Retirement?

[behzad]

I have been in the field of graphic since 1991. I have worked more than a decade for a company as their senior designer and later 15 years working for myself and dealing with clients large and small. Xara has been a big part of my production work over the years and I am dedicated to the program outside of my ranting now and then.

Most but not all my clients have gone out of business due to covid and the ones that have remained gradually give me work. Due to my age and experience I am not in need of money to find new clients and deal with constant bickering. I feel I am running out of patience dealing with idiots, not to say that some of my past clients have been great too, but overall I have ran out of steam.

I am writing this to see who else is in my situation. Oh and maybe this has contributed to me feeling this way, during the past 5 years I have been the main care taker for my mother who passed away and now my father who is ill. So Just that alone is a full time job.

Life has not been easy either during covid for all of us too. So even though I will be hanging out here and doing minor work for clients, I can say pretty much I feel as if I should retire.

I am 56 now, maybe some of you will laugh at me and say that is too soon to retire, but maybe in a few years time I would feel different than now.

Another thing is that I have no patience to learn a new program, I prefer sticking to what I know.

So love to hear where your at in your life and what plans do you have.

[handrawn]

see PM

[gwpriester]

You can be semi-retired. One of the benefits of this is being able to tell a client that is difficult to get lost.

Take on projects that you want to work on and that are fun and challenging.

I worked in advertising for 15 years and then Mary and I had our own graphic design company in San Francisco for 12 years. Mary burned out and wanted to paint. And I just worked on projects I wanted to work on. One client who turned out to be a client from hell, I returned her check and said find someone else. And it felt so good to do that.

And I tried new things. I got involved with writing articles for Corel Magazine, Publish Magazine, and software reviews for Communication Arts Magazine. I wrote for Communication Arts Magazine for 12 years. And wonder of wonder, though all my software reviews were done in the Windows versions, I never heard one complaint from the community who were almost exclusively Mac users.

Then I got involved with i/us.com doing the original XaraXone. When Arlen and Chris sold the company, I asked Xara to sponsor and they did, for about 15 years. And I loved doing the XaraXone but eventually, I bowed out of that.

And I almost forgot my most fun gig of all, STEREOGRAMS. I have been making and selling these for over 20 years. I work with Gene Levine, another stereogram artist, and Brad Honeycutt our business manager at our little company, eyeTricks 3D Stereograms. None of us has met the other and I have only spoken on the phone once to Gene. Gene's in LA, Brad's somewhere in Michigan. But it all works out. And Gene and I have been the sole contributors to a Japanese Stereogram Magazine for over 20 years now. We have a Japanese manager that we have never met. Everything is email and text messages. Our images are uploaded to the cloud and the Japanese client downloads at their end.

But all the "odd jobs" I did were fun and I really enjoyed doing them.

So you don't need to retire. Just be more particular who you work with and do what you like to do.

My Dos Centavos Neuvo Mexico.

[behzad]

So good to learn more about you guys, thank you for sharing. Life is short and I need to make sure the people I work for are great too. I have gained a lot of experience over the years and now been there done that. I do not think I will ever stop designing. I have in my 20's drawn and painted. Just got an email from a famous Canadian wildlife artist called (Robert Bateman) He was and is my idol and one day I will get back to my drawings. Here is a sample of pencil work I did when I was 22.

[wizard509]

behazd I was an Architectural Delineator for many years before becoming an oil painter and semi-professional magician so if you can afford it then go for it, you can still do the things you love but without the pressure, the beauty is some days you will and some days you won't.

[behzad]

Thank you