As tough as June was, July was busy. While I still have social justice on my mind, I was so fortunate to have a handful of incredible projects that allowed me to put my design skills to good use this month. I think it is so important to work with people you like and dedicate your talents to causes and projects you care about.

If you’re new here, welcome to my business journal. This seventh edition of the monthly business journal blog post celebrates the wins and serves as a space of reflection of this business journey.

The Big Wins

• The Chicago Style Enamel Pins were delivered to the Field Museum. What a long and unexpected road to getting the pins from concept to reality and then to where they are meant to be. In case you missed it, the Field reopened on July 26th with social distancing practices in place.

• I wrapped up my largest contract project to date. I can’t share the work or the client yet, but I can say it’s been my first project partnering with a local Chicago agency. Shoutout to an amazing past co-worker who got my name thrown into the hat. Completing this project has me reflecting on all of the little steps it’s taken to get these bigger opportunities.

• 40+ people signed up for my Are You on Brand? 5 Day Challenge. If you missed the launch of this free, mini crash course in branding coming straight to your inbox, you can still sign up here.

General Updates:

• I celebrated the one year anniversary of my successfully funded Chicago Style Postcard Kickstarter. The original series of six Chicago designs made its debut over a year ago, thanks to the support of 28 backers who provided $772 in funding.

• I designed a logo for a high school art friend. Hobbies for Happiness is the new venture of Alexandra Lindahl, who was in my senior studio art class in high school. She came to me wanting a logo for her painting stream, which is a precursor to her business. Her business plan is to open up a store that donates to local communities and programs for mental health.

• I worked a LOT on an existing branding project and began a new branding project. All of my branding projects these days have been for incredibly talented creatives and artists/makers. I hope to have more details (and visuals) to share soon, as they are scheduled to wrap up in the next week and month. I am leaning into working with artists and makers more exclusively. I even had two discovery calls with established artists to get a better understanding of how I can develop my offerings to meet artists’ needs.

• I updated my LinkedIn profile. If we are already connected on LinkedIn, then you may know I post pretty regularly. I felt it was time for an update to my actual profile to more accurately reflect where I am in business and what I do. If you’d like to connect, you can find my profile here.

• I invested in professional development big time. I attended a Women Belong meeting, Bossy Chicago event, Roundtable discussion, four Creative Mornings Virtual Field Trips (on writing, owning your content, aligning energy with wealth, and transcending perfectionism), Female Founder Collective event (on PR strategy), CEO Days, Mastermind Meeting, Brand Values Workshop, two Sunnyside Chats virtual workshops, Women Belong Progressive Networking Event, and Peoria Print Club Virtual Meetup. That’s 15 separate virtual events if you are wondering.

• I started work on a logo and custom t-shirt designs for a Hawaii-based brand. This has been a super fun project that is also scheduled to wrap up next month, so I hope to have more to share soon!

• I focused on my client onboarding and offboarding processes. This year has turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to look inward and focus on internal business projects. I spent time evaluating and improving my customer experience.

• I had a featured interview with IdeaMensch. I shared insights from my perspective as a business owner with four years of experience. You can read the full interview here. I was also quoted in an article about crowdfunding on Effective Nerd and asked to do an individual interview. And I recorded a podcast episode with Abundant Culture.

I thrive when I have a full schedule, so I really enjoyed July from a business perspective. Lots of learning and working, which felt productive and hopeful after what has felt like the slowest and saddest year.

On a more personal note, I am dedicated to supporting the many incredible restaurants in my neighborhood and Chicago. Daniel and I typically order take out or pick up food anywhere from 8-10+ times a week because we are both strong believers in supporting local any chance we get (and know that our interests do not lie within cooking).

I’m looking forward to wrapping up some of my current projects over the next month and hopeful that I will have lots of beautiful visuals to share by the end of August.

If you or someone you know would like to work on a project with me, send me a message via the website contact form and I’ll get back to you promptly. I have some availability in August and open availability starting in September.