Blogging Plans for this Summer/Fall
I thought it might be time to give you a little update on my plans for Lost and Taken and blogging in general for the next couple of months. I have all kinds of cool projects in the works, some of them that I know you'll like. Here's a quick rundown of what I'll be working on and releasing in the near future:
Lost and Taken
Lost and Taken will remain my main area of focus for now, the site has steadily been increasing in popularity over the past couple of months and now averages around 2000 unique visitors a day. For the most part I don't plan on making any significant changes to this site (see below), I'm just going to keep pumping out high quality textures as often as I can.
Two things I'm going to introduce in the near future:
- Regular Guest Posts - I'm going to be bringing on another person or two to post texture packs a couple of times a month so I can have a little extra time to devote to other projects. Don't worry though, I'm going to make sure that all of the textures released here remain of the highest quality.
- Occasional Premium Textures - When I ran a post asking you guys about premium textures a while back I got a good suggestion in the comments: instead of having a premium texture section, just release paid texture packs on the blog from time to time while still posting high-quality freebies. I plan on posting one premium texture pack a month (or so), that will be completely optional...it's just a way for you to help support the site if you would like to. I've partnered with Evan from DinPattern on the first set of paid texture which should be up in about a week or so.
That's pretty much it for this site, there may be a few other surprises along the way, but for the most part I'm going to be working on a few other design-related projects. Which brings me to...
Textur.es - Community Texture Gallery
This is a fun one. I'm working with the British design firm GoInnovate on a communal texture sharing gallery. I decided to create a community texture site based on all of the people who drop me emails saying they have a couple of textures they'd like to share with everyone. So I thought it would be cool to have a place where anyone can create an account and upload their own freebie textures to a gallery for the design community to utilize...a great way of giving back and helping other creative people. Users will be able to include links to their blogs or social profiles and even donation buttons on the texture download page as a little incentive to contribute.
I'm getting really excited to launch the site, I think you guys are going to dig it a lot. It will (hopefully) become another great source for designers and photographers seeking textures for use in commercial and personal projects.
I've set the tentative date to launch the site for mid-July, I'll make sure to make an announcement here on Lost and Taken when it's up and going.
PatternWall - A Wall of Seamless Patterns
This is another cool project that is nearing completion. I'm working with Oscar from Knee Deep in Code and Angie from Arbenting on a cool gallery of free seamless patterns for use in web design projects. I'm hoping to have around 500 free patterns available around the time of launch.
The site itself is 100% original and 100% awesome, thanks to Oscar's slick javascript skills. It's hard for me to describe how cool the site is, so I guess you'll just have to wait and see it when it's released which should be either later on this month or towards the middle of July.
Video Tutorial Blog
If you follow me on twitter then you've no doubt heard me talking about a video tutorial project that's in the works. This is my next "big project" and is a major step for me because it will be my first foray into the design blogging world that doesn't involve textures in some way, shape, or form. Overall, I don't have a whole lot to say about it right now because the project is still in it's infancy. Here are a couple of my plans though:
- Original Video Tuts - The site content is going to be 100% video, from the tutorials to the news updates. Video blogging is the next frontier for us bloggers, and I'd like to be one of the people experimenting with it right now. All of the content is going to be 100% original as well, I could just aggregate videos from other sites...but I've always thought that producing original resources is a much bigger benefit to the creative community.
- Covering Creative Fields - The tutorials will revolve around most things creative: graphic design, web design/development, photography, photoshop tips, and more.
I'd like the site to become a quality destination for learning anything and everything creative, and I think teaching through video is an excellent format. I plan on having the site completed and running in about two months.
Other Various Projects
Aside from what I've mentioned above, I have a few other smaller projects I'm working on in my down time:
- Themed Texture Sites - I'm working on a whole host of small texture sites, each one of them revolving around a certain kind of texture. The sites will basically be galleries of free textures, similar to ZenTextures but only covering one kind of texture, say paper or wood. My hope is that I can get these "smaller" texture sites ranked fairly high in Google so it's easier for designers to find the quality textures they're searching for. Most of the textures you find through search engines aren't that great...I'm hoping to change that a little.
- A "secret" Twitter project - I can't tell you much about this one...but let's just say it will come out sometime before Christmas ;)
- Others - I'm also working on an iPhone Wallpaper site, Nebulae Grunge II, a creative resume building site, Twitter backgrounds, and even a book! All kinds of awesomeness.
That's about it...
Well, I think that about covers everything. After all of that, let me just say that the reason I started blogging was to help out creative people any way I could and that this pretty much still stands for all of the new projects I'm working on. It's all about encouraging and promoting art.
Thanks for taking part in my blogging adventures!
Caleb Kimbrough
Caleb Kimbrough
Reader Comments (7)
That sounds like a full plate but an exciting one! I have a lot of plans and it just comes down to finding the time to move forwards.
Your plans sound awesome and like they have a lot of potential. Do you have the typical "day job?" or are you considered freelance, or self employed from your various sites? Just looking for inspiration because I really want to be able to work on interesting projects like this.
Keep pumping out the textures and good luck with the projects
Right now I don't have a "day job", and make almost all of my income from the internet. That being said, my wife and I are moving to a new city in a couple of weeks and I'm on the lookout for a part time job to supplement my blogging income.
I think part of the reason I can get so much done is due to my not-so-regular sleeping habits, I typically only sleep 4-5 hours a night...and often not even that. When I sleep it just feels like I'm wasting time that I could be using to create something ;)
From reading your comment, you must be absolutely knackered! I sleep 7-8 hours a night! But I agree with you, it does feel like a waste of time!
All the websites you're working on sound very cool! If you need a hand with any of them further down the line you know where I am! I'm getting a dSLR soon so some better textures coming from me! :D
...and good luck with the move and looking for a part-time job!
Wow - can't say thanks enough. I"m really excited about the seamless textures and the texture community.! appreciate all your hard work!
Thanks for http://kneedeepincode.com mention Caleb! Working on the pattern site as much as I can. If only I didn't have to work ;) I'd love to do sites like these.
All of the things you talked about sound exciting! I am a newer visitor to your blog and I visit at least once a week. I found you through BittBox and have loved everything I have dl'd. I am just getting in to design and your textures have helped on various projects. Thanks for offering all you do; it helps me want to create more.
Loved the What did you learn from blogging post. The comments were awesome.