On the issue of Branding

A colleague once suggested to me that my anti-branding was my branding. Had she not been such a nice and genuine person I may well have clouted her. She's lovely, so I didn't. But I keep coming up against this branding thing and it doesn't sit well on these shoulders.

In my world, branding (and we do thank you for giving us a single word to describe everything so succinctly) is a falseness; it's all lies or half truths made up by a marketing department to make you (the generic you) buy things. Companies are hugely successful at it - it's a reason why so many products and so many lifestyle choices are popular.

Not everyone sees branding in the same way. But is a particular marketing strategy, and I prefer to think that I have my own style, I do things my way, and that my customers like it.

I've rewritten this blog post countless times to try and remove any anger yet I still keeping back to this same point. So I figured I may as well end the sleepless nights and just say it as it is.

We are human beings. Creative individuals. Designers aren't products, their designs are. Why is corporatism creeping in to the point where those that shout the loudest or pimp themselves the best are dictating what's what? Why are folk starting to think that professionalism is all about editing themselves? Professionalism is a mindset, an attitude; it's about doing the best by your customers and putting your hands up when needed. Material things and a pretence of a perfect world don't factor in that equation.

We all have the right to market ourselves as we choose, or not. It isn't a competition. We are creative individuals putting our hearts into all that we do. This isn't a game plan to milk the pennies, or at least I don't think it should be. However we do it, it is our thing, and that's my point - there's nothing wrong in just being who you are, doing what you do with all of you and nothing less. Don't hide anything, be proud of who you are. Own your fuck ups. You can do this job, and do it well, without even thinking about the concept of branding.

Y'all get that I've things to get off my chest, yes?

what do I do?

I felt the want to do one of these today, so I did.

It always surprises me to learn how some people don't understand what it is that I do. Or what doing what I do entails. I'm not meaning folk that come by here, regular readers do of course know! But I guess there are some folk that I interact with in other areas of life who sometimes come to the wrong conclusion. Or only see part of it.

I'm gearing myself up for a week of serious knuckles down designing - work has been so difficult to manage in this current climate, with our way of life and homes and community being under threat. Creativity has been suffocating. Life feels stifled. There seems to be conflict everywhere we look and the atmosphere is a troubled one. But November will see the 6th annual Mystery Knit-a-Long and as much as I think many folk would understand if I had to say that I couldn't manage it, I don't think I could forgive myself (or our circumstances!) if it didn't happen.

So I'm going to damn well make it happen. Somehow.

Closing doors

There's a number of projects in progress, or rather on hold, that I've needed to re-evaluate and draw a line through.

Kitchener Unravelled
Y'know, I think this book project has turned into my nemesis. 

It's been 2 or 3 years now since I put this one on hold, as I really haven't had the headspace to work on it. And a few months back I decided I needed to close this one for good. I no longer include Kitchener at the top of my workshop list as I just don't feel the love for it anymore.

Kitchener Unravelled was very much a left-side-of-the-brain project which isn't very healthy, at least not right now - my pattern collections that mix techniques with designs offer more balance which works for me so well. And if I'm honest, I simply don't have the confidence anymore to put out a book solely on Kitchener. There is so much more information available now than there was when I was working on Going Straight (which is where the idea for Kitchener Unravelled came from) and this little indie can't compete with the big boys. Not in the slightest. 

It's a shame, as I did so much work for this, spent months researching, paid for illustrations to be done, but it would require so much more investment, financially and emotionally, to get it off the ground again and it's not there to give. It really is best laid to rest. Though I'm still holding onto that title, just incase...

Getting Stranded
This one is still a good idea, but the thought of working on another mammoth book to the scale of Going Straight fills me with dread.

Getting Stranded was intended as 20+ Hats with a twist, all using colourwork in a different way, Wormhead stylee. There's a fair few designs charted out, and maybe this one would work best as a 10 pattern collection, something like 'Stranded Woolly Toppers'? The 10 pattern collections are more of a winner - they're a more manageable project size, and for their investment vs return, they earn relatively better. And so the future will hold more of those, and a stranded topper collection would be a good compromise, no?

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Part of me, the big stick part that likes to repeatedly wack me round the head, is feeling like a failure for not finishing these projects. Even though I decided months back to close these doors it's taken this long to find the balls just to type that I'm conceding. On the other hand, on the (currently rare) occasion when the optimistic side finds it's way through the fog, I'm hoping the pressure will start to dissipate and I'll be able to breathe a little more lightly. There's nothing like letting go of a dead weight that you've been carrying around for too long.

Being honest with myself about what I can realistically cope with (rather than what I'm capable of, which is a whole other thing) is an essential part of self management. Sure, I do feel like a failure for dreaming up grand schemes then failing to see them through, yet at the same time, I'm pretty damn proud of the fact that I'm still here, alive and breathing, and finding the energy to be creative and (mostly) productive despite the best efforts of the black dog.

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We're going to view a bunch of caravans this afternoon - wish us luck that we found something decent, of the right size/layout and watertight within our budget?

TNNA 2012 - the fallout

Whenever I read reports about TNNA, it's always either about the yarns, the various angles of business (inc. how to be professional), the practicalities of exhibiting or the social side of the show. I haven't found yet a blog post or report about the down side of TNNA. Seeing as we like to keep things real around here, it seems only fitting to approach TNNA from this hidden angle.

Now, don't get me wrong - I did have a great time. I got to catch up with previous TNNA friends like Kate Oates of Tot Toppers and Heather Dixon of Army of Knitters. I got to spend more time with people I only met briefly last year, like Mercedes T Clark and Miriam Felton; folks that I hope I can call new friends. I also got to connect with some great yarn companies, including. Lornas Laces, The Wool Dispensary and Baah Yarns. I did have a brilliant time and I'd do it again without hesitation. But I can't lie and pretend that it was all smiles and happiness, and that there weren't any difficulties.

Finances
One of the biggest issues is cost. It's not cheap for anyone to go to the show, unless they happen to live around the corner. It's not cheap for anyone to exhibit, either. And all of these costs are multiplied when you have to come from the other side of the world. 

Travel: the travel alone cost a small fortune. All in all, including everything from bus tickets to excess luggage and flights, my total travel expenses came to £995. That's roughly $1492. And we booked 6 months in advance to get it that cheap.

Accommodation/general living expenses was one the cheapest aspects of the show, running in at £340 or $510.

Exhibiting was costly. Not just the booth hire and the hire of all the equipment from the conference centre, but also the building of the display and all the other peripherals. Tom doesn't work for free for me; if he puts hours into making something unique then his time has a value too, and he quite rightly gets paid for that. So let's break the costs of exhibiting into two categories: hire and tangible costs.

Booth hire, including all the extras such as tables, drapes and so on came to £525 or $785. I did this carefully, too, so if you're thinking about exhibiting you might want to budget for more.

The display materials, everything that came home with me, from the printed banners to the custom built shelves, doubled that total and then some - a further £725 or $1090. Thankfully this is all stuff I can re-use so I don't feel like it's cash totally lost, but it's still cash spent none the less.

And then you have the marketing and promotional costs - business cards and the like. They came to roughly £150 or $225. That's a lot less than many spend, but you already know I'm cheap.

That brings the monetary value of my 7 day round trip to £2735 or $4102. That doesn't include the months of worrying, thinking and planning beforehand, or the cost of a week off afterwards due to jet lag.

Now, you'll always hear folks saying that in business you gotta spend money to make money. Which is all well and good when you have money in the first place. And that's where that flippancy starts to piss me off, as TNNA this year cost me more than we spent on the double decker bus that we call home. It cost the equivalent of keeping my family fed, watered and sheltered for 4 months. Put into perspective like that, you can see why the outlay of this year's show is still stinging. I remain optimistic that it'll have been worth it, even if I don't see an immediate return. But I think it's worth noting just how much of an investment it's been, even if to some the fiscal cost is on the slim side. 

Emotions
This one is a much harder cost to quantify.  

If you've ever exhibited before, you'll hopefully appreciate how difficult it can be to put yourself on show. As much as you're exhibiting your work, and that is what folks come to see, in essence it's you that you're exhibiting. Your creativity. Your planning. Your thoughts and ideas and skills. I both love it and hate it. I was taught well - with a good art college degree behind me I know how the game works yet I still loathe it. It's an emotional projection, and afterwards the come down can be pretty severe. Sure this is a business show - a trade show - and it should be treated like such, and I'm pretty sure many exhibitors may feel differently. But I wasn't exhibiting tangible goods or inanimate objects. And nor am I player in the wannabe corporate world. I'm a small time designer who put her ideas on show, even if the buyers were seeing something very different.

Last year was my first year at TNNA and I found the culture shock pretty hard to deal with. Mostly, I'm withdrawn, I rarely come out of my cave; we can thank the black dog for that. If I need to interact or be sociable I tend to adopt a more outgoing stance and alcohol is usually involved, as I've not yet found another way of coping. And it's exhausting. The life we lead couldn't be further from the world of business and trade - we hate waste, we recycle and reuse, we consider every action and reaction. We live simply and frugally. We're down to earth and take people as they come and expect folks to take us as they find us. We live pretty quietly, all told, and the idea of being at such a *huge* show, where everyone is there to sell something in the game known as big business, is pretty intimidating.

The one aspect that troubles me the most is the 'face' of business, for want of a better description. Everyone smiles and greets and is outwardly polite, which is all well and good when it's genuine, but when it's not it's a veneer. And I blogged before about how myself and veneers don't really get along. I can't trust people if I don't see a hint of human. If there isn't a sign of real life somehow, like a discreet cursing or an imperfection of some kind then I get paranoid. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that TNNA on the whole makes me paranoid, until I see a real, likeable side of someone, something you can connect with, and then I can let out a huge sigh of relief. I'm aware that a lot of this is down to being a Brit who's very European delving into the alien world of American business, because we really do do things very differently. But part of it is also my personality, I'm just not a business minded sort; I know how it works but it doesn't suit me very well. 

Having braved it once I was better prepared, and the damage from the general meet and greet was limited, yet couple that with the exhibition fallout and you're left with a bit of a mess in this corner. The whole trip was a real whirlwind, so much going on and so far to travel in such a short space of time. And probably not surprisingly, given that I do live with the black dog, I'm still dealing with the emotional fallout from it all. My moods are all over the place; once a week I'm having to talk myself off the ledge, and I'm waking in the middle of the night with panic attacks.

You might be wondering why I bother with it if this is what it really costs, and to that I would say that it's something I need to do if I want to grow my business and continue supporting my family. It's as simple as that. I'm the breadwinner in our bushold and I gotta keep the pennies coming in. Or at least, for now I feel the benefits outweight the costs. That, and that I love to catch up with friends and stay in touch with the industry. As I said before, it's far from being all bad. It's a bittersweet thing, and this is a side which rarely gets acknowledged yet is so important to bear in mind.

Changing shape

Over the last year or so I've been thinking about my business a lot, considering how it's structured and how it's evolved, and where I want to go with it. For a long time I've been unhappy with my work... it's not that I don't like the Hats, although whether or not I like the finished design isn't always a consideration for publication - I'm a process based sort who considers proportion and form more than overall aesthetic. It's more that they haven't challenged me in a long time. Or rather, I've not pushed myself creatively.

This is the problem with being the sole wage earner. All the time I have the responsibility to earn money, to keep us in food and make sure we can pay the bills and it's a heavy burden to bear, especially in a creative industry. This in turns forces me to be more productive and time efficient, which often means sticking with styles and shapes that I've done plenty of before, and that I know will be well received. And I've known for some time that this has been slowly and surely destroying my soul.

Now I'm finding myself in a place where I have to make a change or else (and let's not consider the alternative), and business wise, I reckon I'm established enough now to do it without risking income. A few times recently I've mentioned that I've been making changes to stuff in the background, changing how I work, so I can ease the pressure a little. That's sort of mostly done now, and the next step is to push my boundaries a little, experiment more with form, and explore avenues that have kindly sat there waiting for me with the doors open. 

Today has seen me diving into some of my favourite inspiration - books and leaflets, ideas and styles from different times or places, to get those ideas flowing.

(don't mind me and the ever present Instagram filters; I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon)

I've a small collection of vintage Hat knitting patterns, and always keep an eye open when I can for more. I love the shapes in many of these, yet when looking through the instructions, there isn't evidence of a strong structure to them. I'm a bit of a structure purist so this does bother me, yet they're a great base for ideas. 

This is a favourite book. Books covering the full history of Hats, in more of an encyclopedia style don't come up very often, so this one is a bit of a rarity, and believe me, it's treasured. It covers Hats from all periods for all places and is the most comprehensive of it's kind that I've found. All the Hats are depicted through illustrations, not photographs, with notes for each time period and place, and with additional details on who would have worn them etc. This book fires me up more than anything.

Many of the classic or historic millinery styles don't lend themselves to knitting very well, unless they're felted, which, as much as I love it, is a little imprecise for me, or are prepared to add all the trimmings, which I find simply too fussy. Yet there's still room for me to use changes in gauge to stiffen fabrics for more upright Hats, for example. 

Here's the thing - I'm a 3D person. I've always made sculptures from fabrics and soft materials. And whenever I veer away from that, I get a little lost. As much as I love playing with stitch patterns and surface texture, that's not what drives me. It doesn't matter how simple or complex the stitch, it's the structure that counts. How that shape is formed is my life blood, and how that translates into knitting is my output. I'd like to stay with Hats, they suit my every whim so perfectly - small and portable, ideal for travelling, and quick enough to appease my short attention span. They really are wearable sculptures, even in the tamest of styles, through which I can explore technique and structure. And honestly, I've had moments where I've wanted to abandon this industry all together - I'm trying to avoid that.

Classic Woolly Toppers is one step in a different direction, a baby step if you like (oh yes, there are plans for some seriously out there sculptural Hats, a book of) and the Hats themselves are nearly all done, and I'm liking it so far. Considering that at this moment in time I can't see anything I've done in a positive light (this is pretty normal; we'll blame the black dog for that one) this is one small thing for me to hold onto. The changes in progress may not be so evident on the surface, yet they're being felt strongly back here. It's all encouragement to move forward, slowly.