One of the most beloved pieces of business bullshit is the “80/20 rule”, officially called the “Pareto Principle” or the “Law of the Vital Few”. It states that, "for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes". Equating that to art, you can say that 20% of the brushstrokes define 80% of a paintings impact. It's the broad strokes and the big shapes that make all the difference.
We've recommended switching to a thermal printer for order fulfillment numerous time on 1FW. Main reason is to ditch the ink. Without ink the majority of the expense and hassle ink jet printers create when trying to ship lots of product. Earlier this year I finally took our own advice, and got one. Through the process I chatted with the amazing artists that participate in our Facebook Group, and got feedback on what thermal printers people had purchased, if they liked them, and why.
I had been curious about trying Patreon for a while, and wondered if the monthly crowd- funding model would generate enough support for me to live off my Terratoff earnings. After hearing about the possibilities at my first 1FW workshop, and seeing other independent artists thrive on the platform, I was inspired to create my own campaign! Finally a "central hub" for all things Terratoff where I could create the art and write the stories while getting paid to do it! I was totally committed to making this work, my journey began with researching and building my campaign... and I fell into a unique and personal experience with my audience I never thought possible before.
Whether we want to admit it or not, everyone wants a hit. Every time we post something on social media we hope that it’s the one that blasts off into the stratosphere and solves all our problems. Suddenly our audience is massive - we’ve made it and the days of watching the sales roll in while we sip cocktails in the sun (or La Croix in the shade) are here! But this moment isn’t reality. The "hits" you see aren’t overnight successes, they are the results of sometimes decade-long efforts to cultivate an audience.
Building an audience takes time, it takes dedication and discipline, but it also takes planning. We’ve committed to dedicating our lives to making art, but how do we know that we’re heading in the right direction? Sometimes it can feel like we’re adrift in the sea alone - it’s time we made ourselves a compass.
Artists are often thought to be introverts, working long hours in quiet reflection, keeping to themselves, and gaining energy and creative ideas from their time alone. Though artists’ personalities may lean more toward introversion, personality traits are often thought to exist on a continuum; they are not all-or-nothing traits. Instead of being introverted all the time or extraverted all the time, artists often bounce between the two. We have to. It is the nature of our business.