For those of you who are more fashion focused, my outfit included my darling Charlotte Olympia kitty brogues and a simple black Minkpink pleated dress. I had bought these almost six months ago (so unfortunately are no longer for sale) knowing I wanted to save them for a special occasion and this certainly fitted that description!


I got my first design job (then lost it...)

At the start of May I handed in my resignation at my part-time retail job to start working full-time as a digital designer! My dream had come true, I was going to designing for a living! I got to do a range of digital and print design work as well as help run the social media accounts and do some product photography. It was awesome, I loved it!

Then after three weeks my dreams came crashing down when all head office staff members were called into the board meeting room on a late Friday afternoon, and were told that the company had gone into receivership. Not quite knowing the difference between liquidation and receivership I thought I was doomed – I had only just started! I told my family, my boyfriend and his family about it and had a good few cries over that weekend. Again, I had only just started! That following Tuesday I got called into a meeting with the owner of the company and was told that I had been made redundant. I was done. Finished. Finito. I was gutted – more than gutted. I had left my safe retail job to start working in the design world and lost my job in a matter of weeks. I felt embarrassed; I knew it wasn't my fault and it was no reflection on my work ethics, but I still felt shitty.

It's been a few weeks since all of that, and I'm just thinking of the positives – the universe just wasn't ready for me to be doing that right now. I know I'm going to be able to push through this and come out stronger than I was before. It's just... what happens between now and then that I am worried about. Luckily, I'm currently able to do some freelancing work to keep me afloat and doing what I love until I find something permanent. I'll get there!  (I've been working for Weta recently, but I can't show you guys what I've made just yet!)

I'm on Etsy!

Following my exhibition at a local art gallery in Wellington (read about it here!) I decided to finally open up an Etsy store (LouiseBerylStore) to sell some of the prints I have made! I have been designing and making prints for a while, but it's always just been for fun (or for University or for work). It wasn't until I saw a bunch of people on my Instagram feed participating in the #36DaysOfType challenge that I decided to participate myself and turn my own little lettering pieces into actual vectorised, digital prints!

At the moment I have my Alphabet Typography collection up for sale as well as a handful of other typography prints too, which I will slowly add more to. Currently my store is only open to posting to New Zealand, but if anyone is wanting something international please just let me know and I'll open it up to more countries!



And that has more or less been me these past six months! What have you guys been up to these past few months? Anything exciting (or less so, as in one of my cases...)? So sorry for being a bit MIA on here, and most of my social media lately, as you can tell I've been a bit busy! But I aim to be a bit more active; I have a bunch more blog post ideas lined up so I just gotta get my a-into-g!

- Louise x