As we approach the holidays and the year begins to draw to a close. I find it a great time to reflect on the year that's been and also to begin thinking about the year ahead.

2021 Highlights

·  Summer of surf

·  New Goodfifty website

·  South Australia Road Trip

·  AGDA Mentorship

·  First-year in business

·  Two new clients in the FMCG space

·  New offices

·  marcuscarman.com website re-design

·  First year wedding anniversary

Summer of surf

In January I really made the most of the Christmas break and the beautiful summer weather. For a few weeks I stayed down in Flinders on the Mornington peninsula and surfed daily. One of my goals for 2021 was to progress my surfing. Despite the lockdowns later in the year, this early part of the year kickstarted me on this goal and had me well motivated to get out surfing more often until lockdowns prevented me to do so.

Goodfifty website

Living in Australia makes it inevitable to expect some downtime early in the new year. Lots of families are taking summer holidays whilst kids break up from school. Meanwhile, everyone else seems eager to make the most of the warmer weather and longer days. My expectation for decreased client work allowed me to plan ahead and take the time to further develop the Goodfifty website.

 My goal was to strengthen the brand positioning, messaging and service offerings. Whilst elevating the overall design sophistication of the website.

The Story Brand by Donald Millar provides a framework for harnessing the power of story-telling within brand messaging. This book proved to be really helpful for understanding the user journey and experience when interacting with a brand. A lot of the messaging on the website followed the framework given in the book. I recommend it for anyone looking to sharpen any brand messaging.

An unexpected outcome of this project is that it enabled me to share my new understanding of the story brand framework and Webflow website developer to help a client launch their brand; the brand identity and website for Evaluation Partners were designed and built by Goodfifty.  

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South Australia Road Trip

I believe that travel and new experiences are essential to feeding curiosity and keeping us young and minds open. During the Easter break, Beth and I jumped in Pamala (the Pajero) and setoff for South Australia with zero planning. We spent a night in Adelaide visiting the pirate life brewery. Before getting intentionally lost in the wild. Our retrospective itinerary of South Australia included the Yorke Peninsula and Innes National Park, McLaren ValeValley, Eyre Peninsula,Kangaroo Island, The Coorong, Cape Jaffa. Then re-entered Victoria to coast our way home along Discovery Bay, The barge and The Great Ocean Road. Surfing with dolphins in Innes National Park was a highlight of this trip without a doubt.

I had also filmed a lot on this trip using my new GoPro 360 and attempted to learn some skills in video editing.Later I discovered that most of the footage I had captured was b-roll footage which made it difficult to make an entertaining edit with the footage I had.Though I still hope to finish that project in the new year.

During long periods of driving, we enjoyed our time on the road with the company of Matthew McConaughey, As we listened to his recently released memoir audiobook, Greenlights. This book opened my mind to the power of journaling. Inspiring me to embark on a deeper dive into journalling, self-reflection and productivity, well into the rest of the year. My continued reading included; The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll, Deep Work by Cal Newport, Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, Indistractable by Nir Eyal and Julie Li, Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. Alot of the principles expressed in these books have changed my approach and techniques to daily work and time management in an exceptionally positive manner. If you're a youtube learner like myself, you could also check out Matt D'Avella, ThomasFrank and Ali Abdaal for more personal productivity tips. 

My first client

Starting Goodfifity DesignStudio in 2020 was an exciting challenge with lots of unknowns.Fortunately, I received lots of work through existing connections such as friendships and professional relationships which helped my launch. A goal of mine with Goodfifty was to find new clients that I could help by strengthening their existing branding or design of new branding. I'm pleased to say I achieved this goal very early in the year when I was approached by a pair of business owners to design a brand identity for their new financial advisory business; Freshwater Associates. The project was a success and they were very happy with the visual brand identity outcome and the process I developed for Goodfifty.They're continuing to do great work with their new branding. 

Goodfifty's first birthday

Mid-year marked the completion of the first year in business for Goodfifty.This milestone proved to me that taking the risk and stepping out to create my business had been worth it. Lots learnt in this first year and there is still a lot to learn and progress to be made. First-year success for me was: generating a profit and maintaining a consistent workflow all year. 

Two new FMCG Clients

Redesigning the Goodfifty website in January paid off later in the year when two new prospects contacted me through the company website looking for help with their brands.

This sparked an extremely hard-working and busy period of the year. Including some major wins combined with lots of learning and growth.

For one client I helped align four contending products under a singular brand strategy. Then redesign the packaging of the products in line with their newly developed brand strategy.

Another client provided an opportunity to develop brand identity and packaging concepts for their rebrand and new product launch. I'm extremely excited to share this project, which should be available early next year. 

AGDA Mentorship

It's said that the journey of entrepreneurship can be a lonely one. After finishing my first year in business and acquiring a few new larger clients, I felt the need for some additional support and guidance.

After applying online, I was fortunate enough to be awarded a spot with AGDA's mentorship program, which helps connect people in the design industry of mid-weight and experienced skills with suitable mentors, to help them achieve their goals. My mentors Jess and Tim Longmore founders of LBD Studios helped provide me with lots of support and industry knowledge, that already has and will continue to help me build Goodfifty into the agency I know it can become. The program was an experience that I've benefited from tremendously. Through insight, learning and connections that have set foundations which I hope will continue to build for years to come. 

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New offices

A benefit of the lockdowns caused by the global pandemic was that with everyone working from home, it provided a level playing field for starting a new business. Businesses all around the world had to pivot to new practices of virtual meetings. My kitchen island provided the same visual perception of business as that of other global firms.Since early 2020 though I felt the need for a more professional working environment. Thanks to the insights in Deep Work by Cal Newport I converted a bedroom into a home office for deep work (thanks Cal). And also joined a local co-working space a few days a week.

marcuscarman.com website redesign

My introduction to the world of blogging was through an avenue of learning surrounding the topic - Making MoneyOnline. Originally my intention for marcuscarman.com (which began as aside-hustle), I'd hoped to share health, wellbeing and fitness advice. After establishing an Instagram following for FoodieSkateboarder, I felt as though marcuscarman.com needed to better reflect my professional identity. Sharing my insights as a business owner and brand designer.  

Previously the website had been built on WordPress with little understanding for website development. It had become a Frankenstein with lots of add ons that didn't support one another. To simplify the site I migrated the existing blog over to my now preferred website builder Webflow. Then, overhauled a lot of the existing content to focus more on sharing insights, personal reflection, productivity tips and business learnings. 

My hope is that the content shared on this site will help inspire and teach others; through the act of sharing my personal experiences and inspirations. Whilst helping to extend my online reach and help more people with branding, identity projects and other graphic design services. 

Wedding Anniversary

November this year marked my first wedding anniversary. Words cannot express how grateful I am to have such a supportive and caring partner. I'll spare you of too much love sop and say that we celebrated by flying up to Sydney in hopes of getting to better know the city. Previously we've only really passed through so it was great to learn more about the area.

Exploring is something we love to do together so it was great to do this together. I believe taking some time to dedicate to a loved one is an important part of maintaining any relationship.

Looking ahead

This post has become a sharing of gratitude for some of the experiences that provided a highlight to my year.

With lots learnt and lots achieved this year I hope to continue the momentum into the next year. Some ambitions for Goodfifty include; accepting a few bigger projects, developing stronger client relationships, building a bigger team with shared values for creating positive change.  

I'm interested to see if I can continue to niche the Goodfifty offering to one that aligns with health and nutrition as I think this could be key to combining skill, talent and passion in my work. 

Personal ambitions include; maintaining a strong focus on health and wellbeing, as I believe that success cannot be enjoyed without good health, sharing time with loved ones and close friends, continuing to push myself - learn new skills and develop in my career, lastly, exploring somewhere new and unfamiliar - to help feed my curiosity and wonder.

I hope you enjoyed this post and it helped you reflect on some of your highligts from the year. If it helped get you thinking positively about 2022 please be sure to let me know. If you’re thinking about starting a new business or brand i’d love to hear about it.

See you in 2022!

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