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IQBR 1.2
When I created the cricket on The Ashes image I made a PDF and sent it to my friend whose father was a university lecturer in art and design, his mother also a water colour artist with many years experience. They gave me some excellent constructive criticism, some of which I took note and I changed my picture accordingly, some I didn’t ignore but decided not to use and I’ll explain why. I seem to remember there were 3 criticisms, firstly the shadow on the large tree on the right was too dominating, it was – so I shrunk it accordingly. The second that the trees in the background were…
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IQBR 1.1
However although this history is good and proves my product would sell there are some issues. I’ve almost flooded the market with the current styles having sold about 80 or so of the half dozen designs I created. There are only so many people who you can sell to in a small market town who want such a product. The other issue is I need Illustrator and a lot of time to produce these posters and you need the subject matter. I’d used up most if not all the local beauty spots as subjects and scratching my head as to any more locations I could use The idea now is…
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Project Plan 1.6
Looking at online POD first I need to look into alternatives to Cafepress and boost my images or redraw my images, in fact for a fresh start I will do that. So now to brainstorm any ideas. Cafepress seems to lean heavily to the US market and many of the items feature college football, army or military themes ‘support our boys’ etc. This doesn’t interest me and they say stick to what you know and your strengths so computer/geek themes spring to mind. Here I need to say a little about copyright and Intellectual Property or IP. It is very hard to think of an image, phrase or logo that…
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Project Plan 1.5
So onto another stream, as I work in IT and particularly with Apple equipment I’ve noted that often we throw out computers, phones and tablets that are obsolete, but look like new. This often doesn’t apply to iPhones but certainly the Macs, open them up and with a quick clean out with the air duster and they’re like new inside. Being Macs they’re often very well made, the components are high quality and the cases often aluminium or brushed steel. They often have good quality screws and catches in too which seem a waste to throw away. There is an anecdote that Steve Jobs decreed early on that a Mac…
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Gran Plan 1.0
The idea was to roll the money made into other more scaleable projects and create a snowball effect. The smaller projects would roll money into medium sized projects which would roll into large scale projects and hence with an initial small investment the project would then fund itself to generate larger incomes. This wasn’t just my business plan it was also practical, I didn’t have a large startup capital available, I would have to generate any capital through projects and reinvest into other schemes and keep the ball rolling, the snowball theory. As the snowball travels down the hill it gathers speed, momentum and size as it collects together all…
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Project Plan 1.4
So here I’ll layout the 1st of the project and it will be known as IQBR, or itsquickerbyrail, a relaunch of an existing project where I initially created an “Its Quicker By Rail” LNER type poster of my hometown. Initially for myself it caught the eye of some of my friends and relatives who said I should print it and sell it Now prior to this I had dabbled in generating online and specifically passive income, I’d put some images into Cafepress, unfortunately it was just after they drastically cut the commission fees so it never really amounted to much, I used to make approx $50 per year if that.…
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Project Plan 1.3
So, I’ve mentioned crypto but this is only one part of the plan, this is more of a long term and gamble play, it doesn’t really involve much work. In fact it definitely doesn’t require much work as I’m doing the HODL method so it’s deliberately ‘hands off’. I have in the past dabbled with DeFi but giving random strangers on the internet your money and hoping they give it back with interest is too much of a gamble play for me. It’s high risk and can be lucrative but if you’re late to the game and get into the wrong ones you can really get your fingers burnt! Its…
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Project Plan 1.2
So the new income stream which I got into just after lockdown and mostly when on holiday on my iPad was crypto. I being in the tech field had of course heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum but that had taken everyone by surprise and I’d not jumped onto that bandwagon. So that whole gold rush had passed me by, I missed the bus, missed out on the gold rush scramble to multi million dollars of ‘easy money’. However a whole new recession was looming, the LUNA crash has recently happened, Bitcoin languishing at about 1/3 of its all time high and all the other coins had diminished in value along…
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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…
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Project Plan 1.0
Ok, so as briefly mentioned the plan is to use 1.5 hours a day for betterment, ideally this will be financial because as stated my retirement seems to be getting further and further away and not nearer! Although a bit sad for someone who’s never really thought about retirement and probably not yet relevant to many readers it is a significant milestone I am approaching myself. For others you can think about Project 1.5 as a betterment program even if in your twenties, thirties or forties, look at getting a better more fulfilling life, more financial stability, more creative outlets which are good for mental health and wellbeing, and some…