Project Plan 1.1

So initially I also aimed my financial ‘rebirth’ at the images I was doing of the local area, these started off styled as Railway Posters. So much like the beloved 30’s & 40’s style LNER posters but there was never one of where I lived, a small market town in East Yorkshire so I decided to create my own. Using Adobe   Illustrator I created a very simple 4 colour image of the local Minster, this I blew up to the old ‘double-royal’ size of 40” x 25” and hung on my wall. As a few people liked it I decided to print more and sell them, of course this was a large and expensive format to reproduce and most people would not want them this size so I create A3 and close to A4 sizes

These went quite well in the local shop and especially at Christmas, I therefore created a second and about 3 or 4 more of the then and local area. I then created some similar but ultra modern ones with again a limited colour palette but also very bold shapes, lines, circles and concentric colours of blue for the sky, these again went well. Into lockdown in the UK my outlet dried up and I halted the production and although lacking a local outlet (the shop has since closed) I though of ETSY and other online retailers, I could then advertise through Facebook, Instagram and local outlets to push them for free

From my work with Apple Macs I’d come into contact with a few others fanboys and fangirls and started to up-cycle some of the older Apple kit which was still made very beautifully and being Apple of quality materials like, steel, aluminium etc. I created some clocks, pen / desk tidy’s, lamps, business card holders (a dying requirement in the modern days of iPhones etc but I thought some people may like to displays a few on the desks so I made them anyway). These were often mounted on oak bases I bought of eBay to match the quality of material and being a good neither too light and especially not too dark a wood ( dark wood being very much put of favour these days) they looked spectacular if I say so myself

I also thought of creating some concrete or jesmonite (a more eco friendly version) items to as the industrial look and feel would compliment the Apple up-cycled products in an ETSY store where they say you should have a niche and consistent and matching items, plus you need about a dozen or more to make the page (shop) look busy, I couldn’t quite manage a dozen Apple up-cycled products without repetition, although I could do variations on a theme, so I thought this would work well. I also thought about other similar items made from perhaps driftwood, pallet wood, large rocks or pebbles from the East Coast beaches etc that also may compliment and would suit the ever popular tea light or candle holding type products

The up-cycled products I’ve never actually sold, although I have given a few away to the afford mentioned Apple fanboys and fangirls who loved them, one fanboy did another ever popular customisation by adding LEDs to the back of the Apple clock which I have to admit did look very good when lit of an evening. I viewed these giveaways as presents, I knew these people and had worked with some for many years, but also as good market testing. As they all loved the products I though well there has to be a market here and this is something I need to progress and see, as half of the source materials was free the markup was pretty good. This it needed to be with shop fees and expensive postage and packaging, some of the cost of which I intended to absorb in the cost of the item so as not to put of prospective buyers. I’d also looked into eco friendly packaging, alternatives to bubble wrap and making some attractive thank you cards to insert with the product. So all my background was done and everything was in place and lockdown hit

Now lockdown needn’t have stopped me, in fact it should have been the very impetus to launch such a venture, I had time on my hands, I had all the raw materials and with everyone locked down and bored and hopefully online shopping (and staying at home to receive parcels!) it was probably the ideal time. Sadly my creative mojo left me and it never happened, I got distracted with 3d printing (something I had intended to use or include in my up-cycling endeavours. PLA plastic used for 3D printing is actually eco friendly being made from corn starch and bio-degradable, although others aren’t such as ABS etc I didn’t need the tougher qualities or the non-biodegradable properties of the alternatives (PLA being degradable isn’t good for outdoor projects)

So, poised to do both of the above I then got hit by COVID, thankfully not too bad I was triple-jabbed by this time so it was like 3 or 4 days of flu and then a good month or two of tiredness and lethargy until finally we reach at today. So going forward what do I do? Do I continue the above plan and see where it goes? I do like to be creative in both these fields so yes I may. But there is also another income stream on the horizon that may once again return the above back to being creative hobbies and less financial projects, we shall see