25 Before 26 List - RECAP

When I made this list last year, I'm sure I was excited about the contents. But, as usual, I didn't expect life to take a great turn. Technically, nothing particularly life-changing happened, but a little surprise came knocking on my door a few months afterwards: Firu came home! It got me rearranging my priorities. To be honest, these lists, for the past few years have felt a whole lot like stalling and keeping myself busy so my mind won't wander to dangerous territory. However, when Firu came and we hashed out so many things and blew everything out in the open, it reshaped my mind and my heart in a way that I haven't felt in such a long time. Long story short, my priorities have been rearranged and it suddenly became clear that there were a lot more important things to accomplish outside of this list, so my will to complete the list fades almost instantly. That being said, I managed to tick a few things off it. Here they are.

1. Read all the Harry Potter series

Probably the first thing on this list I checked off. It was done quicker than I thought and not as painfully insufferable as I had anticipated. To be honest, it didn't intrigue me so much that I couldn't put the book down and needed to race through the series. It wasn't bad, sure, but it was, frankly, not one of the best series I've ever read. However, I did get a much deeper understanding and appreciation for the story as originally written—although I do believe reading the books and watching the movies bring the story together nicely. You can read the full review here, if you want.

3. Design merchandise and start selling them online

I think I mentioned this before, but I actually have a Tictail and Tokopedia store. You can order stuff that I made on either of those stores—one for international orders, one for local orders. To be honest, it's not successful at all. It wasn't until I attended Comic Frontier XI did I manage to sell anything—and, yes, only on the spot. It was a sudden decision on my part too, but a lot more fun than the previous time so I was happy. Afterwards, although I updated my stores, nothing sold at all. The only thing that has ever sold on my Tictail was the commission—and only once. So, if you like my work, please take a look around.

4. Come up with a consistent workout regime

For the past year or so, I've been re-joining my Stepmom's aerobics class across the street from my house. It is the first thing I do on Wednesday morning—and, yes, only meets once a week. Probably not the most optimal of workout regime, but it's as comfortable as I want to do at the moment. And, even then, I still sometimes skip it, with various excuses on the tip of my tongue. However, I've stopped doing that for the past month, so I'm looking for a fresh, new way to work out.

5. Set a monthly budget

This is a tough one. At first, I wanted to do it to manage my money better. Unfortunately, I should've reminded myself that freelancing is hardly financially stable—especially at my level of expertise. But I went with it anyway. I determined the size of the budget and how much would that amount to per month, if I were to meet all my needs. At first, I went easy on myself and added in entertainment budget—for eating out and other luxurious needs—but it turns out to swell up the monthly budget. It was still doable, though I went over it a few times. Later on, as work starts to trickle and money becomes scarce, I ended up not even making enough to fulfil my budget. But at least I did it.

6. Set aside time to work on personal projects

The silver lining to the disaster I brush on above is that I've got plenty of time to do this. In fact, I feel like I've managed to create the most personal work—most of which I end up being quite proud of—in such a long time. After creating a separate instagram account for my illustrations, I became a whole lot more driven to draw and make art. There were various art-specific hashtag challenges that attracted me, including #betterthangold_sketch, #drawinyourstyle and #komik10tahun. They have inspired me to draw and invest my time in my personal projects a lot more. Also, in August I opened a booth at Comic Frontier XI with a few friends, and that really fired me up to create worthwhile work—more on that on no. 14!

7. Create a weekly schedule (and stick to it!)

One of those things that works only at first. I was so excited to do this one, made a template, printed it out and stuck it on my whiteboard behind my desk. Then, unfortunately, it quickly became tedious to change the accounts every week. It probably would've worked better if I had used the whiteboard in itself, but it was already full with numerous illustrations and magnets on it. In the end, I made daily to-do lists instead and it works so much better, although it may not be a good time-management exercise.

8. Take time to take care of my tool and space

This was the year I started to actually take a look at my tools—specifically my laptop and camera. Although, unfortunately, I haven't been able to set aside money to take the camera for a service or buy kits to take care of the lens, I've been really letting my laptop take a break from time to time. For instance, when I know I'll be out of the house for a while or after working it like a horse, I often let shut down my laptop—while I unplug completely and/or go to sleep. It definitely help my tools work better and, especially after organising my desk, it really helps me keep my peace of mind too.

9. Only buy books from my to-read list

I would say this is the most successful one, except for two loopholes. One, if I buy a book that I swear was on my to-read list—and due to some issues, I couldn't check—I would just put it there afterwards, if I couldn't find it on the list. Two, I never say anything about books that I borrow or being given to me by some means. Fortunately, a lot of the books on both these categories have been sitting in my to-read list for a while now. It almost seems like fate! Also, super proud of myself this year for only buying less than 10 books this year. A whole year of only 6 books bought? That is surely unheard of from a bookworm.

11. Do more volunteer work!

I think I made this goal vague on purpose. Now, since I hardly ever do volunteer work anyway, one would literally count as more. Yep, that is the number of volunteer work I managed to do in the past year—and it came to me by pure chance too. One day my friend Rama suddenly asked me to teach a class for children; a creative activity that can produce a sellable item. That was tough. I'm an illustrator, you know, it takes a lot of time and process to be able to sell what I make. In the end, I decided to teach—or more like encourage—the class to draw on tote bags, pouches and t-shirts using their material of choice. As I understand it, they get to sell the products in the end and keep the money, to teach them money management at such a young age. Does that count as volunteer work?

14. Practice going out of your illustration comfort zone

When I wrote down this goal, I don't think I expected to make something so out of my comfort zone to sell—and it actually becomes quite popular among all my work. It is this set of prints for Comic Frontier XI. They are set in a commuter line train and the city bus respectively, depicting my original characters as the main focus. Not only did I use perspective—which I'm not particularly good at—I also played around with the colour in ways that I've never imagined I would use. To think that they are still my usual colour palette too! Granted, for the perspective, I still used photo references, it was quite an experience to have. I can't say I'm now an expert in perspectives, but I do feel more inclined to use more of them in the future. Ahem, they're still available on my Tictail and Tokopedia, if you're interested.

16. Learn how to blog design from scratch

This one wasn't intentional at all. Well, it was something I've been meaning to do, but never got around to doing. Then this semester—yes, the semester that just started last month—I have a class on web building and designing. It's probably not going to make me really good at it from the get go, but the goal was to start learning and that's what I'm doing. So far, we've only gone so far as to learn html and CSS. I'm already pretty experienced with html—and, apparently, some CSS—through this blog, but the class helped me understand the logic and system behind each code. We've only had like 4-5 meetings so far and I already feel my intelligence level raising. We'll see where this leads.

17. Participate in Fanart Friday at least once a month

21. Create an illustration for every "holiday" of my choosing

Okay, this is where I make an executive decision to cancel this goal. I did try doing this for a while. I was quite pumped to start drawing various fanart and illustrations for—well, not holiday, it turns out—important dates. It was really a lot of fun, I must say. The problem arises when it comes to the temporal limit that I set for myself. You see, drawing a Fanart Friday once a month would require perhaps a week to finish—including sketching, revisions, colouring and finishing. That's just not a viable option for the long-term. The same goes with the greetings illustration, as—it turns out—the number of important dates that intrigue me is quite large and frequent. Keep on going on this track, I feel, will actually keep me from growing as an artist. That being said, I feel like the experience taught me a lot—especially in regards to colour study and composition. It won't be the end of me doing this kind of thing, though, just not as often.

18. Take one photo a day (and organise in a folder!)

This was quite impossible and, frankly, patronising of past-me. I probably do take photos everyday—or, at least, most days—but to spend more time on organising these photos on a folder is just ridiculous. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this task was either. Maybe I should appreciate my days more? Maybe I'd like to look back to this year through these snaps? Well, at the very least, let me show this random photo I took from godknowswhere.

19. Discover new places/events to visit

I went crazy with this goal last year—can't believe the number of places and events I managed to visit. Aside from the usual ventures in Surabaya that my sister and I undertake—we visited the Tugu Pahlawan park, which was new for us, by the way—we also visited a lot of places and events that we've never gone to before. In terms of places, we tend to try new restaurants—which you can just see here—but we also managed to do that, by visiting new events. We visited two film festivals in the past year, including Japanese Film Festival—actually caught one of the screenings on my own near midnight—and European Film Festival. We also paid some good deeds in events, such as book for good's Ruang Buku—where we donated a few of our books—and Eco Market—where we donated our waste to waste4change and bought some low-impact tools from the vendors. Even with very little money, we experienced a lot, huh?

20. Watch all Wes Anderson/Satoshi Kon films

Satoshi Kon and Wes Anderson are among my most favourite film directors—and I think it's fun how different their approach to filmmaking is. The amazing thing is their movies are often regarded as bizarre, with a definite unique touch that makes them distinguishable from the crowd. I haven't managed to watch all of their works yet, unfortunately, but I did catch quite a few titles that I hadn't managed to before. From Satoshi Kon, I watched Perfect Blue—which sent chills down my spine the whole time, it was so unsettling—and Millennium Actress—which got me all emotional throughout. From Wes Anderson, I caught The Darjeeling Limited—ever since my former roommate Adit told me this was his favourite, I became intrigued—The Royal Tenenbaums—watched it in three parts as I caught it by pure chance on separate occasions on TV—and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou—I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this one. Definitely will watch more!

23. Organise my working space

Don't really know what to say about this one, so I'll let my earlier post just do it for me.

I think it's about time that I change it up a bit on this front. This year, instead of creating a yearly list titled, as usual, "26 Before 27," I think it's about time that I actually make a 30 Before 30 List. It'll allow me more time to really accomplish some of the big goals and tackle some of the major tasks. It'll be filled with the most important things I want to tick off—my bucket list of the decade, if you will. It's been really inspiring to see this list float pretty much everywhere on the internet, and I think you should make one too—even if you're not sure if you can accomplish them all. If you're curious, my list will be up later this month. Watch this space!

Birthday Week Sale with Campaign Monitor

Despite having written a post—just two days ago—on email marketing, you might realise that I've never actually created, let alone send out, newsletters before. It's an uncharted territory for me. After blogging and running several social media accounts, I feel like I've got nothing more to say. They've all pretty much been said and done one too many times. So, when Campaign Monitor contacted me to do a collaboration, I wasn't sure what to make of it. It sure feels exhilarating and intriguing, as it will be something new for me to try, but also at the same time confusing, because I don't know what to make. Luckily, my birthday was just around the corner. And so, I decided to create a newsletter for my illustration store using that theme.

Before we start, let me give you quick info on the company: Campaign Monitor is a global email marketing company, consisting of three products—Campaign Monitor, Delivra and Emma. We've talked about Emma in the previous post too, if you remember. They already have locations in five major cities, spread out between three countries—the US, Australia and the UK. They offer numerous services, including email design, personalised customer experience, analytics and transactional emails. With their team being chocked full with experts and their support team running for 24/7, it's no wonder that they have 99% customer satisfaction. They've had experience working with some of the world's biggest brands, including Unicef, Rolling Stone and Penguin Random House. The best part about them is how much they care about giving back—volunteering is apparently really important to them. Not only in materials, but also in activities, such as picking up trash at the beach. I love me a company with good values!

Okay, so the first thing I did was create an account. It was simple enough, takes no time at all. Once I had an account, there were a few checklists that I should do—although you can skip them too—such as verifying email, connecting your subscription services, watching the tutorial video and creating a campaign. I must admit, my internet is probably not one of the fastest available—and at the time, it was going on and off and driving me crazy—so I was completely unable to watch the tutorial video. But it's fine, even without the tutorial, I'd say the services they provide are pretty straightforward. Something else to note is you'd want to know two things before creating a campaign: 1) for what are you making the campaign and 2) what kind of campaign is it. Once that's all done and dusted, I went ahead with the campaign creation.

For the design of your email, you can choose from over 50 templates—or import your own HTML. They're segmented into different functions, such as newsletter, events or deals & offer, so you can choose them according to what you want to send out. I chose one from the deals & offer category—unfortunately, the templates aren't assigned names, so I can't tell you which one. After that, I simply needed to replace the photos, edit the texts and rearrange the items until I am satisfied with the layout and content. It didn't take too long. With all the assets ready to go, it probably takes under an hour to finish—especially if you know exactly what you want to say.

This sale is real, by the way, so go check out my store!

Once your email is finished, you need to add the email addresses of your recipients—and some additional info, if you like. They will ask you where you get the emails, the relationship you have with the recipients and the frequency of you exchanging emails with them. This is their way of taking care of our subscribers and making sure that we're not just harassing a bunch of strangers—as a recipient of numerous random newsletters, this is something I strongly believe should be applied in other similar services. Afterwards, all you've got to do is wait for their approval and send out your emails. Piece of cake, no?

All in all, I'm really happy with the way my newsletter turns out. It's pretty easy to edit and I can keep doing it until the email is sent. Also, Campaign Monitor allows me to send test emails to myself, so I know exactly what it looks like to the recipients—although their names will obviously not appear on mine. They also show me what the email will look like on mobile screens too, which is very helpful. In terms of pricing, they offer three packages too, depending on how many subscribers you have—so there are options for people with huge followings and for average Joes like me. If you ever feel the need to create a newsletter, I'd suggest you try out their services.

This post is brought to you by Campaign Monitor. It is the last of a two-part campaign.

All opinions expressed are 100% my own.

E-Campaign Made Easy with Emma

For the past couple years I've been sort of kind of obsessed with newsletters. Okay, obsessed might be a strong word, but yes I've been into them quite a lot. Previously, I've always been quick to subscribe to newsletters and mailing lists too. However, I feel like in the past two years or so, newsletters have evolved in such a grand way. While they used to be mostly for promoting products and services, now newsletters can be used for just about anything—including building a community, update readers on blogs and sharing interesting projects. Some of the ones I subscribe to include Homwork and The Discoverer. I think a lot of bloggers and artists have started to create their own too. It is deemed to be one of the most effective way to reach out to your followers without being a little too in-your-face, while still engaging to a curated range of recipients.

If you want to build a solid readership or subtly keep in touch with your audience or get the word out there on your small business, I think newsletter will be a great option. Not only is it already curated to a specific group of willing party, it can also pack a number of topics in one go. Now, you may be thinking, "I ain't got no programming or designing skills, how the hell am I going to accomplish that?" Lucky for you, in this day and age, there are numerous companies who offer services to help you on this department—including Emma.

Emma is a Campaign Monitor company, specialising in email marketing services—including strategy sessions, expert training, custom design and technical needs. They have a team of experts ready to help you construct your own email marketing strategy and put it into action—be it a one-time thing or a continuous relationship. They also provide perfectly segmented industry solutions to fit your needs; you need only to go to their website and click whichever category suits your business best. With three packages to choose from, Emma offers you varying benefits to best serve your marketing purposes. Of course, if you're still unsure about them, you can always ask for a demo—no problem. Plus, if you're confused and completely clueless about this whole thing, their sales team are always ready to chat with you through everything. Not so scary, is it?

The best part of Emma, in my opinion anyway, is their resource department. Man, the whole part is filled with countless tips and tricks on email marketing and newsletter—including interviews with successful figures from established brands. They have tips for everyone, including bloggers, restaurant owners, fitness trainers and local businesses. Their podcast called Behind the Glasses—which sounds brilliant to me—is almost exclusively interviews with some of the very best minds in marketing from places like Google, DoSomething.org and Design Matters. You can even download some more thorough guides and strategy to read later, if you want. I mean, what more could you ask for?

Now, whether you're a blogger, a small business owner, an accountant or a fitness trainer, Emma might be the perfect fit for you to spread your net into the world and gain more regular clients, readers or customers. They can help you create a relationship with those who already know you too—so no need to worry about losing their trust. And, hey, if you're doubtful, you can always go for a demo, right? Nothing to lose, I'd say.

This post is brought to you by Campaign Monitor. It is the first of a two-part campaign.

All opinions expressed are 100% my own.

In Full Bloom

There is this tree just outside of my house. It's usually just leaves and looks pretty ordinary, but when it blooms it sprouts out the most gorgeous bunch of white flowers. It's pretty big, though, so I can't really get a decent picture under that tree whilst capturing the beauty of the flowers—at least not by myself. However, when the flowers fall off the tree and lay scattered underneath it, they create a magical effect and, personally, look very pretty to me. And, you know what, it  just started blooming a couple weeks ago. I think October is when it usually starts to sprout and it's so gorgeous—especially against the golden light of the afternoon. You might have seen it before on this post too, but I haven't really noticed its blooms in the past four years afterwards. I wonder if that says something about my mental stability during that time.

Vintage dress + pinafore // thrifted loafers // old hat

These photos were taken spontaneously one afternoon after I got back from campus. It was a rather sunny day with a nice breeze, the flowers were blooming and scattered all over, and I just thought it would be nice to capture that. However, since it's so spontaneous, I didn't check whether my camera still has enough battery. It turns out that it's almost completely out of it. After taking snaps for a few minutes, the camera would die. I would persist—don't try this at home, kids! It's not good for your device—and then relent for a 10-minute charge. And that would only last a few minutes, before I do the whole thing again. What could've been a 30-minute-or-less photoshoot ended up taking around an hour to wrap up. Note to self: always make sure that your camera is fully-charged—or, at least, not dying.

5 Easy Tips to Cut Down on Plastic

Lately, I've been slowly transitioning to a low-impact lifestyle. You can probably already tell from this post I uploaded last month. It's been a great process so far and I am quite proud of myself to stick with it as much as I do. Something I've noticed ever since I slowly switched to this lifestyle is the rising level of enthusiasm for it in our society. Many people, such as friends and family, I've noticed, actually do want to cut down on plastic usage and sort waste and, well, do more for the environment. Sometimes it takes them a push or shove to actually do it. Whenever my friends and family see my determination to not use plastic, they tend to follow suit. Of course, we all progress in different pace—some takes longer than others, some takes quicker—but I think as long as we're all moving in the right direction, it's all good. Today I want to share five easy tips anyone can do to slowly faze out plastic from their lives, so that if you felt intimidated before, hopefully this will inspire you.

B.Y.O.B

(Bring Your Own Bag)

One of the most unnecessary but incessant use of plastic is in the form of shopping bags. It's kind of crazy, when you realise how easy it is to not use it. Bringing a spare bag—tote form being my favourite—is an easy, smart and hassle-free move. You can just keep it in your bag—or, if you have a lot, in each and every one of your bags—and take it out only when you go shopping. They are usually lighter, easier to carry and aesthetically pleasing to you. In various countries, including Germany, plastic shopping bags in grocery stores cost quite a lot, so this option can save you a lot of dough in the long run. Of course, you can always take it a step further by bringing your own pouch and/or produce bag for your fruits and veggies, grain goods and nuts and eggs. This way you won't have to use plastic bags at all.

No Straws, Please!

Small plastic objects are among the most hazardous objects that often find their way to sea animals' body parts. I'm sure you're all familiar with the sea turtle incident—if you're not, you should be. I'm sure that when you're sipping on your fresh beverage of choice with that plastic straw, you didn't think it would ever end up hurting an innocent animal after you're done with it. Well, that is just one among the thousands of incidents of plastic being a health hazard to sea creatures. It's ridiculous, isn't it, how the pleasure of sipping a drink for a short period of time can have a dangerous, lasting effect on others? Saying no to them is one great way to stop that. Most of us don't really need them anyway. But, if you can't live without them, there's always the reusable bamboo, glass and stainless steel option you can purchase—it'll last you for years.

Containers at the Ready

When you're going out, I would suggest bringing your own food. Pack a homemade meal and bring it with you as you leave the house. Not only will it reduce your plastic usage significantly, you will also save a large amount of money in the process. You may not realise it, but eating out actually takes a large chunk out of your bank account—slowly, but surely. By cutting down your eating out habit, you also cut down on spendings and waste. However, if you have the hankering for a certain food and/or drinks you can't make at home, there are two ways you can still cut down on plastic. One, you can find a place that is packaging-free—restaurants that use ceramic plates and stainless steel cutlery, for instance. Two, you can bring your own container from home. It'll be hassle-free, takeaway-ready and save the vendor some cash too.

Cutlery Optional

This is actually still somewhat related to the previous point, but slightly different. Takeaway cutlery is usually made out of plastic, and a lot of places that only offer food in paper plates or disposable containers tend to give them out by default. However, not everything you order will necessarily need them. If you, for instance, go to KFC for chicken and rice/fries, you can eat it without cutlery—but it is likely they'll give you one anyway. There are three ways to handle this: one, you opt for the packaging-free—perhaps dine-in restaurants that have reusable cutlery available—or two, you bring your own cutlery from home—there are stainless steel, foldable ones online, if you want a compact option—or three, you simply refuse the cutlery and eat with your hands. It is said that eating with your hands can be great for your bowel movement.

Learn to Walk Away

It can, of course, be hard to try and do something out of the ordinary. Even if you bring your own bags, containers, cutlery and straw, the person on the other side of the counter might not understand your motives and refuse to accommodate your good intentions. However, you mustn't give in. Firstly, naturally, you should be nice to people when you ask them to do you a special favour—yes, special, unfortunately it is not yet the standard—like putting the rice grains in your reusable bags, rather then one of their plastic ones or putting your drink in the glass container you've brought from home. But, if, even after all that, they flat out reject your request, learn to walk away—especially if it's not urgent. So that vendor won't let you use your own glass? Step back, turn around and take your business elsewhere. Some other vendors will surely accept your request—it's not that big a deal.

How do you cut down your plastic usage? Share some with us!