New Year's Resolutions

I always say that I am going to blog more, and I love having a slightly bigger space to tell you about the things going on at designosaur HQ and what we've been up to, but it always trails off towards the end of the year as things get BUSY and blogging is not my first love.

I know the internet is kinda anti the whole new year new me mantra, but it is a good time to stop doing the things you don't enjoy and start replacing those things with things you do enjoy, you know, whilst you've still got a pile of chocolate to help you through.

Looking back on 2016 goals...

Blog every week

Again I didn't do too badly, I blogged weekly from January until August and then didn't blog again until.... right. now. BUT I noticed more engagement, more views and I enjoyed what I was writing about more. Having a new fancy camera definitely helped.

Get to 10K instagram followers

Smashed it, I know that followers is a fairly empty number and engagement is where it is at, but it did feel good to complete a quantifiable goal and it seems that more opportunities are opening up to us because of our increased following, the year ended on 15.1K followers, HURRAH!

Work on secret plans

These changed throughout the year, but did end in moving at the end of the year and having a dedicated studio space, we've also got plans for early in January and are very pleased that although it's slow, progress is happening, and we're not standing still.

Publish our website

OK so again I worked on this all year, and with some tweaks of our branding it had several "delete everything and start again" moments. I'm all for this don't put all your eggs in one basket mantra, but we also have been incredibly lucky with the opportunities that have been offered to us through Etsy, so although our site will be a place where you can find the blog, a bit about us, information about commissions and wholesale, our main store will still be our Etsy store, as that's what works best for us, and we haven't heard any complaints from you guys!

So overall I'm going to look at this year as completely positive as we achieved a lot of goals, and plenty more things that weren't even on the agenda before they came up!

Plans for 2017

It's good to make goals, even if they change as you get closer to them, so this is the plan for this year... although as I already mentioned it's OK if they change throughout the year.

Design new socks, tights and leggings.

Jacques is going to draw something weekly (for fun)

I'll get our full new colour range up in our colour charts

We will finally publish our website

I'd love to know what your goals or plans are for the next year.

ROAR!

Karli

goodbye 2015, hello resolutions!

BE BETTER.

It struck midnight we all cheered, hugged and jumped up and born to Born Slippy (which is the ultimate NYE tune. FACT.) and then my friend turned to me and asked what my new years resolutions were for 2016.

I hadn't really thought about it at that point, and when put on the spot I said "BE BETTER". Which I still stand by, but I thought I'd be a bit more detailed here.

Let's have a quick look back at how well I did with last years resolutions, you can read that post here.

blog every week

FAILED. This is the same resolution I set the previous year too, and I did actually do 6 more blog posts than I did in 2014 BUT the content of those posts definitely improved. In 2014 I used the blog a lot more as a place to advertise upcoming #btnetsy events, designosaur new releases and things that weren't very meaty. In 2015 my content was a lot better (I know that because views and followers increased) so those 38 posts were wayyyyy better than those 32 posts in 2014.

Unfortunately as we approached our busiest time of the year, Christmas, which for us starts in August if not before, my blogging dropped off and instead I have a drafts folder with nine unfinished blog posts in... ooopppss.

do a minimum of 5 outfit posts

FAILED. I wanted to do this, and I really should be doing this as the one outfit post I did manage was my most viewed post of the year! Excuse for not doing more; not wanting to look like a wally in the street, Jacques not being able to take photos/ wanting to take photos, rain, not having a camera remote, every day being a bad hair day... the list goes on ;)

do a minimum of 5 process posts

TICK. So I left this pretty vague, I wanted to show you a bit more about the way we work, a bit more behind the scenes and explain a bit more about our design process. So I did posts on the Brighton Etsy Team Pop Up Shop, Our collaboration with Toft, Making a film with Etsy, Making a Promo Video with my friend Heather, and the making of our sterling silver dinosaurs.

#btnetsygoals

Our first meeting of the NY with the Brighton Etsy Team is always a goal setting one, we set the following goals, which are embarrassing because they should definitely not have been 2015 goals, they probably should have been 2012 ones!

make a colour chart for our listings

TICK.

make sure there are full dimensions on all of our listings

TICK.

2016 resolutions

blog every week!

I know I have now failed this resolution two years in a row but actually having the pressure of this being a resolution really helps me to try and keep on top of it.

create our new website and blog

it's currently in a hosted but not designed position I'm planning to get this up and running in the first half of the year.

make it to 10k instagram followers

currently at 8374 so this year I'm sure we can make it to 10K.

secret big plans that we will accomplish in 2016

watch this space.

be better

always be better.

Happy New Year Y'all, what are your resolutions, and as it's now the 12th, have you stuck to them?!

ROAR!

Karli

Goodbye 2014, Hello Resolutions!

The end of the year!

WOAH! Where did it go?

I wanted to review my new years resolutions and to let you know that I really didn't do that badly!

I said that I was going to blog once a week every week and OK I missed a couple of them BUT I did blog most weeks. The big question for me is, did anyone read them? Did you enjoy them? And do you want me to blog some more?

I have found it really difficult to judge how much you guys have enjoyed my blog posts and which topics you like most.

I asked out on Twitter what they'd like to see of my blog and my blogging New Years Resolution for 2015 is to do some more outfit posts let's say I'll do a total of 5 minimum next year.

Also we were asked to do some process posts so let's say I'll do 5 of these too. (I like winning so I'm keeping the numbers low)

Anything else you'd like to see let me know in the comments and I'll add it in, if I think it's good obvs.

Oh and obviously I'm going to keep up the blogging once a week as once a week is stressful enough. My upload day is Tuesday, did you even know that? Probably not so I'm going to make that an actual regular day that I upload. YES I AM. I CAN AND DO THIS.

What's your new years resolution? Oh and don't forget to help me out with any other blogging related resolutions!

ROAR!

not at all related to the post, here's a picture of my face...