I mentioned in a previous post that helping my wife with her ideas is what got my creativity flowing again. She wanted a small business with an online presence and I decided to help her with that.

For a few years she talked about starting this little venture – she was passionate about pregnancy and birth before we had children and even more so when she gave birth to our two children. So, on her birthday a few years back I presented her with a small gift of a domain name for the ‘business’ she dreamed of having. This was presented with a homemade token from me, offering to do a simple website for her. (I bought a MacBook a few months previously and was eager to try the iWeb app)

She was thrilled with the gift. Even more than I expected! On that day, the seeds of her business were taken from her mind and sown. We brainstormed ideas on how to develop her plan, and we tried to be practical as to what would work with our family and other time commitments. Some ideas were put into practice, and the cogs turned to produce stock and services. And from this we saw the seeds sprout and start to grow.

I never realised doing this work for my wife was going to help resurrect an old passion of mine. While drafted ideas for her website I also doodled ideas for a logo. These sketches developed into graphics that could be used for print and online. The structure of the website had to be worked out several times, and redone as demands and knowledge changed. The small seedling of her business and my creativity was growing into a tree, with several branches bearing fruit.

It was a lot of work for me to take on after my own (hectic) full-time job; plus my time with the children when I got home, as well as the cooking and cleaning…but somehow I kept going. In hindsight I recognise that my stamina to do all this was helped by my love for the design and creating process. It kept me up until 4am some days as I happily tried to get some more work done. I started noticing logo designs on everything, identifying which websites I liked and didn’t like. My mind often raced with more ideas, especially when I did finally go to bed early some evenings.

Over the last couple of years I have still followed this passion, but I try control it so that it balances with my family and work commitments. I have dropped out of other community activities in order to spend more time at home with my family and to give me time to design. There are days when I want to lock myself away from everyone so that I can just design stuff. Thankfully that doesn’t happen too often! Instead I’m using the time with my family to give me ideas and inspire my work. I’m recognising that helping others to plant seeds can produce nourishing fruit for everyone. I enjoyed last year’s harvest, and look forward to sowing more design seeds this year.

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This ‘guaranteed Irish’ logo is a design I remember as a child; sitting eating my cereal and noticing how it played with the g + i initials of its name. I remember pointing it out to my father who never recognised it.