Every year Michelle and I sit down and come up with a mantra/motto for the year ahead. Last year we had ‘It’s on’ and we still feel the same way, we are in full steam ahead mode. Michelle joked that 2018 should be ‘It’s still on,’ it is indeed! We wanted to move forward with something that felt every bit as kick a@! and decided on Veni Vidi Vici Latin for I came, I saw, I conquered.

We wanted to go through a little recap of what we accomplished last year, something we highly recommend you doing as well as you just might surprise yourselves like we did. We have not reaped the financial rewards (to the degree we wanted yet) of all our labors and I think that made it feel like we didn’t accomplish as much as we did, but to see it in writing made us realize what we did accomplish and that we have put into motion something big, something that has legs! We so want that for you too, there’s that quote ‘a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle,’ we wholeheartedly believe that and we hope to always be able to be a ‘light’ for you and others. Here’s to a year filled with laughter, health, creativity and prosperity.

What we accomplished in 2017:

Last year we launched 3 photo editing sets for Foto Rx–Portland, Stockholm, and Vintage Foto Fix. Portland quickly becoming one of our #1 sellers! These sets take a ton of brain power, testing and branding before we launch, one a year would be great so getting 3 out was outstanding! We already have new products set in motion for 2018!

We delved deep into Lightroom, so deep that we will be launching presets in 2018!

We launched an online class Quick + Easy Patterns in Photoshop, a super quick and easy way to create patterns.

We had a full-on photo shoot with model, make-up artist and stylist. This was a huge deal for us, since almost everything in our portfolio is    still life/product based. Not only was the shoot a blast, it was a huge success with each image exceeding our expectations (and our bar is high).

We went down to Los Angeles to scout a location for a photo studio, putting into motion another dream realized–regular visits to a sunny clime and a space to shoot uninterrupted for a few days a month.

We set-up a personal shoot with a model where we art directed, location scouted, styled and shot. It was a lot of work, but the images were worth the effort and made our minds percolate with all the possibilities.

We launched a font foundry! That was an enormous undertaking, 4 years in the making, we had to create a brand, site and a marketing game plan (to name a few things;) We launched with 4 fonts and all four of them made it into the hot 50 on My Fonts, an unheard of accomplishment for a new foundry. With this project we were able to help many of the artists we admire create a new passive income stream to allow them to focus on creating more of their dreams.

We have big plans for 2018, we hope to share some of them with you and hear some of yours (let’s make ourselves accountable). Happy New Year friends!