The Scratch cards - Part Two.

All this exposure was immense, I got other notable mentions from Design Taxi and Elite Daily which was beyond fantastic. There were numerous Twitter accounts who post and re-post Buzzfeed articles constantly, this probably explains how I got articles about me in France, Netherlands and Estonia.
The Estonian link in particular was actually one of the most in trafficked articles to my blog - usually my audience is predominately the UK or US in terms of stats, but Estonia completely leap frogged USA by a couple of hundred views.

Maybe I should go there for a job?

Estonia, if you ever need a honourable Eurovision contestant you know who to call.

I was feeling pretty good about myself - look at me, all internet famous.

 But it's a fickle limelight. It got quiet for a few days again, I was waiting for another ripple in the ocean...

I continued to be patient and carried on with my otherwise 'standard' job searches. I was given an interview by an entertainment company called Sternberg Clarke as a content writer/blogger of sorts. This would be a fun job - getting paid to go to events etc. I confidently took the interview and felt great about it, making sure to showcase my new found internet fame in the interview itself too. The show off.

I took the bus after the interview - my phone buzzed with excitement - a new update on the scratch cards.

I got an email from the Editor-in-chief of Dash Magazine NoéMie Schwaller:

I did think at one point that some of the scratch cards would get lost in the post but didn't think there would be a penny thieving postman on the loose. Will our streets ever be safe? Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves..

Regardless, I was really happy with the email and NoéMie was kind enough to instagram this to her followers on the DASH account and her personal account:

That's not all - about an hour later I got another instagram mention in the form of the lovely shop Lik+Neon off Brick Lane:

Super sweet,  I'm currently talking to the owner about showcasing my greeting cards there which is great. These responses were definitely more what I wanted; exposure, opportunities and that horrid word... networking!


I'm a firm believer that there's always 2 sides to every coin, so everything good must have something bad. Any praise should have criticism too. I had an abundance of praise up until now and karma was kicking in and knocking on my door. I was due my comeuppance to restore the equilibrium, this took the form of popular aggregator site Reddit, which some of you may be familiar with.

It's a fun site with the latest memes, articles and jokes. It's self described as 'the front page of the internet'. As much as this can be a fun site, the members or 'Redditors' or 'Le Reddit Army' are widely known for being absolute trolls. I naively put a link on their Design section, thinking I could get more praise and feedback on the scratch cards.

Oh man, was I wrong.

Within a couple of hours I got a tirade of abuse in the form of about 70 comments or so. It was a lot to take in and quite frankly a bit upsetting how personal the abuse got. The majority of the people commenting missed the point of my project in that I intentionally designed a garish looking scratch card to capture attention of prospective employers and that was my goal.
I'm a designer who majored in illustration and quite often consider myself an Artist rather than a Designer, whereas in this section of Reddit lurk pure typographers who scrutinise everything. You could say they were jealous and perhaps they were, but there's no point dwelling in negative interactions.

DoWn WiTh ThE hAtErZzZz!!  Onwards and upwards!



Earlier I mentioned how NoéMie instragrammed my scratch cards for me, to top this treat I got an email from DASH a week later inviting me along to their fashion launch for their SS15 issue. 

Look at me all fashiony and that.

Thrown in the deep end for sure! As you're all completely aware already - I have fantastic (Kyle) style so I'll be able to slot in fine visually, but this is to the next level in terms of networking. 

Unfortunately I had no plus one on my invite, which would make breaking the ice ten times easier. Undeterred, I ventured to Holborn, ready with my conversational quips.

"So.. clothes eh?"
"We have so much in common! I like to wear them daily."
"Black is so in"


(Disclaimer - I thankfully didn't say any of that, here are some snaps)

Fashion people!

Clothes!

Clothes! Fashion!

Fashion!

It was a very unique experience, which I really enjoyed. For the life of me I couldn't find NoéMie but I managed to make small talk and hand out a few business cards so not all was lost. The event photographer followed me for a bit and was snapping away at me. Nailing the Kyle style. Then another guy asked me to hold the events sponsored soft drink called Laimon, so there's a photo somewhere lurking in the world of me posing with a can of lemonade. Alright! If any photos happen to float about I'll make sure to stick them up here.

(Edit: 16/03/2015 - only gone and found the photo haven't I!)

The adventure continues in the next episode: Budapest, interviews, modelling, despair, excitement and more in Part Three..