In Blog, Personal

No doubt 2019 was an insane year for a lot of reasons. Between major life events both positive and negative and huge professional accomplishments I’ve had my fill and then some.

Before I begin, I just want to thank everyone who has been a part of this journey.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the major highlights from 2019:

Ninja Comp – Produced a little more than a year ago, this was a free comp meant to build out my portfolio. Clean and blue. I got some positive feedback from folks on Twitter, so that was nice. I tried to get it up front of a few people without much success though it did lead to a freelance opportunity.

Dr Lupo Comp – Made a comp for Dr. Lupo and got roasted on his stream, lol. Highlight? Possibly. Lupo is an incredible content creator on Twitch. Producing this comp taught me a lesson. What I think people want, doesn’t always align with what they actually want. In this case, Lupo didn’t provide positive feedback because, as he stated, “I already have a website, did you know that?” The tone informed me that creators have contacts who handle work for them and will go at bat for them regardless of the intent you might have had in the first place.

Marriage – Got married to my love of 8 years in beautiful Maui. We spent 12 day’s in paradise (Maui). We took a nice long trip and sat on the beach, watched the turtles, saw whales and ate too much damn food. Ninja was kind enough to shout my dono on stream which blew away my wife and turned her into an instant fan 🙂

Influencers – I’ve had so much fun engaging with influencers like Suto, Ninja, Gary V., Jessica Blevins, Theo Rossi and so many more on Twitter and Instagram. Some of the engagement are responses on work, comments or DM’s like the one below.

Suto – Even tho they weren’t used I enjoyed doing some design work for Halie. I created a full website comp, an alternate comp, social media graphics and a new logo as seen below. This gave me the opportunity to build up my portfolio. This also led to a door opening for additional logo design work for another huge brand.

Book – I published my first book in October 2019. It’s a book of poetry, music and they represent different moments of my life. The poems come from pieces developed over the last 20 years. You can read about the whole story here.

200 Layouts – I designed over 200 layouts for website projects of all sizes. This includes design for small and larger brands. That means I’ve created home pages, interior pages, product pages and so much more.

Jessica Blevins – I had the incredible opportunity to produce a logo (that always won) for Mrs. Blevins. Twitter blew up and I spent hours engaging with fans. Ultimately I didn’t win, but I gained loved from more than 5,000 people, tweets, shares and DM’s. Read more about it on my blog.

Mindset – I continued rewiring my mindset by focusing more on positivity. I’ve taken a big stand against stress, anxiety and negativity in 2019. All of these things were greatly impacting my health and I knew that I couldn’t keep going down the path I was on.

Health Scares – I found myself in the hospital on several occasions in September of 2019. I had some kind of episode that led to full body pain, chest pain and more. Through various tests I learned of several conditions I was facing including a stomach disease, poor circulation, pre-diabetes and more. These things have led me down the path of refocusing on my health and losing weight. As of writing this I’ve lost 38.5lbs. This is my biggest challenge and I’ll continue to drive forward.

All of these things made 2019 an unforgettable year. As I head into 2020 I’m looking for balance, more creative opportunities and to get my health in order. As Gary would say, if you don’t have your health you’re finished.

…and I’m not finished.

Thank you for reading.

Recent Posts

Start typing and press Enter to search