Tracy Perkins

Graphic Design and Brand Development

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May 1 Reboot

Last week was the first time I came across the hashtag #May1Reboot on Twitter. I’m somewhat unofficially in the process of updating my website and figured it couldn’t hurt to accept the challenge and give it a go.

The premise behind the May 1st Reboot is simple: update your website or portfolio in some way.

While I only found out about it this year, it’s been ongoing for eight years now and serves as a way for all creatives to connect for a larger purpose. In many ways this reminds me of the idea behind the Co/LAB Show back in 2007, with the main purpose being the shared collective experience. I don’t know anyone else who is personally participating in the #May1Reboot, but I think it will be fun to be part of something larger.

Believing in Girl Power

I never thought of myself as a person of low confidence. I was a Girl Scout for 12 years, I was the president of numerous clubs in high school, and was generally proud of how I had overcome all of the obstacles life had thrown at me. (Looking at you getting kicked out of college, working my way back in and graduating.)

Yet, somehow I lost my edge over the years following college graduation. I was stuck in retail jobs that were going no where, I gained weight, and once I started working in my chosen field I kept having all of my creativity drained before I could get home to work on projects I wanted to.

It’s taken awhile to gain that confident edge back. But it’s been worth it.

One of the biggest things to help me out has been my involvement with Women Catalysts here in SF. Lindsay and Kim have created a wonderful community for helping women identify and achieve their goals in a supportive and creative environment. I’ve really enjoyed attending their Speaker Series over the course of the last year. Listening to each woman’s story and getting to interact with them has been hugely inspirational in pushing me to work on my own projects.

I love what I do, but I always feel a bit murky when thinking about where I want my career to take me. I really want to move my career toward a path that inspires me rather than drains me, which is why I’m really looking forward to being a part of the upcoming Catalyst Collective pilot program they are launching later this month.

Applications for the initial Catalyst Collective group are open until March 24 and check out WC!

Spring Cleaning Your Workflow

Mid-March here in California is a great time as spring is in full effect and has been for about a month. That extra month of spring in a way is kind of good thing as it gives us an extra month to get our spring cleaning done.

I’ve never really been one for periodically cleaning out all of my worldly possessions and if I do attempt it my effects usually happen at an odd time of year, such as August. but this year has been different. Since first going through my wardrobe and thinning that out last October I’ve been on a streamlining kick. My desire to streamline my life isn’t just confined to my possessions and house, it’s extending to my methods and workflow as well.

Last month I talked about my bad habits when it comes to paper and filing. Since that post I’ve been working to clean out my long term storage and came across even more paper. All the random papers are literally taking over my house and the other half is not happy about it. Additionally, the piles of paper have made it difficult to sit down at my desk and work on design projects. I literally was up to my elbows in paper when I overhauled my webpage!

The filing system I talked about in that earlier blog post is a great way to combat future piles, but I had to deal with the current paper issue. Armed with a full cup of coffee, my furry helper on her pillow and a nice spot on the floor to spread everything out on, I’m going to tackle this. Today. No more pushing it off.

And keep an eye out for the updated workspace making a debut later this month.

The Ups and Downs of Job Hunting

I have been looking for something a little more permanent as far as employment goes for a few months now. Freelance is great for a flexible schedule and having different types of projects to work on, but as most creatives know its not the most financially stable form of employment. And I, like most people, really do not enjoy living paycheck to paycheck.

Recently I had a stroke of good fortune when my friend Yukiko was asked if she knew any designers who could do some web prototyping and she reached out to me to see if I was interested. I was definitely interested and she worked with me to get my rusty web and coding skills up to par. I forgot how much I love working with HTML/CSS and how much it can annoy me at times—I’m looking at you missing ” from my class name in the div tag.

Yukiko passed my information along to the hiring manager who got in touch with me shortly afterward. She informed me that the prototyper position had been put on hold and if/when they decided to reinstate the position she would keep me in mind for it. Needless to say I was quite sad about this as I had let me hopes get up there.

This experience seem to follow a pattern I have noticed with my application experiences—that pattern being that every time I really get my hopes up as I know I’m the right person for the position, I get let down. After going through this cycle as many times as I have, I almost don’t let myself even think that I have a chance to get a certain position anymore. I know I’m making it harder on myself as thinking that I don’t have a chance totally drains me of my motivation and excitement.

However, some good has come out of this whole experience. I’ve gotten back into web design and used this a great opportunity to finally overhaul my website, tracyiperkins.com. This was something that had been on my to do list for a very long time and it feels really good to have it done. The overall design isn’t the greatest, but functionally it’s awesome. Following my excitement with that project, I’m now looking into taking on other web-related projects, such as combining this blog with my webpage.

So keep a look out for the change of web address and let me know your approach to job hunting.

Letting Go: Self-Imposed Pressure

I feel off the boat. the one I set sail on when I decided to take on the 30 Day Minimalism Challenge from Into Mind. I love Anuschka’s blog and her whole approach to the concept of minimalism. But I took on a bit more than I could handle when I decided to do the challenge and blog about it daily. This became a bit impractical as cohabitation in a small apartment with my other half made some of tasks a bit hard to do, especially when they focus on quiet moments, self reflection and having to give up something your partner cannot live without. I also took the approach to the challenge of trying to permanently make changes to my life as I did each task in the challenge. That also put more pressure on myself and rather than being the positive thing I wanted it to be, I had only set myself up for failure.  

At first I was mad at myself for getting behind with the challenge and would try to force myself to catch back up. I talked about this in a previous post after I had been sick. But my initial momentum was gone and I was putting more pressure on myself than ever. It took working on a web project and a couple of weeks of family birthdays and getting my life back to normal to really realize that I didn’t fail the challenge; I had gotten what I needed out of the challenge and that itself was a good thing. 

As task number #28 states, “the key to achieving goals as a minimalist is setting the right ones in the first place.” Taking on the 30 Day Minimalist Challenge was a bit out of my league as a reachable goal. I have a history of not holding myself to strict regimens and starting off with something so ambitious was a big step. I need to go in baby steps and start with holding myself to smaller more personal things that are not being broadcast to the world. 

Some good has come out of my attempt at the challenge: I have my life a bit more prioritized than I did before. I’ve started sleeping better due to a different approach I’m taking to my daily tasks. I’ve started undoing my old packrat ways and am working on using what I have before acquiring more. I’ve been working on improving skills and gotten back into hobbies I shouldn’t have stopped participating in. 

All in all, I’m glad I made an attempt at the challenge. I plan to go back and revisit some of the tasks in it periodically to keep improving myself and my lifestyle.


30 Day Minimalism Challenge: Day 20

For a long time I’ve been saying that I want to start learning AfterEffects and get into motion graphics. I have the program as part of the Creative Cloud Master Collection and I even have a friend who is a professional AE artist who is willing to teach me. But the timing and my desire never seem to go hand in hand.

As I’ve mentioned before, I tend to get all exceed about something and jump right in without thinking the long term commitment to keeping up said hobbies and practices. I’m always aiming to be a jack of ally trades kind of gal. Unfortunately this means I rarely master any new skill or hobby in even the slightest.

Now I’ve had a lot of upset and change to my plans and goals during my life. My original intent to become a pilot astronaut, study aeronautical engineering, etc., those goals all had to be given up when I failed calculus too many times in college and had to change majors or risk being kicked out again. Long term goals and I don’t seem to get along well with each other. For today’s part of the 30 Day Minimalism Challenge I thought really focusing on a shorter-term goals, ones that are carefully selected to actually be practical and meaningful, and following them through would be a good practice for me.