Microcosm Blogifesto

Get to know Grow: Introducing Designer Meggyn Pomerleau

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:19:55 PST

Grow: How to take your do it yourself project and passion to the next level and quit your job! is a practical field guide for creative people to achieve success and sustainability on their own terms. Part of Grow’s mission is to empower creative people to come up with innovative solutions to make their creative passions sustainable career options. The first step in that process is to assess where you are and define where you want to go. In the spirit of Grow I posed a series of questions to Meggyn Pomerleau, who designed the book, about her career and goals so far. The issues that Meggyn outlines in our conversation are the ones that inspired me to write Grow: How to balance your creative passion with “real life,” how to understand what you and your creative work is worth, and how to face down an uncertain future with a careful planning.

Right now I’m in the process of putting together a series of workshops around the country this summer that will help creatives like Meggyn plan for DIY success. Until midnight on April 1 (9 pm pacific time) we are running a campaign on RocketHub.com to support the workshop tour and the production of Grow. We’d love to have your support!

How do you describe yourself creatively? What do you do and make and what would you like to do and make?

- I am a graphic artist. I make, draw, manipulate, form, paint, and sketch. Professionally, I'm a graphic designer and I primarily build websites. What I really like to do is illustrate and create typefaces.

What skills do you think are your strongest?

- My communication skills have gotten me to a point where I haven't had to seek out work, ever. I'm also surprisingly good at drawing using my touch-pad on my laptop.

What skills do you feel you need to develop? How will you go about this?

- I still need to work on my time management skills, as well as practicing and researching my craft. Unfortunately, because I'm still a full time cubicle drone it’s difficult to find the time to work on my technical skills. That's my main challenge right now--to make the decision to devote myself fully to my passion, or taking small steps to allow myself to have it in the future.

How integrated is your creative work into the rest of your life?

- My life is design, despite having the office job. I dream about typography; I pay attention to advertisements and details in logos, banners, and posters; and I'm constantly brainstorming pieces in my head. If I had to break it down in numbers: 40% of my life is the non-creative office job, 25% is actually creating, and 35% is everything else.

I believe it's completely possible to turn the 25% into 75% if I choose to, but I'm worried about failure, inconsistent work flow, and settling for work I wouldn't be interested in.

What is something you didn't learn in school that you wish they taught about making your life and living as a creative person?

- One thing no one discussed was how to know what you're worth. A lot of fresh graphic design graduates settle for production work, which doesn't do anything for you, creatively.

Additionally, I wish that I had more one-on-one guidance and the professors helped us determine what kind of designer we were, how technically skilled we were, and where we should go to look for work in order to shape our future a bit. Design can be applied to many things, and if it's not narrowed down to a specific category, it's overwhelming to try to decide what category you're going to focus on and try to pursue.

What are your creative goals for the next year? For the next five years?

- This next year, my goal is to develop a consistent style in my design that draws people to my work. I haven't painted in the longest time, and I'm going to start again, to get back to my roots of being an artist.

In the next 5 years, I'd like to work for an agency or something fast paced and high stress or work as a freelance artist full time with clients sending me consistent work.

Check out Meggyn's work in Grow! http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/3905/

And support the RocketHub campaign here: http://www.rockethub.com/projects/14039-empower-diy-creative-entrepreneurs-with-grow

2012 Financial Report

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:20:47 PST

In the name of fiscal transparency, here's our 2012 financial report! You can read them from 2011, 2010, and 2009 too! We've made a lot of headway this year and feel like we are approaching a good place despite a recession and changing publishing industry. We've resolved a tremendous amount of old debt so big thanks and hugs to everybody who stuck with us this year. We are still working on re-instating last year's reduced wages and healthcare but we are finding creative ways to work out those problems by next October. Here's a toast to continued improvements in 2013! If you want to help, it is always helpful to sign up for a BFF subscription or purchase anything from the site!

2012 Income $264,226.84 (17.3% decrease)

Expenses

=========

Printing Bills $84,418.65 (34.2% increase, 32.9% of budget)

Total staff wages $46,908.84 (a 106.4% increase, 17.8% of budget)

Shipping $39,153.20 (5.9% decrease, 14.8% of budget)

Paid to publishers and distributors $32,306.09 (64.8% decrease, 12.2% of budget)

Utilities, insurance, phone, office supplies, etc $26,716.09 (32.8% decrease, 10.1% of budget)

Rent $10,400 (17.5% decrease, 3.9% of budget)

Royalties to authors $9,911.44 (27.3% decrease, 3.8% of budget)

Zines bought from makers $6,033.04 (68.6% decrease, 2.3% of budget)

Advertising $5,457.80 (81.1% increase, 2.1% of budget)

Catalog Printing $2,638.56 (8.6% decrease, 1% of budget)

Travel $1,251 (71.1% increase, .5% of budget)

Staff Healthcare $0 (0% of budget)

Donations $15,495 (488% increase)

=================

Total Expenses $265,194.71

Total $-967.87 (loss)

Here at the 'cosm ...with the CIA.

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:31:58 PST

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope all you lovers out there were out lovin'.

We've been active around here lately. Tim is heading down to Austin for Staple, our store continues to evolve, we've got lots of bright ideas for the future, and we're adding lots of new titles on the website!

If you haven't read the new CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting yet, you should. It's creepy. It's disturbing. It's angering. Some parts are downright sickening. But it's also exciting, enticing, and undoubtedly interesting. It contains minimal speculation and maximal research. Much of the content is admitted by government officials and operatives themselves. And the book compiles it together to let you see more of the big picture. And it's not a pretty one. Not only does it bring un-skewed history to light, it's a time capsule that you can send to friends and family to provoke thoughts and conversation. Even if they don't want to believe most of it, it's provocative so they can't help reading it anyway. If you've read the original zines, you still want this, because it's all been updated.

;)
Stay safe out there!
-Jeff

Meet the Interns

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:32:06 PST

How’d you get here?

Mackenzie: The Northridge Earthquake, which hit just before my before my scheduled due-date, urged my mother to go to her home town to have her lil’ baby. Therefore, I was born in St. Louis Missouri rather than Los Angeles, my real hometown, but permanently moved back to the west coast shortly after my birth. Now, many years later, I go to school in Vermont, which enabled me to intern at Microcosm. I drove up the 5 from Los Angeles all the way to Portland with my good ol’ friend Phil.

Elizabeth: Born in Texas, raised in Tennessee, schooled in Vermont - a drive to Albany, a flight to Cleveland, a drive to Knoxville, a flight to Denver, another to Seattle, another to Portland and here I am.

Phil: I’ve been an LA boy my whole life, but now I go to school in Vermont. Mackenzie and I drove up to Portland with full hearts and a full...

Introducing the Music Scene History Series

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:02:06 PST

Are you stoked about the history of your town? Do you find out interesting nuggets by talking to those who came before you or by scouting out details on Wikipedia? Do you want a reason to hunt out some people you respect for them to fill in the gaps?

Interview with Raleigh Briggs, author of Make It Last: Prolonging + Preserving What We Love

Mon, 1 Oct 2012 17:32:25 PST

What was the inspiration to write about fixing things?

We were throwing around the idea of having a book about canning, I think. But there are a million books out there about canning. I started wondering why some preservation skills were so glamorous all of a sudden, while others went under the radar. So I decided to take that same great energy around canning, pickling and whatnot and expand it to include things like mending and home repair.

Cambodian Grrrl Takes Bronze at SATW Awards

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:20:44 PST

While we spend most of our energy focusing on smaller worlds, sometimes the broader world will give us a nod as well. In this case, we are proud to announce that Anne Elizabeth Moore is a winner in the 2012 Society of American Travel Writers’ Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, taking the bronze award in the Travel Cambodian GrrrlBook category for Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh...

"Action!" is Awesome!

Sat, 8 Sep 2012 17:46:49 PST

--Action! by Bill Brown--

I wish every book was like this. I opened this book when it first came in, here at Microcosm, and started skimming through the first page to check it out. Before I knew it I had read the whole thing! The delightful fluency of the text and the cute illustrations just kept me enthralled.

Big Changes in our Little World...

Mon, 3 Sep 2012 17:51:43 PST

There's been some changes around Microcosm HQ lately, both in the physical sense (our little Jeff is growing up so fast!) and within the organization. After a couple weeks, a thousand screws, gallons of iced tea, and (quite literally) tons of books, the store has gone through a bit of a remodel. It's still the Microcosm you remember, but we are now stocked with so much good stuff that we had to lift our desks off the ground to make room for it all. Come check it out and browse around! And don't worry, that's not the voice of God when you walk in, it's just us from our new lofts.

Our Big News is that as of August 1, Microcosm...

Out Now! Raleigh Briggs' (Make Your Place) New Zine!

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:28:26 PST

We are proud to announce the new zine by Make Your Place's Raleigh Briggs!