Awesome Uses

Wes Bos recently launched a new Github repo called Awesome Uses that let’s everyone list their personal “uses” pages and I’ve added mine.

If you are not familiar with “/uses” pages the goal is to be able to point people to a single spot to find out everything about your setup. What happens is when you share things on social media you’ll get hundreds of responses asking the font, the editor, and everything else so this makes it’s easy to tell them to just go here.

Mine is already a little outdated so I’m going to work on fixing it up. It’s sort of funny how often I adjust my tools.

Winston Churchill on Napping

“You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one-well, at least one and a half, I’m sure.”

I came across this quote today and because of confirmation bias I think we should listen to this man.

Crash Illustration

My friend Mohamed Said asked me, “When are we going to see a cartoon on people who crash on a bike?”, and not wanting to disappoint I decided to make one of him.

This one was fun to make and I had the idea of just having a huge head screaming but then you couldn’t tell it was a bike crash, so I had to include some of the other features. For something I did over my lunch break I think it turned out decent.

That photo of my iPad is how I created the image by finding one of him and stealing some of the colors and getting a basic outline. Then just attempting to make the facial expression funny.

Backdraft

Lately, I’ve been having a lot of fun making quick little comics and here is one I just put together tonight while watching TV. This one is targeted toward Twitter, but I’ve seen the same thing on all the social networks. The questions never end and that is why many are now creating uses pages on their sites so it’s easy to answer all the questions.

Office Art

As part of my goals to make more illustrations this year I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what to draw and I thought drawing a simple rubber duck would be something fun and simple. This weekend I spent an hour or so creating this illustration in Affinity Designer on the iPad:

I posted it up on social media and the response was pretty good. I decided I liked it so much it would make some cool wall art for my office. All from the iPad I exported the image, sent it to CVS, and in an hour I had an 8×10 ready to picked up.

I headed to the pharmacy and bought a $5 frame and $4 for the printing. All in all a $9 investment for what I think is a cool art piece.

I did change the text to ask one of the primary you should always be asking yourself, “are you solving the right problem?”. So many times when we hit a complex problem the easiest answer is to start over from the beginning and figuring out what you are actually solving and if there is a better way.

Rearranging

I have a problem where I want to rearrange my office every month. I don’t know why but it just starts to feel stale and I feel like it gets to routine. This is only February and I’ve already moved stuff around three times this year. I may need an intervention.

Pictured above is my latest setup. I moved the desk in front of the window so I can look out and see the little patch of woods. Every time I look up I can now see squirrels and birds doing their thing.

The only downside with this move is it’s been raining for what feels like weeks so I’ve yet to sit at the desk when the full force of the sun is out. So that might turn into a huge issue, but until then I’m enjoying seeing the animals and talking them as Bob Ross would. Haha

If you ever get tired of your workspace don’t discount rearranging. With no money invested it makes you think you have an entire new space.