Freelancing can be stressful. There are multiple clients, jobs, invoices, expenses, deadlines, schedule clashes. There's a lot to think about beyond just doing the actual work. To cope with this, I use an app called Cushion to help me maintain my sanity. It allows me to input all my clients, projects, timeframes and revenue, and helps me to forecast when I'm going to be busy and when I can take on extra work.
Read MoreLast week I was reminded about the emotional pull that a picture can have. On a trip to London’s National Gallery, my dashing date and tour guide reacquainted me with Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ. As we entered the room with the painting front and centre, a wave of … well, I don’t know what it was, nostalgia I guess … whomped me.
Read MoreI've done it. Finally done it. I've been talking about it for a while, but only really felt earlier this year that it was possible. It was all those lovely ex-colleagues-now-friends who did it. The ones who got in contact and wanted my help on their projects, the ones who referred me to their friends and their teams. They gave me the confidence to realise that I actually do have enough of a network to work for myself.
Read MoreCorporate writing has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years. When you think of innocent smoothies or Pret, and you think happy, friendly, quirky. All of their writing upholds their brand values, and they take every opportunity to help you to like them, whether it be a label or a napkin.
Read MoreIt's been 17 years since I first learned In Flanders Fields by heart. A chorus of 13 year old girls dutifully reciting; children who had never known war or conflict, who were far more concerned with gossiping about boys than the stories of a war long past. But here I am so many years later, on a different continent, at the place it all happened.
And unexpectedly, I am in tears. It starts with Atatürk's message.
Göreme at 6am is still. There's a slight chill, but no wind. The light filters through the sky, inky black softening around us as we stand on the roof of our hotel. At first you can just make out a few of the little clusters, black rounded shadows, dotted around the the outskirts of the town. But then as your eyes adjust to the light, you see more groups surrounding the town and out into the distance. Now and then, you see a burst of colour, a glow in the darkness as one of them is filled with burning gas.
Read MoreSo yesterday I popped into Selfridges and saw their #beautyproject campaign. I'd seen it before a week or so earlier, but this time I paid a bit more attention. And it annoyed me. These people are all ravishing. Yeah sure, they are a bit alternative, they have quirky haircuts or tattoos, or don't fit into the 16-25 age range of most models. However not one of them looks remotely curvy.
Read MoreThe modern day designer phenomena. You can almost hear the despair. There are few things more mind numbing and soul destroying than trawling stock image sites looking for something, anything that might work. What most of these sites need is a 'no crap' filter. Or just a ban on anything with arrows, silhouetted men in suits pointing, ladders, three-dimensional bar charts, handshakes. You get the picture.
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