We're Incorporated!

The logo of incfile.com, the company we used to incorporate.

By Terri

We're coming up on the second anniversary of Geek Calligraphy as a business. Anniversaries are often good times to take the next step in the life of a business. So we have an announcement to make:

Geek Calligraphy is now Geek Calligraphy LLC!

While the distinction may not mean much to you our readers, to Ariela and me it is a Big Deal. Because we are no longer a sole proprietorship, Ariela is no longer the only one of us with a legal stake in the business. If something happens, we're both protected, which is very important to us not only on a practical level but also as an expression of our ideals; in case you missed it, workers' protections are something we care about.

It also allows us to do Fun Accounting Tricks that keeps the business money separate from our personal money (which is something our accountant has wanted us to do for a while). There are other reasons to do this, most of them legal and money related. These reasons are mostly boring to the average blog reader who comes here for the art, so I will not bother you with them further. Suffice it to say that this is a milestone and we are proud of it.

In addition, we would like to remind you that shipping deadlines are approaching fast! In order to have something arrive before חנוכה, it needs to be ordered by December 6th. חנוכה being 8 days long gives you something of a grace period, but it starts on December 12th and ends December 20th. You don't want to miss it all together. As for Christmas, the USPS has a deadline of of December 19th. In order for the art to be ready to ship by then, you need to place your order by the 14th.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

Get Your Own Terri

by Ariela

Basically since day one of Geek Calligraphy, I have been telling friends how grateful I am to have Terri as my partner, because without the things she does, this would be a much more difficult undertaking. I have also been telling my professional creative friends forever that they should get a Terri of their own. Well, now you can!

Chibi Terri holds a sign saying "Will Wrangle on a Contract Basis."

Terri is now taking on wranglees on a contract basis.

What can Terri do for you?

• Invoicing – Do you forget to invoice your clients on a timely basis because you are so caught up in the creative work of your project? Terri can send your invoices to your clients, or remind you to do it.
• Yelling at people – Are your clients late in paying their invoices? Did someone use your art without permission but the prospect of sending a DMCA takedown notice makes you want to hide under a blanket? Has your confidence in your prices deserted you, leading you to work below market price? Terri can speak sternly to people on your behalf and enforce your professional boundaries.
• Unsticking – Do you have a magnificent new project that you cannot wait to start but you are unsure where to begin? Does the magnitude of stuff that you need to get done paralyze you to the point you cannot do any of it? Terri can be a source of outside accountability to keep you on track. She can also help you break things into manageable bites and figure out which ones to start with.
• Social Media - If you need social media for Professional Business-y Reasons but it is overwhelming and stealing brain from your creative work, Terri can help.
• Work with you for short or long periods of time – If you need help with one specific thing, Terri can work with you for that long. If you need ongoing help, she can do that, too.
• Other things - This is not an all-inclusive list. If you need help with something not on here, ask her!

What Terri will not do for you:

• Be your business or creative partner – She’s mine, I found her first!
• Work below market rate – Terri is providing an important service and will be compensated accordingly. It would be hypocritical for her to offer to help you get paid what you’re worth, then accept less for her.
• Work without a contract – Contracts are there for the protection of both parties. Even a short engagement needs a contract.

While Terri's personal website is ArtistWrangling.com, and artists are her specialty, she does work with non-artist clients.

What are you waiting for? Get your own Terri!

Getting Your Art For The Holidays

Image shows a chibi Ariela under a pile of boxes and cardboard tubes saying "a little help, please..."

Thanksgiving is a week away, which means that the $_WINTERHOLIDAY shopping season will soon begin in earnest.* As such, we wish to make you aware of the purchasing deadlines we will be using to make sure that you (or the recipients) receive your purchases in time to celebrate. 

As per our FAQ, we generally ship USPS First Class. That requires the item be mailed by December 19th to guarantee delivery for December 24th. In order to give Ariela adequate processing time, we will require the orders to be placed by December 14th to make sure that there is enough time to get things printed, matted and shipped to you.

If you were looking for the perfect חנוכה gift from us, that needs to be ordered by December 6th to ensure arrival by December 12th. And may we suggest the Police Box Mizrach?

No matter what holiday you celebrate, our newest greeting card makes the perfect accompaniment to any gift. Be sure to pick one (or a pack) up with any order you place in the next two months.

*Despite Michael's best efforts to declare otherwise, the $_WINTERHOLIDAY season does not start until the day after Thanksgiving. At least not in our establishment.

New Greeting Card: Spoon Dragon $_WINTERHOLIDAY Card

Are you worried about picking an appropriate English spelling for חנוכה? Want to make a point in the "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" culture wars? Then we've got the card for you.

How It Came to Be:

As 2016 wrapped up, Ariela knew that November of 2017 would involve a significant amount of work at her day job. So we looked for some products we could release that would involve minimal effort on her part. Greeting cards tend to be the sort of things that can give Ariela a break from her day job, without taking a lot of time to finish and post-produce. Terri proposed the idea of an Global Winter Holiday Season card, using the "$_" variable. Ariela thought that Spoon Dragon was a great character to feature on the card, with winter gear. 

While looking for image references for Spoon Dragon's scarf, Ariela accidentally stumbled into one of the more intense intersections of the Fandom and Knitters Venn Diagram. While years of friendship with Terri made her peripherally aware of the fact that fandom knitters are a dedicated bunch of detail-oriented people obsessed with accurate reproduction, she still wasn't prepared for what she found there. Debates about patterns and yarn choice were expected, but essays on the relative ease of matching paint vs fabric to Pantone swatches and the differences between studio lighting, photoshoot lighting, and daylight were a tad overwhelming for a casual visitor to this subfandom.

The card shows Spoon Dragon holding a snowball, with large fuzzy blue earmuffs and a Very Long Striped Scarf. The outside text reads: "Happy $_WINTERHOLIDAY!!" The inside is available either with no text or with the following: "May your season be joyous and not eat your spoons."

As with all our cards, it is available singly for $4 each or in packs. In addition to our usual pack of 6 cards for $20, this one is also available in a pack of 10 cards for $30. 

One Artist's Tips for Taking Care of Your Hands in Cold Weather

by Ariela

Chicago seems to have jumped straight from summer to winter, skipping most of fall entirely. Bloody Hands Season is upon us, so here are some of my strategies for taking care of the appendages that let me make art.

Mostly, it boils down to two things:

1. Don't let your hands stiffen up; and
2. Moisturize.

Cold hands get stiff and restricted movement interferes with line quality. Dry skin gets paper cuts more easily, in addition to peeling and cracking on its own, hence these steps. This can be harder than it sounds when your office is very cold. In addition to being uncomfortable and distracting, cold makes moisturizer absorb more slowly, even into thirsty skin. Moisturizer residue on hands + paper = sadness. I also have poor circulation in my hands (thanks, genetics!), so my hands get cold and cramp up very easily, even if I am wearing lots of layers on the rest of my body. Doing calligraphy in gloves isn't a practical option, so I have developed some other strategies for coping.

My ink-stained fingers wrapped around a mug with a tea strainer sticking out. 

Before I get started on art each day, this is what I do:

1. Apply a heavy-duty moisturizer all over my hands.
2. Don rubber gloves and wash dishes in HOT water.
   The motion and the heat help limber up my hands, and the heat also helps the moisturizer absorb into my skin more quickly and thoroughly. Also, this gets the dishes done.
3. Make a hot beverage in a mug. The mug is important.
4. Start calligraphy. At the end of every line, put down the pen, wrap both hands around the mug of hot beverage and take a good sip.
   Drinking something hot warms me up, but the key point here is the hand motion. Unlocking my fingers from around the pen stretches them, wrapping them around the mug heats them.
5. Reheat and refill beverage as necessary.

Fingerless mitts designed and knit by Terri. Nine years of hard use and still going strong.

When I am working just in pencil, I can wear fingerless mittens, like this pretty purple pair that Terri made for me back in 2008. When I work with ink, though, mittens are a no-go. All it takes is a drop of ink on them, then when I put my hand back to the art it will soak right through my guard sheet and the entire piece is ruined. (A guard sheet is a piece of paper I put on top of the art so that my hand, with its sweat and oils, will not rest directly on the art.)

Hand Stretches

Stretching your hand and arm muscles is something to do year-round, not just when it gets cold, but it's extra important when it's cold and also more difficult - stretching in the cold is more likely to lead to injury. So I try to put on my mittens when I do my stretches, and I try to do some extras when I am in the shower and know that I am adequately warm.

If you don't already have a series of hand stretches you like, these are some good ones to start with.

Take care of your hands and happy cold weather!