The Blog | 2.0
Hello and welcome to twenty something meltdown version 2.0 - or more commonly known as gwennanrees.com
That’s right, a quiet weekend at home and a cheapskate move to avoid paying for multiple website hostings has resulted in a Monday morning change to my whole blogging brand.
We’re talking new social media handles, new logos and new names and a few more pennies in my pocket to add the cherry to the top of the perfectly instagrammable pink cake.
3 years of blogging;
In a seemingly fitting tribute to this old slice of the internet, my blog turned 3 on January 25th and I totally missed it. If that’s not a picture of how dedicated I have been to twentysomethingmeltdown in the 6 months then I don’t know what is but I knew it was coming up and it totally passed me by.
The last few years I have celebrated the milestone with a tribute blog post, all about the numbers that make up my site in the last 365 days. I might still do one of these for this year because they really are fun to write and look back on but for now, this is all you’re getting. A new name and a glossy new look and hopefully a bit more content to boot.
Why I changed it;
Money is the short answer - isn’t it always? In March my illustration website hosting is due for renewal and I’d been thinking for a long time that I didn’t want to pay for it. Hosting a blog and a professional website was rinsing my bank account to the tune of £200+ a year and now that I’m employed full time in an office and not able to put my full effort into either site, it just didn’t make sense.
My illustration business has always been completely separate to my blog in terms of social media and marketing and has been going for 5 years since I was in university but I took some time to really review my sites and work out what I wanted from them, and I realised they weren’t all that separate at all. I was regularly using my blog instagram to promote my Etsy shop or my new products and services because that’s where my biggest audience was and my blog remains to be the site most frequently updated whilst my company site remained more of a portfolio.
When I look at all my clients over the past three years, they have come to me via recommendation, from friends and family to start with and then extending to friends of friends and then people saying “I saw you did this for XYZ'“. My clientele has built from reviews and recommendations and I can count the number of people who have contacted me directly from finding me online on one hand so paying for it didn’t make sense anymore.
Step in, the humble blog. The easiest and most sensible place to offer my services as an illustrator was to add it to my blog where I already have an established audience of people waiting to see what I am doing next. I have the website, I have the space and I have the potential customers so here we are, a new page and a new space to show off my portfolio.
However, twentysomethingmeltdown as fab as it’s been for me just didn’t seem to cut the mustard anymore when it came to my business as well. My business name is Gwennan Rees Illustration which I didn’t want to loose as my contact details are the same and the ol’ twenty something gag didn’t seem as profesh anymore so here we are, a new name, a new URL and a redirect for a year so you can still find me all.
Who’s inspired me;
What’s new;
So the big one is clearly a change of name. My social media handles are changing, my URL is changing and my full name is emblazoned across the top banner of this site. I feel like it’s the grown up choice to use my full name, it’s the amalgamation of both my blog persona and my business one and let’s be real here, it’s at least memorable.
Then there’s the illustration string to my bow. A new tab, a little bit about the business and a little peep at one or two bits of my work. I have tried to fit my hand drawn work in with my blog branding and mush it all seamlessly together. Have a nosey, check out my Etsy shop if you’ve missed it altogether and hire me if you’ve got a project in mind!
Aside from that it’s all the minor changes you might not have noticed but that filled my Saturday. I’ve updated all my banners with my handwriting and new pics, I’ve added three new tabs on my homepage and revamped some of my links. I’ve updated my contacts and about me page and there’s a whole selection of goodies to snap up in my current obsessions section too.
What’s to come;
To kick it all off there’s this blog post for one. Hopefully a sign of what’s to come with more long rambling content and mood boards, lots of pictures and a bit more creativity. I want to blog when I have time to blog with no purpose, to share things I love, add a bit of my handwriting, my personality and my illustration into the things I create and squish both brands into one new thing that’s all about me.
To start as I mean to go on (and if nothing else, to bolster my February blog post count) there’s a week of new content coming your way starting this morning. There’s reviews, lifestyle pieces, tips, hints and advice and of course; the ol’ faithful bullet journal.
