It's hard to imagine that FireMane Studio is officially 10 years old this year. A lot has happened since my last (last) blog post for the New Year in 2018. Aside from COVID sending everyone home to work remotely, things around the studio didn't change much.
I set up FireMane to be remote first back in 2014 because I knew where the future of work was heading, even back then. The work I was doing was 100% through the internet. While I did meet with clients face to face when we were both in the same area, I expanded my client base beyond my city metro area. Cincinnati was a thick hub of design agencies and advertising giants at the time. I was a company of one. I didn't try to offer what I couldn't deliver on but had the resources to bring in more team members as needed. As 2019 was winding down, my personal life took a turn into the unknown.
Long story short; after a trip abroad I got the idea in my head that I wanted to build out a cargo van and live on the road full time. Yes, I wanted to live the Vanlife! The notion to travel more had always been on my mind, all the way back to high school and early college. But with the looming expectation to live where I worked, I tried to settle somewhere. Fast forward to 2019 and I found the best (or just plain insane) notion to save up, buy a van, and turn it into a tiny home on wheels. I had dedicated 2020 to be my "No Spend Year" where most of my income went into savings. COVID certainly helped that goal. With nothing open and everyone at home, not spending money became the least stressful part of that year.
Jumping to November 2022, the van build is complete and I hit the road to New Mexico for the winter. Since then, I've visited six new to me states, several National Parks, and expanded my sticker collection ten fold. It has been a wild ride!
Now that you're all caught up, I'm getting back into blogging more often. Not just about the importance of having cohesive visuals to support your business, but also musings from being on the road. I promise this won't become a travel blog. There are enough of those already!
But traveling is one of my passions and I chose to make it a big part of my life. Freelancing remotely has given me the opportunity to pursue full time travel in a way I never thought possible. So if you're new to my site, welcome! If you're a current client, you know my flavor of crazy pretty well.
Let's hit the road!