Studio Missive 25: Status update
Hi friend,
Happy Friday! Here’s what’s cooking in the studio this week.
What’s inspiring you?
- Christian Ivan made an animated visualization of the history of Paris from 300 BCE to the present. It’s only three minutes, but it’s fascinating to see the city grow and shift over time.
- I don’t use a lot of animations in my work at the moment (I find them kind of distracting and/or annoying in use), but GSAP’s Sites of the Year 2025 is an impressive list of gorgeously animated websites.
What are you working on this week?
A lot of things. Last week I said I was working on deadlines, and I thought I’d be more specific this week.
Tomorrow evening, the new website for Bruce Mayhew will go live (see previous mentions). This was a long-running project, and I’m excited for it to be wrapped up. There will be some post-launch work to do; I’m helping Bruce fully launch his new book in February, and it needs a product page. But this is the biggest deadline, and it’s very close.
Today, the deck and notes for the strategy for the church rebranding I’m working on are going out. This is just in time for the church’s board to review everything. The deck includes persona breakdowns and the whole nine yards. This project is already taking longer than I expected, but it’s overall going well.
On February 4th, my client EHC (previously discussed just before the holidays) is going live with a new e‑commerce system powered by Fundraise Up. I haven’t used Fundraise Up before, but the development process has been easy as pie. I hope it converts well. So far, conversions and revenue have only gone up with each new thing we have tried on EHC. The latest version of their donation site increased YOY revenue by over 150%. I hope that trend continues.
As far as my own work, I am behind. I still have a ridiculous revenue goal for the year. To hit that goal, I want to do the following:
- Rewrite the copy, launch new landing pages, and redesign elements of the website to reposition the studio. I am roughly 3% complete on this, which is still something, but progress is slow. This is a top priority for me once I am done with Bruce’s launch.
- Write new case studies. I have made no further progress on this.
- Document the work I’m doing in video format. I have made no further progress on this because I haven’t done the work I need to document. That’s all forthcoming. I previously said this would be a seven-part series, and I’d be happy if some of it launched this quarter. I do not think any of them will go up this quarter.
Last week, I wrote about moving at 1x speed. I am, sadly, only one person. I have two arms, ten fingers, and one brain. I can only do so much. I’m eager to get moving more on everything. First up, though, is launching Bruce’s site. I look forward to sharing a link in the next missive.
Until then,
Nathan