The EstiMate Software Blog

You may or may not know that EstiMate was born out of my own frustration when I was running my basement sign shop from 1993-1999. I had grown up in the sign industry, in my mother’s own basement sign shop, and throughout the late 70s and all of the 80s I watched her struggle to price her work. The phone would ring, she would answer and listen to the customer’s description of the sign they wanted made, and then she would say: “just a moment, let me go figure that.”

She would drum her fingers on the desk for a while, all the while staring at her “calculator on the ceiling,” and then she would get back on the phone and say, “that’ll be $500.”

Sound familiar?

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“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”’

How’s that for refreshing?  A few evenings ago while I was cruising around the interwebs, I found this video interview with Jessica Hische on humblepied.com.  Jessica is a type designer and hand-letterer working in Brooklyn, NY.  One of the things I absolutely love is hand lettering and the state of mind I get in when I’m doing it.  Painting and graphic design have always overlapped for me — probably why I ended up so deeply embedded in the sign industry — and it’s just a total breath of fresh air to find Jessica’s work.

Back to the comment above, however, I think she is making a very important point for all of us.  Every day when we are working, we are doing bread and butter type work that often robs us of our creative spirit.  I think Jessica is absolutely correct that the things we do to “play” — those things that inspire us, bring us happiness and joy, and that we can completely get lost in — are the things we should be focusing on when we ask ourselves, “what am I here to do?”  I know that for me it’s some pretty odd stuff – discovering haml the other day, for example, had me re-doing large sections of the website and really enjoying myself.

In addition to using this as a tool to find what you really should be spending your time on, it’s a great way to relax.  There’s nothing that can compare to the good feelings that come from doing what we love, and when we are stressed, there’s a reason we return to the tasks that make us happiest.

Right now my son Ivan, who is a senior in high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, is applying to art schools around the country to become an illustrator.  He has always been into comic design, and for awhile last term was so overrun with other projects that he couldn’t spend time doing what he loved.  Fortunately this term he is able to do some of that again, and his stress levels have dropped tremendously — a perfect illustration of what Jessica is talking about.

So, thanks Jessica for the wonderful quote, and the fabulous lettering design! You’re a real inspiration to me and I’m sure you will be to others as well.

P.S. Check out Jessica’s Buttermilk Font — it could be great for boutique signs.

Setting The Scene

I live in a really beautiful part of the country — near Asheville, North Carolina — on a relatively rural road with gorgeous views of the backside of the mountains in Bent Creek that I can see from my bedroom window every morning. The other day, I was heading out to the grocery store when I passed a coroplast sign in the front yard of a small home.

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The other day I was trying to learn as much as I could about web typography, and while I was googling around, I came across a fabulous website by Andy Mangold.

After recovering my breath, I started swimming around in a world of some of the best design I’ve seen in a very long time. Now, I’m different from most. A lot of people really like fancy design and “gingerbread,” but as a sign maker I’ve always been an enormous fan of cleanliness and clarity. Andy’s managed to achieve both, with some serious style.

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I’m Going To Be Your Jacob Marley Today

The other day I got into a long online discussion with some folks about prosperity and success in business.  During the conversation it became evident that a few of the participants thought that succeeding in business and earning more than they needed in order to “get by” was the equivalent of cheating the customer.

I was, as usual (you all know me by now , trying to point out how exciting it can be to make enough money to retire, to have what we want in life, to work the hours we choose to work, and as a result to have all the time to do what we want to and have the life we always dreamed of having.

What I didn’t count on was that my ideas would fall on deaf ears.  And I learned a lot in the process.

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Jennifer and I recently hung a cork board on the wall to start our very own dream board (a dream board is where you put up images, writing, drawings, etc of all the things you want to do or have, to look at every day – a pretty cool visualization tool).

Well.

After a day or so it was still empty and eventually she printed out all the specs of the car she wants and tacked it up on the board.

Damn.  She beat me to it.

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I’ve always loved 3D street art, and this came to my attention this morning so I wanted to share.

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