Category Archives: Annual Review

2011 Year in Review

January 9, 2012
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
Annual Review
no comments

  • Married Rebecca, my beautiful wife
  • Began working from home once a week
  • Starting using a budget and paid off 6 debts using the Dave Ramsey ‘debt snowball’ plan
  • Grew Creative Improv 18% this year and 48% in the last 2 years
  • Continued to hone my photography skills (really understanding exposure, aperture, etc)
  • Grew my stock photography portfolios and began earning money from stock sales
  • Started selling audio files on AudioJungle – recordings of my saxophone playing – Check them out!
  • Featured in the Envato Graphic Designer Bundle (with this photo)
  • Featured in an interview on Envato Notes

A few years ago, Seth Godin challenged his readers to think about what they ‘shipped’ the previous year. So here’s what I ‘shipped’ in 2011 (and this doesn’t include my full-time job – just freelance work):

  • 81 stock photos
  • 10 websites
  • 7 HTML emails
  • 5 logos
  • 1 motion graphics piece (featured at a large tradeshow)

Most popular posts of 2011

January 6, 2012
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
Annual Review
no comments

2011 brought 1,375 unique visitors to my blog—that is a 61% growth from 2010. I’m grateful to everyone who took a moment to check out my blog this year, ‘like’ a post, comment or share the things I post here. Thank you!

I thought it would be interesting to check out some statistics for what the most popular posts were this year. In order – starting with most popular….

1. What widows and orphans really are

A brief description of what widows and orphans are in terms of typography. I quoted the ‘typography bible’, The Elements of Typographic Style to support my premise.

2. Poster design

A small showcase of a few posters I have designed – from 2008

3. David Carson style type design

A showcase of a few typographic exercises I completed while in college. This post features a David Carson style of design – really pushing the typography. I liked to call it my ‘make my professor happy’ era of designing.

4. Political impact of design on people

Here I discuss how design for politicians and political movements can negatively impact people. I discuss the very old Daisy commercial along with Sarah Palin and Barack Obama’s political design choices.

5. Designers don’t make things look pretty

I discuss the common phrase I hear; “You can make it look all pretty“. The fact is, designers communicate visually, not just make things look pretty.