New online identity, new portfolio
In the past months I've been working 'silently' on a visual and functional overhaul of my existing art webshop.
Why?
Three reasons.
Reason 1
Because the initial concept of my art, 'bringing happiness and joy through lots of colours', limited my creative progress. I know that the common belief is that limitations enhance your creativity and I can endorse that belief. But I had lots of ideas for paintings and art objects that didn't fit the concept and it is way to early in my career to limit myself.
Reason 2
Besides a concept that didn't fit my art anymore, my online presence was scattered. With four separate online identities, all offering services in the fields of design, art and interior styling, my online presence was scattered.
I had four websites up and I only updated my art webshop. My freelance Visual + UX/UI Design and Illustration portfolio could be reached at Designia.nl. I had a sleeping personal blog at MichielNagtegaal.nl and I still have a Dutch interior design blog because of the small amounts of money I receive from affiliate links. And it is still online because it takes massive amounts of time and effort to transfer the hundreds of blogposts to this new website, :)
Reason 3
And last but not least, in the past several years lots of Youtubers and Instagrammers cleverly managed to set up a business around nothing more than their own person. Becoming a so-called Influencer. Very admirable and inspiring.
I am not the kind of person that likes to have a camera on their face each and every moment of the day but this trend in Social Media got me thinking about 'being my own brand'. Why not just sell 'me' as a creative package? What do I have to offer? Would it even be possible to cross sell my creative disciplines? With analytical UX Design on one end and the total freedom of fine art on the other end, there is a real risk of not selling anything at all because clients don't know what your expertise is.
So I decided to combine it all into one online presence; MichielNagtegaal.com. And time will tell which of the four 'brands' survive.
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