POWERED by FUSION

Pat Dryburgh is a freelance designer.

London, Ontario

Open For Business


9 notes

It’s done.

I’ve been working for months and months on this, and finally it is ready. Today, I launched my new freelance design studio, Athlete. Athlete is all about crafting amazing experiences. Like Olympic and professional athletes, Athlete’s philosophy is about a continual strive for excellence.

Some of you may remember my proposed 12 Days of Redesign post series. It was birthed after weeks of trying to narrow down my personal brand, my strategy for launching my freelance business, and my thought process behind the decisions I had made. I never really got started into the series, because as I was writing it I realized I had it all wrong. The strategy I had carefully worked out was not the right one for me.

And so, I went back to the drawing board. Another few months of working through my business strategy, working on layout after layout after layout (screenshots to follow) for my new site, and receiving some incredible help and guidance from some brilliant people, I finally had a clear image of what I was to do.

I am so thankful to the following people for their encouragement, guidance, and frequently, their patience:

I am sure I’m missing people in this list, so if I have forgotten you please forgive me and know that I greatly appreciate your input as well.

Now that I have established my strategy and my new business, I will be sharing what I’ve learned through the process here. I don’t want to make any promises as to when those posts will come, simply because my schedule is so hectic right now. However, come they will. One day. Sooner than later.

I am still currently employed with a full-time job, however I am currently accepting freelance work for late April/early May. If you are interested in working on a project with me, please be sure to contact me.

Designing My Life


5 notes

For the past 6 months or so, I have seriously contemplated the idea of starting my own design business. I have been doing freelance design during my “free time” for over a year now, and really believe that if I was able to devote my full attention to it, I could develop an exciting, thriving little design shop.

While the idea of working for myself and for the clients I choose is definitely a priority in this decision, there are other elements outside of the business itself that excite me about the prospect of working for myself. What I really look forward to most is the ability to truly design my life the way I want, in a way that allows me the freedom to enjoy both life and work to their full potential.

Two years ago, I started to make a serious effort at getting my health on track. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but suffice to say that in a relatively short period of time I was able to get my health from a near dire situation to being above-average in terms of fitness and overall health. One of the main reasons I was able to achieve my goals in such a short time is that I was fortunate enough to work where for an organization that allowed me to set most of my work schedule. I was able to schedule personal training appointments at times where I wouldn’t have an excuse to miss.

Moving to a work schedule that I had no say in has been a struggle for the past two years. I like the idea of establishing a fixed schedule for my life, however I would much prefer to fix a schedule that works for me rather than what works for my employer. Here is what an ordinary currently looks like:

  • 7:45am: Wake up
  • 8:15am: Cleaned up, dressed, and prepare breakfast
  • 8:35am: Breakfast rushed, newspaper skimmed, rushed out the door
  • 9:00am: Arrive at work
  • 5:00pm: Leave work
  • 5:30pm: Avoid gym, go home and work on freelance projects

Because I am not a morning person, I leave no time for preparing a proper breakfast or lunch, I don’t take advantage of a morning gym routine, and I rush out the door so I can fight my way through rush-hour traffic to get to the office.

After work I more often than not persuade myself to not go to the gym, as I don’t like working out in big crowds, or I am just feeling lethargic from sitting in a chair all day. If I had a bit more time in the morning, even a half hour or so, I know I would be able to make this work in my day to day life.

I would like to set a period of 1 hour each day in which I address email. I tire of having to open my email at work all day long to make sure I’ve addressed every request as soon as humanly possible. All this equates to is a barrage of distractions and unfinished projects. Any task that takes more than an hour is usually interrupted and forgotten about. If I was able to allow only a small window of time to address my email inbox, I could process the email in a much more efficient manner, plan out the projects I hope to accomplish that day, and not suffer from constant interruption. This may be a pipe dream, but it’s one I’m willing to chase after at least for the time being.

My day would be filled with working on projects, hopefully with enough variety to keep my interest. I cannot be stuck in one thing for weeks on end; I need to have new challenges on at least a weekly basis. I purchased my Nikon D90 with the intention of factoring it into my new business, and while I am not where I need to be yet as far as my photography skills go I will hopefully grow each day in my understanding of proper photography technique and ability. I also want to challenge myself on new platforms, including the iPhone, the Mac, and a real web app as well. The intention of all of this would be two-fold:

  1. the ability to provide a unique service to my clients, and
  2. the ability to develop projects that generate passive income in some manner.

My nights, which would likely start around 6-7, would include dinner, time with friends, and music. I would like to develop a mini recording studio with some basic audio production capabilities, mostly so I can get demos down and perhaps help some young bands get basic demos tracked. This would, hopefully, also fuel some of the design work I do for a living.

There’s a chance all of this is simply too far fetched, that there is no way that my dreams and reality will ever coincide. However, that also leaves the chance that they will come together, and that I will have the pleasure and honour of doing what I want to do for a living.

This is a screenshot of what my desktop will look like over the weekend. Turned off.

3 notes

This is a screenshot of what my desktop will look like over the weekend.

Turned off.

Things I Should Have Asked For My Birthday


1 note

I suck at wish lists. For one, I don’t feel comfortable accepting gifts. Also, I generally want things that I have no right asking someone else to purchase for me, like a guitar. My birthday wish list for my parents this year was:

  1. A car, which I have asked for every Christmas and birthday since I was 16 and have never received. Gotta stick with tradition!
  2. Money, so I could buy some things for the new apartment.
  3. A 24” Cinema Display, knowing I would never get it, further ensuring that I would receive money.

Well, my parents are way too thoughtful to give money. They put a lot of pride in the gifts they give their children, and so this year I received the incredible following gifts:

  1. Two boxes of food and necessities for the new place.
  2. A $25 Subway gift card
  3. A lamp, which I had planned to purchase with the money they were going to give me.

So really, things worked out in the end. Except…

It happens every year; I think of what I want for my birthday days after the gifts have been bought and opened. And so this year I have decided to write down what I should have asked for, with the intent of asking for these items at the next appropriate occasion (or so my mom can surprise me at any point throughout the year):

  1. A cook book. Gordon Ramsay’s “Fast Food” or Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” seem to have recipes I would be interested in.
  2. A Nike Plus system. I want to start tracking my runs better than I do now, and this seems to be the best solution.
  3. A Nalgene Fitness bottle, so I don’t spill water down my shirt while I run and drink from my normal Nalgene bottle.

Three simple, small ideas that I really should have asked for. Oh well, there’s always Christmas.

Mike Salvatore →


1 note

My friend and college roommate, Mike Salvatore, is one of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. Mike has a lot of great thoughts on life, and today he’s finally made the jump to share some of those thoughts through blogging.

Good luck, my friend. Stay encouraged, and know that your voice is being heard, at least in my life.

An Interview with Pat Dryburgh →


2 notes

A few weeks ago, Ian Hines asked if I would like to do an interview with him. I wasn’t sure I would have anything interesting to say, but his questions are dang good, and for that reason alone you should definitely check this interview out!

Why I’m Not Subscribed to You


8 notes

Fever tells me that I currently subscribe to 110 blogs1. Having read Aaron Mahnke and Patrick Rhone’s latest posts on their RSS reading habits, I thought I would explain my criteria for subscribing to blogs:

  1. Do I know this writer personally, or personally know someone who does?
  2. Have I read at least a half-dozen posts that I would classify as being very interesting?
  3. Do I follow this person on Twitter, and if so, do they link to most of their posts in their Twitter feed?2
  4. Is this person’s writing something I would rather be reading than doing something else that I enjoy?

When I subscribe to a blog, I place it in a “tryout” folder. In order to graduate and remain in my reader, it must pass the following criteria:

  1. Has this blog updated semi-regularly, and have the majority of the posts either been interesting and/or beneficial to my life?
  2. Have I learned something from this blog?
  3. Is the signal-to-noise ratio better than tolerable?3

I have very high standards for the blogs I subscribe to. They may not be the same as your standards, and that’s ok. The important thing to realize is that our time is valuable, and we need to be a lot more discerning when it comes to what signals we allow into our daily lives, because they can have a lasting affect on who we are and who we become.

  1. It should be noted that one of those blogs is Michael Mistretta’s, who, dispite continuous public prodding, still refuses to update his site. I will wear him down. ↑
  2. I am still on the fence with my personal approach to this. A while back, Michael Mistretta and I had a conversation about this and I sided with him and chose not include links to my posts in my Twitter feed. Since moving to Tumblr, I have started doing so again, and have noticed that a growing amount of traffic is coming from Twitter. I don’t like doing it, but it may be a necessary evil. What do you think? ↑
  3. I unsubscribed to Kottke’s feed a while back, feeling at the time that he was updating far too regularly. I realized last week, however, that while he updated much more than most other blogs, his quality was still incredibly consistent. I have since resubscribed. Oh, and I like seeing ads I’ve designed on his site ;) ↑

21 notes

At what point have you checked your email, your Facebook, your Twitter feed, your RSS subscriptions, browsed YouTube, Vimeo, Digg, Reddit, checked your email, checked your iPhone for text messages, scanned through your todo list, refreshed your Twitter feed, reblogged that ironic photo, checked your email, read pages and pages of Daring Fireball, complained that the iPad isn’t everything you dreamed of, read your RSS feed for other people complaining about the same thing, scanned your todo list again, and checked your email enough times before you actually decide to do something productive?

I’m almost there.