Search for Me!

Lightfolly's Facebook page appears on searches! It is quite ridiculous the sort of bubbly sensation I got when I typed it, and there it was. Not the actual page, not lightfolly.com, but yet. Not when you type "Wyoming photographers", but yet. I'm out there, and you can find me now!

UPDATE BEFORE BED: and we are on Yelp too!

They are here!

As if I needed more reasons to love MOO, they sent my cards on expedited shipping! They arrived today and they are absolutely adorable. The packaging is beautiful as well. All in all a treat. Yay lightfolly.

Business Woman, walking down the street...

This is the first time I will ever have business cards. It makes sense, no? I have been battling with the process for the last almost month, going back and forth with a local printer. Don't get me wrong, they have been very diligent and responsive, they have good prices and I love the idea of going local, but I kept getting the formatting on the cards wrong, and they kept sending them back. This is a perfect example of why one would want to hire a graphic designer to design one's graphics (I hear you Javi!), but lightfolly is not at a point now where I can afford one. Today, as I decided I was going to quit, I received a promotional email from a company I had never hard of: MOO. And knowing my history with auspicious events, I knew I had to go with it. The main three things that got me:

1) They have a product called mini cards, which are have the size of standard business cards.
2) They have a technology called "printfinity", which allows you to upload up to 100 different designs for your cards! So you can essentially have your cards be a portfolio, or if you are, say, a jeweler, use them as a catalog.
3) They are having a 25% discount on cards.

So I ordered the minis, 400, with my best photos and my logo superimposed.

We'll see in a week if they are all they promise to be...

Shoot for the Stars

There are so many things one is used to when it comes to websites... that is, if you don't own a tablet and, like me, have only recently gotten a phone. So I thought of what my website would look like purely with a desk top/old-school laptop in mind. I can shoot for the stars and then, as I realize what the responsiveness of my site will do to my dreams of hovering and proportion, I can relax and go further. Can't I?

I introduce to you, www.lightfolly.com:

Of Websites and Modern Technology

I feel like I have a company now. Although nobody except my husband and two best friends know of this endeavor. So the next step is to come up with a website.

Without really knowing what I'm doing, I want:

1) different links on front page for Photography, Styling, and Illustrations
2) three clicks as the maximum depth to navigate
3) as visual as possible
4) hinted hovers

My technology savvy husband suggested I build my own page, since lightfolly not only cannot afford such perks as a graphic designer or web designer, but also is the kind of company where we keep it small and we do it all. At least for now. He suggested as well how somebody like me is to build a page: using bootstrap and my VERY limited knowledge of html and CSS. I have been blogging for years, and I have always made my own templates for my blogger-hosted blogs. Well, not as much made as modified already existing templates offered by blogger. You see, my husband is full of suggestions. Now, can I do it?

In case you are not familiar with bootstrap, let me tell you my understanding of it. Bootstrap is a platform for web design (another one you may know is Wordpress) which uses CSS. It is the platform used to build Twitter, and it is also known as Twitter Bootstrap. The beauty of it is that allows for responsiveness on your sites. What is this, you may ask yourself? It is the ability for a page to restructure itself depending on what screen it is being displayed on. You know those websites that when opened on your phone look bad, the navigation bar appears in two rows, the font is tiny and illegible or some content is cut? Those websites don't use a responsive platform.

Diving into brand new waters here.

What's in a logo?

I have this ideas in my head for what my logo will look like. To follow, a list of say ideas:

1. Simple
2. Mostly (if not only) typographic
3. involving the name with a font for "light" and a different one for "folly"
4. Using the already-in-the-air color schemes

Some ideas for logos, slogans and the like:

Inspiration

I love TED talks. This got me in tears. You can tell I have been very sensitive these days...



And these are the first ideas for lightfolly's logo, from my ideabook:

Styling, Photography, & Illustrations

I started envisioning what it would be like to have a company where I would be able to do what I love, on a regular basis, making people happy from it and getting payed to do it. I am not sure how I went from there to "Styling, Photography and Illustrations", since I also love knitting, making pottery, cooking, playing with my children, designing, sleeping, day-dreaming, dancing, writing letters, and oh-so-much-more. I think that I have an eye for photography that makes it almost alright that I have no formal training. (If this idea ever goes somewhere I will write an article about what I think one needs to be a good photographer.) This "eye" extends to the point where I can say I like things that are beautiful and can see how to tweak a couple of things here and there to uncover the not-always-so-obvious beauty in everything around me. Hence, stylist.

May be it is not the most orthodox way to go about it, but the first thing I recorded in my ideabook was PRESENCE (what would some promotional material for my company look like?):

COLORS (I have this color scheme in my mind since forever, inspired on a shirt my son owns):

NAME (I wish I were able to record my actual neuron-by-neuron thought process and the exchanges with my man while I wrote terms, crossed out terms, asked him to research terms...):

Enter, lightfolly. For some reason, it has to be lowercase.

This is what I imagine will be the first think you see when you go to my website, and the general idea I have for my logo. I want to maintain a general sense of simplicity, just like on Joy's site:

PHOTOGRAPHY: How to define/differentiate lightfolly? I thought of ways I could get my foot our there. May be a similar version of "I am mom"? A local chapter? What are other physical (as in capturable by a camera) attributes that I can use to create a project that will be of interest to people and at the same time be interesting to me?

That's all I have brainstormed about with myself. Lightfolly has been born.

The Ideal Me

My friend Aiko and I talk sometimes about the ideal us. We would be in her kitchen one afternoon, while the children play outside, and she'll say: "The ideal me eats mindfully and with restrain" as she dips another chip in the homemade salsa. "The ideal me always have homemade salsa in the fridge" say I, following suit. It is our quiet acknowledgement, our non-resentful aspiration.

A couple of days ago I was browsing one of the design blogs I sometime browse, and a photo stopped me. It was the photo of what the ideal me looks like:

I went into the post, jittery with excitement and surprise. From there to her site. And there I found that the person with my ideal looks also has my taste (she loves ice cream and high heels), my dreams (she wants to build a sustainable town one day), and my ideal job:  She is photographer and stylist in Atlanta. Enter, Joy Thigpen.

Following a friend's advice, I sent her an email telling her of my admiration and asking her for some advice. She replied with a heart-felt email full of encouraging words and helpful suggestions. If she lived in the area, I would approach her for a mentoring relationship without a doubt. My next goal is to attend one of her "creative direction and styling" workshops. If I can afford it one day...

I am not sure what is to come but as I said to her, I am on my path now. And as I said to my friend, I'm unstoppable.