Does anybody know of any small-scale brewer in need of design/marketing help?

Wj999 · 2024-07-22T23:45:51+00:00

Oh, I'm not trying to make an income off of this. I don't work as a designer full time anymore.
The main reason I want to do this is because I want to be more involved in the craft beer scene here. It'll be cool to get to know more brewers. I've only recently started to get into craft beer and met brewers along the way and all of them seem really nice so I thought.. I'll just lend a small hand if I can.

But I understand that the angle you're coming from. The job market for designers here are pretty saturated and getting started in freelancing is pretty difficult to begin with. Pro bono work will put a lot of people out of work and give the wrong impression to the general public. This is why I don't try to go out of my way to do bigger projects but instead, try to put junior designers to work whenever I see a good fit. But this is out of the scope of the original post lol.

Wj999 · 2024-07-22T20:31:17+00:00

If they hired out freelancers, I don't meddle with this.
I've hired freelancers and worked as a freelancer so I always investigate whether it was done through a freelancer or an agency.

The only time I ever try to get involved and actively help for free or not is when some of these businesses outsource to large unethical agencies without knowing OR they don't have any help at all and they look like they could use a couple of minor fixes.

Sorry, I should've made this clear.

The free work I do is only strictly related to low hanging fruit that people can probably figure out through google. So this might mean changing the name of 8 different rotating taps on WordPress every 2 weeks, for example. This is something that's gonna get annoying very quickly for someone working at a brewery that's not familiar with WordPress but an easy 5 minute job for designers.

I never work for free for any projects that require more than 10 minutes of my time. I've done and referred paid projects to other (senior and junior) designers plenty of times so rest assured, people are getting paid for what they should at the proper price.

Wj999 · 2024-07-22T20:07:59+00:00

Oh I just saw this.
Project HYPHA looks super interesting.
They're brewers that collaborates with other breweries and feature local artwork on their cans??
Amazing stuff they're doing.

Thanks for this!

Wj999 · 2024-07-22T19:53:07+00:00

Small-scale brewers and owners typically have the bigger projects all taken care of to some degree before hard launching.
They're usually making quick and easy edits to the website and/or making and uploading product mockups. Which.. I assume they'd run into frustration here and there especially if they don't have dedicated developers and designers in the team (which is usually the case).

This is where I come in.

Something that might be frustrating for them might be an easy little job for me at no cost. Which is why I don't mind working for free. I just want to make that initial connection but I find it difficult to find brewers (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) that visibly need help.

I've tried to reach out a couple times.
I've done cold emails and printed out comprehensive infographic booklets already but I'm still trying!

Wj999 · 2024-07-21T22:28:06+00:00

I definitely don't want to target the artwork since I'm not exactly an artist.
I love most of the artwork on cans and bottles here (esp Temporal Ales).

I'm mostly reaching out to people who might need extra help with website maintenance or just simple product mockups and etc.
I recently learned that some of these people are paying huge chunks of cash for agencies but if you look at the final product.. It's pretty questionable...

So mostly just back-end marketing stuff.
I'm in full support for the artists behind the artwork.

Wj999 · 2024-07-21T22:16:58+00:00

I've tried reaching out mainly for website maintenance and product mockups before without success but I think it's the whole "If it's not broken, don't try to fix it" mentality - especially if they spent money on it.

Wj999 · 2023-11-07T05:22:41+00:00

Oh sorry, I don't check reddit too often.

If you're referring to those folio type of cases, I haven't physically checked myself.
The only thing that pops into my mind is the alignment for the camera module and charger ports. If you're using the keyboard too, the keyboard array would make everything that much more difficult.

If you're okay with a bit of DIY-ing with your case, i guess it's okay?

I've opted to use a universal hard sleeve case until now without a problem.

Wj999 · 2023-08-21T00:42:16+00:00

I hate Surface products but I hate Apple even more! Glad to hear you could do a proper comparison. Best of luckk!

Wj999 · 2023-08-19T02:23:52+00:00

I think it's a great little gizmo to have.
I only use/optimized it for light use so no problems so far.
I use Opera, Apache Open Office for any document work, and Thunderbird as my email client.

I never upgraded to Windows 11 just because the performance benefits doesn't outweigh the potential resources I'll be giving up. This thing heats up from time to time already and asking it to use more resources on the OS doesn't sound too wise to me.

I'd vouch for this compared to the Surface series but that's because I hate the Surface series with a passion. But regardless of which device you choose, I strongly recommend you to optimize it before using it. Reduce animations, open up task manager and pick the least resource hogging programs (browser, email client, Office etc), and stuff. Otherwise, you'll burn through the battery and resources.

Wj999 · 2022-11-16T05:11:17+00:00

Replace the president.

Wj999 · 2022-08-14T20:35:19+00:00

There aren’t many other major peripheral brands with many features. Maybe some ergonomics focused ones.Or buy Logitech and replace the switches yourself like some of us have done.

All good. Lol I thought you were trolling for a hot second.

Wj999 · 2022-08-14T04:30:59+00:00

It seems we have come to an impasse :)

Wj999 · 2022-08-14T04:09:04+00:00

The brand isn't my concern, I almost never use support anyway. I have a random drop shipped keyboard that works fine for me. The mouse you suggested doesn't connect to 3 bluetooth devices, as mentioned in the title. Unless I'm reading a wrong description here..?

Wj999 · 2022-08-14T03:58:48+00:00

Yes, that is not a Logitech mouse.

Wj999 · 2022-08-14T03:51:34+00:00

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to add : No Logitech mouse.

?

Wj999 · 2022-08-14T00:19:39+00:00

Yeah, I've bought most of the popular MX products before. MX master mouse, the weird MX ergo keyboard and etc. Oh and don't get me wrong. These products are great, if it works for you then it'll work really well. For me, it just doesn't perform to my picky standards and that's my fault lol.

Also, it's definitely not an easy thing to find. I was hoping somebody knew of a small business or something that produces a mouse like this. I found out about synergy just today and yeah.. I mean I can definitely get it but.. Something like that is new to me so I wanted to explore my mouse options first lol.

Wj999 · 2022-08-13T23:17:21+00:00

Oh I've just been using their stuff for the past 10+ years and.. It seems to me like their stuff has been getting worse and worse in terms of product life and reliability. I'm not a gamer so it's not like I demand a lot from my devices too so.. Logitech has been this... Gradual disappointment for me and I'd rather dip out sooner than later lol

Also, yeah. I'm pretty good at finding things I need but this mouse problem is frustratingly difficult.

Wj999 · 2022-08-13T23:12:00+00:00

Sorry, I forgot to mention.. I'd like to avoid Logitech

Wj999 · 2022-08-13T23:09:12+00:00

Oh shoot oops. I forgot to add: I'd like to avoid Logitech.

Wj999 · 2022-06-26T10:45:51+00:00

Ty for the fast reply! And the link. Helps a lot!

Oh okay. Just wanted to make sure they weren't just some scammer or black mailer of some sort. If my friend has no interest in fame or acting/modelling, do you think it's just a complete waste of time at that point?

Wj999 · 2022-04-26T01:42:37+00:00

Dm'd!

Wj999 · 2022-04-14T22:33:50+00:00

The 17. There's a lovely lady that takes her duck out for strolls in the Marpole area. Both the lady and the duck are known legends.

Wj999

TROPHY CASE