After a month and a half-long hiatus, we’re back! And we’re so glad to be back! What have you been up to this last few weeks?
In the time we were gone, we: moved twice, lived in a tiny attic above a store with no door or bathroom, celebrated Christmas twice, drank champagne on New Year’s Eve, both worked two full-time jobs, painted most of our new house, are trying to decorate our new home and we’ve even been trying to squeeze in some hours of sleep here and there.
We’re not done, not even close and this storm we’re in, it’s not calming down any time soon. But we’ve found balance together within this storm and I quite like it. It’s been windless for far too long.
There is so much we want to share with all of you, but for now we’ll keep it short. Happy New Year, we’ve missed you and we’re hoping to connect with you soon!
The last time I shared some of our work, you all seem to like it and asked for more. So here is another project we are working on.
When Anouk and Simon of Dear Wendy approached us a few months ago, we knew right away we would hit it off. They come from the same island as Nick and they all share the same love for the sea.
Dear Wendy is Anouk and Simon on their guitars making dreamy folky music and we knew we wanted to capture that feeling in their website somehow. We also knew we wanted to do something with the fact they both come from an island, surrounded by sea. As you can see in the moodboard. We’re now in the final stages of designing their website and it should be online soon.
Dear Wendy landed a gig in Holland’s biggest coffee chain Coffee Company (think Starbucks, but Dutch). They asked us to design a poster for the occasion.
Because we couldn’t decide and got carried away, we made four poster designs and we’re sharing two of them with you. The first one is in the style of the moodboard and website design, the second one is my personal favorite. A poster that will stand out between all the other posters.
With the design of the posters, Nick and I really worked together as a design team. Something we’re always looking to improve. It’s easy to get lost in the your own process and forget to work together. This time we brainstormed, bounced designs around and both posters are the fruit of our coöperation.
A little over a year ago, Nick and I started our design studio. It began with a shared love for creating, Nick’s passion for computers, my love for art and our wish to be independent. So far, it’s been a great ride and we’ve been honored to work on some really great projects and with some really amazing people. I want to share one of them with you to show you what we’re up to all day. We’re still in the middle of this project.
When our close friend Martes asked us to design his website we were super excited. We hadn’t worked with a friend before and we were curious to see how it would turn out. So far, it’s been great. We meet up, spill all of our ideas, drink some beer and have fun.
When I asked Martes to describe what he does, he made up his own word. Oplettograaf (it’s Dutch. Sort of). Someone who notices his environment. An eagles eye. He is the kind of person who is hard to describe in one word. After a lot of brainstorming the best we could come up with is free spirit. A free-spirited philosopher who makes videos. A creative video maker. He is a pleasure to work with, comes up with a lot of ideas and isn’t afraid to tell us what he likes.
These are a few of the logo’s we have designed for Martes and a snippet of the moodboard. The final logo is still in the making. We can’t wait to see where this project will take us and to show you the end result. Stay tuned!
Collected thoughts about how much travel has changed me. I hope it makes a coherent story.
Fragments of our old life in Amsterdam were flashing by as we sat in a tram, on our way to a late breakfast with a friend. Raindrops on the window, slowly spiraling down. How much have we changed? How different are we compared to 5 years ago? With Amsterdam floating by, I realized just how much this past year has shaped me. People told me our trip would be life changing beforehand. But I have to see and feel to believe. And I believe.
In the tram I made a list to describe how I was feeling at the moment. Growing up. Changed perspective. Mature. Confident. Open minded. Loving. Caring. Compassionate. Open armed. Free. Understanding.
On the road we talked a lot about how this trip might affect the rest of our lives. We talked a lot. But we never ever thought it would be like this. I was surprised when I realized just how much I have changed, we have changed, us has changed. You see, I believe people can change. If you want to, you can. But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be pretty. But you can. And you’ll be proud of yourself.
I let go of almost all of my fears.
I have learned to go with the flow, roll with the punches. I have learned to let go. I feel confident. I have found my limits, broken through them and imposed new limits on myself only to shatter them as well. I have learned to love, with all my heart. I learned to smile. Smile as wide as I can. Smile because I’m alive. Smile.
Do things that make you happy. You only live once (yes, I went there). Cliché’s are often true. You will never get today back. Today is your day to shine. And so is tomorrow. Learning to embrace this is the most valuable thing you will ever learn. If you live each day exactly the way you want to, you will be grateful to yourself when all is done and said.
Embrace what you have, but learn to let go. Your body is your own. Treat it well, it needs love to be at its best. Learn to let go of all the clutter in your life. Learn to let go of resentment, regret and hate.
Smile.
When you’re traveling, the traveling itself becomes everyday life. I didn’t walk around exclaiming ‘oh my god, I’m traveling the world, it’s so awesome’ all the time. It’s just how it was. When it’s your everyday life, it loses most of its ‘oh my god’- factor. Now I’ve had some time to process it all. Looking out of the tram window it finally hit me: ‘Oh my god, we’ve traveled the world for a year and it was awesome’.
There’s this restaurant. When I lived in Amsterdam, I passed by every day and I never understood its name. Somehow I always thought it was a made up word. We passed by it again in the tram and for the first time I understood its name. It was ‘hello’ in Thai. Simple things like this make me want to travel more. I want to learn more of the world around me, I want to learn about the simple things and the deep insights. About myself and about the world. I want to experience. I want to eat sushi in Japan, speak Spanish (and eat tortillas) in Mexico, climb mountains in Nepal and swim with whales. I did find out I really need a place to feel at home, a place where I have some roots and where I can hide when the world overwhelms me. A place that is mine and ours.
I believe that everything that happens, just happens. There is no regret, just lessons.
It’s not just travel that changes you, it’s everything. You’re always changing.
Please share your thoughts, I would love to know what you think!
Someone suggested I should write a mini-guide of Lembongan but I can’t. There is a lot to do on Lembongan Island. I just didn’t do any of it. I didn’t go cliff jumping, diving, snorkeling, fishing, stand up paddling, surfing, sailing, manta ray hugging or whatever else there is to do. We did scooter around the island one day, but that’s it. And that is very unlike me.
You see, I was never the type of girl to do nothing. It wasn’t that I couldn’t sit still, I just didn’t want to. I felt there was so much to explore, discover, see and do. So you would always find me walking around, planning adventures or when I still lived at my mum’s house, I would redecorate my room at least once every two weeks (which makes me the most creative person ever considering my room was just 4m x 2m).
When I moved to my first apartment, I was always busy making stuff for art school, longboarding, going out or wreaking havoc with my friend who lived across the hall. This one time, we sort of stole a bike. There was a bike outside of our apartment complex. It was locked and she needed a new bike. It didn’t seem to belong to someone, so we took it in the elevator up to our floor, bought a saw and made our neighbor saw the lock. Voila, new bike.
Right about the time my friend and I grew apart, I met Nick. Three weeks later Nick and I got a dog. Not long after that, I quit art school for reasons that are now unknown to me. I got a full-time job managing a health food store, working 40+ hours a week. During this time I also decided I wanted to be a hairdresser. Oh yeah and I tried having a social life. I’m amazed I didn’t have a burn out.
After quitting the health food store and getting a job as a hairdresser, we moved to a new city. And I got really busy exploring this new city. Are you still with me? My point is, I don’t do nothing. I like doing new things. I’ve always been an explorer. Doing nothing to me seems meaningless. Why sit still when I could be out doing stuff? You probably think I’m this super high energy person, which I’m not, at least not all the time. Trust me, my favorite thing to do is sleep. I just like doing something, anything.
Sitting at a beach doing nothing never seemed like my ideal holiday. The first time Nick made me do this was at Koh Phayam. The first day I couldn’t relax at all and constantly got up to walk, talk or look around. It took me more than a week to relax completely and accept that it was totally okay to spend a whole day doing nothing more than laying in the sun while reading, eating and swimming.
Unknowingly and unintentionally, Nick has created a monster. All I want to do now is hang around at the beach and read. It is one of my favorite things to do. The ten days we spent at Lembongan Island were filled with doing not much more than this. It’s amazing how incredibly fulfilling life can be when you take some time to read all the books you’ve wanted to read for ages.
What do you like to do? Anyone who shares my passion for sleep?
