Time flies! Semester II is almost here, and we will be offering six new courses available from January 13th:

WATERCOLOR II

Our first watercolor course (aptly named Watercolor I from Semester I) focused on color theory and understanding the colors and paints you're working with. With this second step in Watercolor II, we will be building on our previous knowledge, moving on to more color mixing as well as understanding how different base shades mix together.

We'll be mixing custom colors to match Pantone or printed shades, perfect if you're a calligrapher mixing ink to match a clients invitation. We'll also look at how to mix custom ink for dip pens.

PRICING II

This second semester pricing course will dig a bit deeper into the world of pricing. We'll look at specific pricing examples in two industry categories: custom calligraphy projects, and building a pricing sheet as a paper pusher (i.e. stationer).

When we talk about pricing for custom calligraphy projects, this includes oddball projects such as large scale quotes, wedding vows, family crests, large menus, large seating charts, etc. We'll talk about how to price your time as well as the cost of product for these situations. In addition, we'll talk about building your pricing as a calligrapher and the different pricing structures that are available.

The second example we'll get into is pricing paper, printing, assembly details, and your time as a stationer. Having estimates of these costs will help to dramatically cut down the time it takes to return quotes to clients while ensuring accuracy in your pricing.

CYANOTYPE PRINTING

We love to include interesting creative techniques in our course offerings. As creatives it's so important to continue to explore new techniques and expand our horizons when it comes to our craft.

Cyanotype printing was a method of printing invented in 1842. With its origins in reproductions, specifically blueprints (hence the name), it uses the photographic printing and development process to create gorgeous cyan or prussian blue prints.

Aside from using cyanotype printing on paper products, I have successfully used it to create lovely unique prints on fabrics, most recently a silk scarf. While it is a process that requires patience and time (and a dark space with no light!), the results are phenomenal. In this course, we will be learning the ins and outs of the process and create some botanical prints!

DESIGN BOARDS FOR CREATIVES

This course focuses on design boards and how to utilize them in your own creative process to hone in on and communicate design scopes to clients. It works great as a follow up to the Sketching for Creatives and Establishing Your Creative Process courses from Semester I. In fact, we would highly suggest taking at least the Creative Process course before this one, so that you can best put your design boards to work within your creative process.

Further narrowing your creative process allows for less time doing the back and forth with clients as well as reducing the amount of time spent with too many ideas flying around. Design boards help both you as the creative, as well as your client, keep the end design goals in mind, stay focused, and work more efficiently. In this course we will discuss what design boards are and their purpose within your creative process and go through how to create one effectively.

BRANDING

In a creative market, branding is king (or queen, but she's a hereditary queen, so the king doesn't outrank her. There's a little monarchy humor for you!). How you brand yourself affects how potential clients view you before they've ever even made contact.

In this course, we'll look at how to go about branding your company, how to define your brand style, define your market and how to brand for it, and how to design for yourself (we're our hardest clients!).

We'll utilize design boards and sketching, working through our own creative processes, so if you're signed up for class passes of all the Semester I and II courses, definitely consider taking the other ones first!

TIME MANAGEMENT

Whether you run your own business from a studio, balance a full time job with a side hustle and family, or anything in between, knowing how to prioritize your time is integral to running your business effectively and getting things done.

Learning how to prioritize, eliminate, stay on task and delegate is life changing - it certainly was for me! Going from working 80+ hours a week to working 36 or less and taking the month of December off gave me the energy and drive I needed to build my business and stay sane.

I've gotten a lot of questions and feedback from students about the difficulty they face in finding enough time in the day to do all the things they need to do. In this course, we'll get into the nitty gritty of necessity, learn how to prioritize our time and tasks, and get more done in a shorter period of time.

As we finish up 2016 and head into our second semester of Design House Prep School, we are incredibly grateful for all the support we've received from the community. Semester I has been such a great experience for us -- we're so excited to continue offering those classes until the end of next June, and we look forward to continuing to build our community in the spring!

Prep School - Semester II