I originally was going to wait to do this post, but then thought “There’s no time like the present.”
So, let me introduce Kerning & Cupcakes!
Kerning & Cupcakes?
Kerning & Cupcakes (also known to me as “K&C”) is the career path that I’m hoping to go down eventually. It combines two of my favorite things—design and baking. Kerning is the spacing between letters that often has to be adjusted during the graphic design process, and it’s one of my favorite tasks when refining typography. I know that sounds super nerdy, but I’m totally okay with that. And everyone knows what cupcakes are…or at least I’d hope so.
The K&C website currently acts as my personal portfolio for now, but it will constantly be changing. I’m still working on establishing the branding and will fully designed out the website down the road. Since I’ve been working in advertising for the past (almost) four years, my work is primarily geared in that direction. I’m hoping to eventually switch gears away from advertising and work more with branding, which I love doing. I’ve worked on several branding projects (mostly for larger companies or corporations), but would prefer to do it for small businesses and individual people. It’s not that I don’t like my current job (because I do), but there’s a lot I don’t like when it comes to advertising and what it causes people to do and think.
So what about the cupcakes?
Another part of K&C is to bake on the side, almost like a freelance baker. I started learning how to bake when I was younger, and while I took a break from it during my teen years and early 20’s, I’m back at it. When I was 8 years old, I was put in 4-H and was in a baking and sewing club. (I also showed pigs, but I’m not going to talk about that. ha) I remember kicking some serious ass my first year with baked goods at the county fair. Some called it beginners luck…I say they were just jealous of my skills 😉
I’m still figuring out how exactly I want to tie the two areas of work together, but I have a few ideas floating around in my head. I bake quite a bit, though I don’t post many recipes here on the blog (which is another thing I’d like to work on). There’s been quite a bit of trial and error happening, with plenty of happy results. I’m excited to think of what I’ll eventually decide on!
Also…this checks off another 30 Before 30 item!
It was a goal of mine to get a personal website up, rather than having to rely on a site like Behance to house my portfolio. I’ll still keeping my Behance account and my new personal site still needs a lot of work, but I’m so excited to have finally got it started!
So hopefully this is will be fun beginning to where I want to take my career down the road. I feel like announcing this now will make me want to kick my butt into gear for when I am ready to make a career change. I’m not leaving my job at the ad agency anytime soon, but I for sure don’t want to work in that industry forever. I mean, there’s only a certain number of banner ads someone can do before they go crazy.
—m.