Calligrapher Career Guide

Transcription

(Music)

Dan: Is being a calligrapher just pretty lettering and fancy pens? Alex Zimmerman reveals the business and art behind designing wedding invitations and building a career around creativity. Is this the right career for you? Let's find out. Today on Time We Discuss, I wanna welcome Alex Zimmerman and it's time we discuss what it's like working as a calligrapher slash wedding invitation designer. Alex, thank you for joining me today.

Alex Zimmerman: Thank you for having me.

Dan: Absolutely, this is cool. I know very little about calligraphy. I know what it is, but as far as how you do it, you know, the tools involved, I know zero. So let's start there. Talk to me about, what do you need to do, what do you need to have in order to do calligraphy?

Alex: Really not that much. You need a pointed pen, like a pen holder and a nib. You might've seen like the old timey pens that people write, with the feather quill. It's not that, but there's like a little nib that makes a little triangle. And when you put pressure on it, like you dip it in the ink and you put pressure on it and the ink releases onto the paper. So it's actually really cool. So really you just need that, ink, and paper.

Dan: Are there different types of pens or is it all in the nib and that's it?

Alex: There's different nibs. So it's actually funny. Each nib has like their own little like brand and it has like a font that goes with it. And some people think that if I get this nib, I can write like the font, but that's not the case at all.

Dan: Okay, so talk to me about that. How do you, so one of the questions I did have lined up to ask how to deal with like different fonts, quote unquote fonts. How does that work? Can a person kind of like change their font so to speak? Or is it more like, no, this is the way you write. So your calligraphy is different than that person's and you can't really ... talk to me about that.

Alex: Most people do refer to it as a font, but it is your handwriting. So it's technically not a font. A lot of people who do calligraphy, people have been doing it for a while, have different styles, but it's essentially all their handwriting. So everybody's calligraphy style will be unique to them. Just like how everybody's handwriting is unique to them.

Dan: Okay, so it stands to reason that you probably don't need a lot of training to do calligraphy if it's really just writing, is that correct?

Alex: Yes and no, because there are definitely rules. Like it has to, there's a slant, different pressures that you need to create letters. And it is like, it's a different way of, I guess like holding a writing utensil in a way. It's not like writing with a pen or a pencil. So there is a lot of practice that goes with that, but a lot of people can pick it up fairly quick. Like you don't need years and years of practice. If you really like focused, you could pick it up within like a couple months.

Dan: Talk to me about that. Talk to me about how you learned or how a person can learn to do calligraphy. Are there resources online, books, videos? What is, how did you learn it? What is the best way in your opinion for someone to start learning this?

Alex: I definitely recommend if there's like a class or a workshop in your area to take that because I think learning it from a teacher in person is the best way, but that doesn't exist for everybody. So there are lots of YouTube videos out there. There's lots of books that you can get information from, but if workshop for, me at least, would definitely be my number one recommendation. I actually learned from books and YouTube because I wanted to learn during COVID. So workshops were not happening. That wasn't an option for me. So I had to rely on videos and trial and error.

Dan: Let's go back to the materials for a second. Okay. When you're buying different nibs and I guess the ink that goes, well not so it goes with it, but the ink as well, what are the different price points? Are there like high quality, low quality? Does ... people need to be aware of that? Talk to me a little bit about that part of it.

Alex: So there are definitely different price points. You can get a calligraphy pen for like probably less than $10. It's actually less than $5 I think at Michaels. The most basic one that you can get, but it's great for beginners because it's less than $5. And if this is a new hobby that you're not sure if you're gonna like, it's very low investment. But that being said, you can also get like a pen holder that costs like $100 if you want. So it was a big price range. I wouldn't invest in the expensive stuff until like you are committed to your craft and you really enjoy it. And even then you don't need the $100 pen. It's just like, it's pretty, that's what it is.

Dan: Is there any real difference between, from your experience, of the way they feel, does one cause less fatigue or something like that? Or is it pretty much, no, generally speaking, as far as functionality goes, they're all pretty much the same. Talk to me about that.

Alex: Yeah, they're pretty much all the same. I would say the like cheap one that you can get at Michaels is not the best, it's just the most beginner friendly one, but you can get one that's $10 that will essentially be the same as $100. Some of them have different weights. So it's really like what feels the most comfortable for your hand.

Dan: You have your own calligraphy business, okay? Talk to me about how you got started doing that. Was it you were doing calligraphy as a hobby and then someone offered to, "hey, can you make my wedding invitation?" Talk to me about how you actually got that first paying customer, if you remember.

Alex: Well, I actually started because of my own wedding. I liked that calligraphy style, but I didn't like the price tag. So I was like, I could learn how to do it. So I did. The calligraphy then was okay, not great, but it was okay. And I just really enjoyed doing it. So my cousin then was getting married and I was like, oh, like I could do your wedding invitations for you. And she said, yes, so I did. And that kind of jump-started everything.

Dan: So talk about weddings. Okay, what other opportunities are there for someone that does calligraphy? I'm assuming any kind of big event someone's having, they might look to hire you. Talk about other opportunities that are out there.

Alex: Yeah, that's a really great question because not everybody wants to work in weddings. But right now, live calligraphy is becoming a really popular thing. I don't know if you know anything about it, but people will hire a calligrapher to come to their event and they'll write calligraphy for your guests on a favor. So wine glasses, for example, are having a big moment right now. So they'll hire a calligrapher and they'll actually engrave in calligraphy on the wine glass as like a favor for your guests and then they get to take it home. And it's also a thing with weddings too, but it can be for any event. It's like, you get a favor from an event and usually it has like a branding of the company or whoever is throwing it. And that kind of just sits maybe in the back of the closet or like it gets thrown away. But with this, you get something, you get to choose what the calligrapher writes on it. So it's a little more personalized to each person and they're actually probably going to use that. So that's one thing. Actually, brands do the same thing. They'll hire a calligrapher to come in like Mother's Day, for example. They'll hire somebody to come write calligraphy on perfumes or candles or whatever they sell. So that's another way that a calligrapher could make some money too is connecting with brands.

Dan: That is so cool. I no idea something that that existed. I had a vague idea of the live stuff. So I know that's kind of very trendy right now. I was talking with Emily, she is a caricature artist. We talked about doing that live and just recently someone commented on her video talking about they want to do that, but they got so nervous in front of people, which also made me think about you and our nerves and issue. So we'll hang on that for a second. Is that an issue for you when you're doing calligraphy, something that's so specific and detailed, what's that like doing that live?

Alex: For me, it's not a problem at all. Like I've practiced a lot. If you're new to this, you definitely want to get practice before you just jump in and do something live because you're going to want to know like what, you're going to want to have more confident in your skills. But I also used to be a teacher. So I'm very confident just performing in front of people. Doesn't really bother me that much. Used to be in front of a crowd. Kids are your worst critics.

Dan: This is actually kind of good timing because like that when your episode does drop, it'll be in the summer. And that is traditionally if teachers want to move into the field or out of the field, that might be a good opportunity. So talk to, and we don't have to divulge anything you don't want to, but why did you leave teaching? Was it, you know, you were making more money doing this, you enjoyed this more. Why did you leave teaching for this?

Alex: So I was just getting very burned out. Teaching is a pretty intense profession and I stopped teaching in 2022. So like right after the pandemic. And I think the pandemic really just took a toll on me because the school I was working with was also in person. So I wasn't just teaching kids in person. I was teaching kids on Zoom at the same time as teaching the kids who were physically in the classroom while also keeping them separate because we didn't know any better at that point. So that kind of burned me out. And I just needed to take a step back from that. So I did and now I'm doing this.

Dan: So, okay, now I have to go back to the brand stuff. Okay, how does a person get gigs like that? Is it a matter of calling up different companies and saying, "Hey, this is my business. You know, I understand you have an employee appreciation day coming up or something like that." How does one get their foot in the door from that angle?

Alex: That's a great question. You can definitely cold email people. You're gonna hear a lot of nos probably. I think the key is really is to find the right person to reach out to and make a connection. I haven't had success with this, but I have heard that some people will actually use LinkedIn to find connection. So you like search like creative director or something like that. So you find that specific person who might be in charge of that area instead of just, you know, you don't wanna email customer service. They're not gonna help you. So there's that. Some people like to work with agencies. So you can pitch yourself to like a marketing agency and they'll be working with brands who might be putting on events who maybe want some kind of, you know, guest experience. So that could help. You could even just pitch yourself to local businesses. If there's events going on, sometimes I will go to like a market, like over the holiday season last year, I did some markets and I just sold live engraved ornaments for people. People could just buy them and I would customize them on the spot. So you can even do stuff like markets too.

Dan: That's really cool. Okay, so with the different brand opportunities and business opportunities, it sounds like there might be some decent amount of flexibility when it comes to schedule. Cause I'm thinking weddings, you're probably, especially if you're doing live, well, maybe not. No, okay, so yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about what your schedule typically looks like. Are you a nights and weekends kind of job? Is it all times a day? Is it you make it your own? Talk to me about your work schedule itself.

Alex: Yeah, so if you were doing like a live experience, especially like a wedding, obviously that's gonna be on the day of the wedding. Most people have weddings on the weekends. So that's when you would work. If you were doing like a brand activation with a company, then it's probably gonna be in the evenings. It's gonna be when people are shopping because that's the whole point of you being there is to entice shoppers to come buy the product. So yeah, mostly evenings, weekends. And that's actually why I also enjoy sprinkling in the wedding invitations is because I can do that whenever. I like being the only wedding vendor that doesn't have to show up on the Saturday or the weekends sometimes. That's very nice.

Dan: When it comes to the wedding invitations, how far in advance do you typically book that out? Do you book it out six months in advance, three months in advance? What does that typically look like?

Alex: Six months is good. If you want the invitations, it gives us time to like make something, make a design because most of the work I do is custom. So anytime to design something, you go back and forth between revisions and wedding invitations need to be mailed like 10-ish weeks before your wedding. So like we need time to design it, productions, like printing, assembly, and then we all love mail, the post office. So that's why I usually say 10 to 12 weeks before your wedding because you never know. You never know what's gonna go with the USPS.

Dan: In doing what you're doing, do you find that your quote unquote busy season is more like March to October with a quieter winter or is it pretty even keel, but maybe like some peaks in the summer. Talk to me about what people can expect from a seasonal approach.

Alex: Yeah, so the winter actually is a little bit busier than like traditional wedding season because everybody needs their invitations before they go out. So every other wedding vendor will be scrambling, like spring, summer, fall, and then their quiet season is the winter. But for wedding invitations, it's a little different because you need to do it before the wedding.

Dan: Now, when you're doing, when a person is doing one of these live events, I'm assuming it's a pretty much just get up and go. There's not a whole lot of stuff you have to take with you, maybe a couple of pens, some ink, some paper maybe, and you're on your way and you get there. I'm assuming prep is pretty minimal.

Alex: It can be, it depends on what they want. And it also depends on the surface too. So you can do calligraphy on almost any surface, but the tool will be different depending. So you can do, you can write in foil, calligraphy and foil on like leather goods, for example, that's popular too, like on luggage tags. So I would need to bring a different type of writing utensil for that. I'd have to bring the foil and then sometimes they supply the physical product. So if it's like a brand, they're gonna supply the product because people have to buy it. But if it's like a wedding or a party or something, you might have to source the, whatever the favor is. So the glasses or the luggage tag or whatever they want.

Dan: Let's talk about education again. I kind of want to just dabble back into that just very, very briefly. I'm assuming that you don't, unless you're doing design for wedding invitations or you're doing additional design work, you don't necessarily need any real formal education when it comes to calligraphy. You don't really need any kind of art background. You just need the materials and some resources to learn and you're good to go, right?

Alex: Yeah, I don't have a degree in graphic design. There's a lot of people out there who don't have a degree in graphic design and they're doing great.

Dan: Looking at the job holistically as either a calligrapher, wedding invitation designer, both together, what in your opinion makes this the absolute best job?

Alex: I love it because it's like, you get to personalize something for somebody and they might cherish that for a long time. Like I know like wedding invitations, for example, people are like, oh, they always end up in the trash. Well, if you go buy some mass produced wedding invitation that doesn't feel special to you, then sure, it might end up in the trash. But if you get something designed for you that is personal and has little elements that like tell your love story on it, you're gonna keep that for a long time and your mom's gonna keep it and maybe your friends will even keep it too.

Dan: Other side of the coin, what makes this the absolute worst job?

Alex: Some people have a very specific vision but sometimes they don't always have the words to express what they want. So I have to kind of make some creative, I have to take some creative license to kind of decipher what it is that they want. And sometimes it's on point and sometimes it's not. And that's when we have multiple revisions that go back and forth, which is fine and totally normal. But I guess that would be my least favorite job or just like the request of, do you do this? And it's like, oh, well, I do, I don't enjoy it, but I will. The mirror seating charts are definitely my least favorite. They're very intense and they're also, they can be last minute because everybody's like getting your seating chart together at the last minute, you're collecting all the RSVPs. And it can also be very physical depending on how big the mirror is. I did a mirror that was four by six feet one time. It took me, I think three hours to do quickly and my hand hurt after that. I don't recommend doing it all in one sitting. I would never do that again, I think. But they can be pretty physically labor intensive. And then you always have the people who, they don't realize that if Aunt Sally isn't coming to your event anymore and she's a last minute no, you don't have to take Aunt Sally off the seating chart. We don't need to redo the whole thing. You can just leave Aunt Sally and nobody will notice. So a lot of the last minute revisions is like, I'll do it, but it's really not that big of a deal.

Dan: Talking more about this creative entrepreneurship that you have, okay. Talk to me about the business side of things and how did you bridge those business gaps, the knowledge gaps that you might not necessarily had. Cause I don't know if you went back into business courses or something, but you're gonna tell us about it. How did you fill in those gaps?

Alex: Pretty much just like trial and error, I guess. Just like learning from other people, other people saying, oh, I'm doing X, Y, and Z. So, oh, I guess I should be doing that too. Actually listening to podcasts really helped me with that. Taxes is still something I'm figuring out. I think everybody's probably constantly figuring that out. But yeah, just really I'm self-taught in that. So like any resource that I can find that will help me, I just absorb it, see if I can apply it to my own business. Cause I think it's important to kind of be discerning about what kind of advice you're taking, just because not everything's gonna fit for you. There's a lot of like social media, for example, there's a lot of advice on like when you should post, how you should post, and it's not going to apply to everybody. It's not gonna work for like every business. And I think it's important to learn your business and figure out what works for you and what doesn't. Cause you also want it to be sustainable.

Dan: Absolutely. I love, I really love that question because I get such a wide range of responses. I get everything from exactly what you said, trial and error, all the way up to, oh, this is my third business I've started, I've sold the other two super... So I get this huge range. And within that range, I still get these little nuggets of information, something that's new where it's like, people might not have considered that. And I love that cause it's other advice that people can take and then see if it applies to them or not, if it does, they can use it, great. And if not, that's okay too.

Alex: Yeah.

Dan: Let's talk about some of the hidden perks that come along with this job of yours. Anything that you might not have expected once you started doing it, it's like, oh, this is kind of cool, the nice little perk that I have with this. What would one of those perks be, if any?

Alex: If you get hired to do a like brand activation with a company and they want you to like write on calligraphy on perfumes, for example, you're gonna wanna ask for a sample so you can practice and make sure that you like can actually do it on whatever surface that they want. So you could get some nice little gifts for yourself. Maybe this may or may not be a perk, I don't know, but you can also do like commissions in your studio like that, so like somebody could hire like Mother's Day and somebody wants to gift their mother a perfume that says happy Mother's Day, but they wanna pick out the perfume. You're like, you're not in an actual store. So they can buy the perfume, send it to you and you can write on it, send it to them. Sometimes mistakes are made, which isn't, I don't know. That's why I say I don't know if this is a perk because you have to eat that cost, but sometimes mistakes are made and you could get some cool products that way. Not endorsing that at all, but it doesn't happen a lot, but there's just one other thing I could think of. Could or could not be a perk, I don't know.

Dan: Other side of the coin would be unexpected barriers to entry. And again, we kind of already touched on this, I feel like almost to very fully, but are there any other barriers that people might be aware of? We talked about the materials, not a whole lot of money there, not a whole lot of stuff itself. Education, not a whole lot of investment there. Are there any other barriers? Could location be a barrier? Competing online with other people, any other unexpected barriers that people should be aware of?

Alex: I mean, location could potentially be a barrier. It depends on what you wanna do. Like if you are seeing a lot of calligraphers on social media doing all of these cool events, like in LA, for example, they have a lot of events there. But you live in Montana. You can't expect that same business for yourself, but not to say that there aren't going to be opportunities where you are if you've lived in the middle of nowhere. It's just going to look a little bit different and you might have to get creative and you might even have to educate business owners around you and create your own experience of whatever you want that to look like. And I think the biggest thing that holds people back is just like their own mentality and self-confidence. I think a lot of people who learn this, like they start as a hobby and they like doing it and they wanna continue making money, even if it's just a side thing where they make maybe 10,000 a year or something, just for some extra spending money. I think people get caught up in, "Oh, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough." And they are good enough. It's just, you're comparing yourself to somebody who's done it for 10 plus years, so.

Dan: I was speaking with someone at the very beginning of the show, maybe like 30, 40 episodes in, and they had a name for that. And there's that thing that holds people back and just getting past that, once you're able to get past that, just all kinds of doors open up. And that sounds really, really cool. Now, Alex, unfortunately, I am running out of time, but before I hand the floor over to you, I wanna take a second and thank Tara Thistlethwaite for introducing us. Tara was in episode 140 as an event planner. Everyone, please go check out that episode. Link is in the description. And Alex, this is the part of the show where I'd like to offer my guests the opportunity to talk about a project they're working on, a cause they believe in, more about their business. So if there's something specific you'd like to discuss, the floor is yours.

Alex: Okay, thank you. So right now I am currently designing some semi-custom wedding invitations and I'm hoping to publish them or release them sometime this summer, which would be really cool because semi-custom is still kind of custom, but it's at a lower price point. So people who don't have the budget, but still want something that's personal can use a semi-custom line. And I'm also going to develop some calligraphy products. So like some hair clips, things like that, where you can order them and I can write names on them. So that should hopefully be coming this summer.

Dan: That is awesome. I'll make sure I get those links from you. I'll put them in the description. They'll be in the show notes. They'll be all over the place where people are trying to find that information. They can easily find that. Alex, it's been absolutely awesome having gone time to discuss you. We learned all about calligraphy and being a wedding invitation designer.

Alex: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Dan: Okay, so let's hit up some of the highlights with our conversation with Alex. First off, starting the business. You need a pen, you need ink, you need nibs. Total investment, pretty much nothing. So if you're looking to start a business with a low upfront investment, this could be the one for you. Next, education. You don't have to take any formal education for this. You don't need any degrees. You can look at videos, you can listen to podcasts, you can read books, so many different opportunities out there to learn this craft without a massive amount of debt. Now, one downside, if you want to call it a downside, is that this would be your own business. It doesn't sound like you can go somewhere and be the in-house calligrapher. That might exist, but it doesn't seem like that's going to be very common. Lile, so many of our other entrepreneurs, it sounds like you're also able to set your own schedule. You can have specific days you work, hours you work. You might have to do a good bit of planning ahead of time, especially if you're creating invitations. But generally speaking, it looks like there's a lot of flexibility here. You can work behind the scenes for weddings and not be at the wedding itself. You can also work live at different events as well. So many opportunities depending on what your interests are as it joins with calligraphy. The one really cool thing that Alex talked about was different information you get from different people. And I don't think anyone said this before. The idea that so many people have the quote unquote best advice for you, but it might not always directly relate to what you're actually doing. So it's important that you take whatever advice is coming in from myself included and see if this actually works for you. So when you're listening to people on social media, really look at that with a critical eye and think does this really work for me? Really, really good information that Alex shared with us. So what do you think? Some good things, some bad things. Is this the best job for you? Let's keep exploring and we'll see you next time on Time We Discuss.