to enquiry or pop over to my diary to book online. I look forward to working with you soon!

 

Best regards,

 

 

P.S. you maybe interested to know that Hello Lovely is changing to Hello Lovely Design and Co from November 2024 and I've been working on a new look and changing up the services to include pre-designed websites and print material. Follow me on social media for teasers. 

 

 

Congratulations to Steve Morgan, a fellow freelancer, who is now a published author. Demons, The Birth of Magic is the first of a triology of work from the Demon series and I was delighted to work with Steve on the covers for his hard back, paper back, eBook and audio covers with Luc Draws.  Demons II and III are in the pipeline!

I created a pop-up banner (left) for a show I attended last weekend. 'Pop-Up Stuart' appears in the online proof from SoloPress , so I could work out the proportions. Sometimes, it's tricky to get an idea of size, and on this, I could see the QR code was giant-sized, so that could be smaller. 

 

I also produced a series of postcards and leaflets for the Full Stop, Flow's logo and branding for Scared Women Retreats (centre), which went to the same show.

 

Also on stage was my first ever Hello Lovely client! Nicole Louie (right, with Dr Dawn Llewellyn from the University of Chester) is the author of Others Like Me, featured in The Guardian recently. Her book began many years ago as a website project, and it was my first commercial build. It formed the research project, leading to her conversations with women featured in the publication. Nicole talked about being rejected 26 times by publishers until she was scooped up by Dialogue Books. Who knows where your adventures may lead.

All Fonts Are Bastards who call themselves an Amateur Sports Team for fonts, created football scarves with a hint of font moods. It's Type Hooliganism at it's most fun. Well worth a follow and there's a playlist too.

Slay your Selfie is a course by photographer Rosie Parsons. The photo at the top of this newsletter is an outtake of me being photo-bombed by my dog on my first assignment! Rosie is on a mission to make us feel photogenic and be the face of our own brands hence the lack of logo this month. I'm armed with a self stick/tripod combo and learning how to pose in a way that works for me. I can highly recommend the course, even for camera shy folk like me.

Email marketing can feel like hard work. Finding ideas to write about and then picking a strategy. For me, that's what feels manageable to me, and not too overwhelming for you as my audience. As it's within my zone of control, I have played with what works best regarding frequency, content and timing. The platform also matters to me as I like to brand my work, and any that can accept custom fonts is a win. Others might prefer tools offered by Mailerlite.  You may know of Helen Lindop as I recommend her to clients for email marketing set-up and problem-solving. In this blog post, Ann Hawkins summarises the key learning from Helen's recent workshop for Drive The Network .