Here is an infographic Holiday card I created. Please feel free to save (right click and save) the web version from my post and share with your loved ones, or lovers of turkey. I plan on creating more for this series.

You can also purchase the printed versions here.

Here’s an excerpt from the article below. To read the full article go to Inspiredology’s website.

Plane ticket purchased eight months ago and my winter birthday gift, a new suitcase, packed full. All that was left was to take flight and take a break from design—but creativity does not take a holiday.

Nothing was going to stop me from going to France for a holiday and relaxing for the next month. I had not been on a proper holiday in over two years, and having sacrificed days off for getting my to do list addressed, I was in need of this time away.

Prior to leaving for my holiday, I was over worked finishing up projects, handing over files, letting clients know I would be away; essentially burning out. When you find yourself in a design slump, its important to find new ways to energize yourself. Unfortunately, as freelancers have come to find out, when you go away you have to essentially double your costs: the cost of the holiday + the lost income you are not earning as a result of going away; no paid vacations for a freelancer. So as tempting as it might be to do client work while away, I suggest try to stay away from that as much as possible. Take the occasional phone meeting (via Skype) but use your free time to focus on yourself.

Below is a collage I created of some of the interesting images that I took from around the flat.

I was lucky to have some down time during my month off on vacation and used that time very wisely to set up my new site, create an infographic resume and a origami font for my new logo.

My advice to anyone who has to experienced anything similar is:

• Make sure your back ups are turned on on your hosting admin site (mine were defaulted to be turned off, hence the no back up issue)
• Always have examples of your work on a third party site like Behance, Flickr or Cargo Collective to redirect users to while you are sorting out your website issue. As well as your up-to-date professional information on Linkedin.
• If you are using WordPress (like I was) make sure your version of the WordPress is current.
• Add additional security plugins to your WordPress site.
• For extra security, set up your WordPress admin to only recognize specific IP addresses that you use.
• Please make sure you don’t use the same login and password information that you use for all your sites/email accounts. Also make sure it’s not an easy password to figure out either (no birth dates or nick names).
• *UPDATE: There is a great article on Smashing Magazine about how to secure your site.

Whenever things like this happen, it is a real nussance and even more horrible when you realize that the people who did it were doing it for profit. As a result a charitable site and a teaching blog when down, resulting in more than just myself being affected by it. I hope that this does not happen to anyone and please take the measures to protect your websites.

One of the first artists I reached out to was James White for his “Help Japan” poster that was circulating the internet just days after the earthquake struck. He was more than happy to be a part of the show and happen to be coming to Toronto as a speaker for FITC in early May, just in time for the show. The next logical step was to reach out to Shawn Pucknell from FITC and see if he was interested in sponsoring the fundraiser. He was extremely willing and donated his Art gallery Function 13 for the venue, as well as promoted the show at FITC.

Soon things were moving forward at a fast pace. I was extremely lucky to have my friend Jen Cheng to help me out with the PR and event planning. She was instrumental in getting the word out and the details finalized. Thank you Jen! Catering and printing sponsors soon followed, as well as a donation from Themify for the website template.

The biggest challenge was to gather all the artists together and make sure the commissioned work for the show was completed and delivered on time for the opening day. It was my most challenging project management experience.

After six weeks of insanity to get things completed, the Art show was a success and money was raised for a great cause.

To view photos and art work from the Art show you can visit the Facebook page (the website was unfortunately hacked and taken down).

An article in the National Post featuring some of the artwork and information about the show.

So was the motivation for creating a series of posters to raise funds for the Canadian Red Cross for the relief efforts in Japan. The series depicts the events in chronological order and is meant to recognize the strength and courage of the Japanese people.

In addition to the posters I organized a fundraising poster Art show. I realized that there were many other artists and designers also creating artwork for the same cause, so I reached to some designers like James White who had his “Help Japan” poster already raising money for Japan, as well as commissioned other artists to create original work for the Art show. To view more information about the Art show visit the blog article.

Purchase the posters on Society6.

Details for each poster can be viewed in the portfolio section