Freelancers in LongmontFreelancers in Longmont
Kajabi Expert, Business Consultant, Conversion Strategist
5.0
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18
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Kajabi Expert, Business Consultant, Conversion Strategist
Senior Designer | Branding, Comms, Presentations
5.0
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3
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Senior Designer | Branding, Comms, Presentations
Fractional Product Design for Small Software Teams
Fractional Product Design for Small Software Teams
Build a LALATOWN of your own, one story at a time.
New to Contra
Build a LALATOWN of your own, one story at a time.
Cover image for This Is My Kind of
This Is My Kind of Play I wanted to make a demo. Not a perfect demo. Not a tutorial. Not even a finished piece. I wanted to show how I play. This first demo is a little bit like those giant makeup palettes I used to buy when I was younger. The ones that came with every eyeshadow color, blush, and everything else packed into one box. I could never leave anything behind. So yes, this demo has a little bit of everything. A Spanish balcony. A tteokbokki stand. A few neighbors. A few stories. And probably too many things happening at once. But that is also LALATOWN. LALATOWN does not exist for everyone. It exists for one person at a time. The person building it. You. Some people think world-building means creating rules. LALATOWN is the opposite. Maybe there is a tteokbokki stand under a Spanish balcony. Maybe Franky, the Mayor of LALATOWN, is quietly watching over the neighborhood. Maybe Dolswe is making sure nobody steals a dad joke and gets away with it. Maybe the lady carrying kimchi is on her way to a friend’s house. Maybe the mysterious man sitting near the café is a time traveler. Or maybe he invented tteokbokki. Who knows? It’s your LALATOWN. You decide. That is why I don’t think this is only for artists. An illustrator can use it. A child can use it. A grandmother can use it. You can create your own coloring pages, your own neighborhood, your own stories, and your own little world. These brushes are simply building blocks. The stories belong to you. In LALATOWN, kindness is the currency. Nobody needs money. Nobody needs to be important. Nobody needs permission to imagine. You just start building. And before you know it, a neighborhood appears. This is my kind of play.
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Cover image for Lucky Days and Little Signs
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Lucky Days and Little Signs A LALATOWN Auspicious Calendar I created this calendar last summer and, to be honest, I never really shared the story behind it. Some people may see it as superstition. Some may see it as tradition. Others may see it as a form of spiritual belief. For me, it is simply a small piece of the world I grew up in. I was born and raised in Korea in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Back then, paying attention to auspicious days was completely ordinary. People checked calendars before moving, getting married, signing important contracts, starting a business, or taking a long journey. While modern life has changed many traditions, some traces still remain. Even today, moving companies often charge more on popular auspicious days, and many people still consult traditional calendars or fortune tellers before major life events. This calendar is not meant to tell anyone what to believe. It is simply a glimpse into an old Korean custom that has stayed with me throughout my life. In this calendar, the green dots mark auspicious days. These are considered favorable days for important beginnings, travel, celebrations, agreements, and new ventures. The red letters indicate a direction to be mindful of on that particular day. Traditionally, people would avoid disturbing the land, digging, nailing, major construction, or beginning significant activities in those directions. Some people interpret this spiritually. Others see it as folklore. I see it as a form of ancestral wisdom and a reminder to move through life with a little more awareness. Over the years, I have occasionally adjusted travel dates or postponed certain plans simply because it gave me peace of mind. Whether or not you believe in it is entirely up to you. I simply wanted to share a small piece of the culture and traditions that shaped me. I will be sharing the July calendar soon, along with a few family stories connected to these old customs and beliefs. Thank you for being a little superstitious with me today.
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Cover image for People You Might Meet in
People You Might Meet in LALATOWN People might wonder why I keep making Procreate brush sets in a world where many people don’t even know what Procreate is. Is it a good business idea? Maybe. Maybe not. But the truth is, I wasn’t trying to build a business first. Without realizing it, I was building a game. A way to play. A way to create the kind of world I had always wanted to wander through. When I was growing up in Korea, there were paper dolls. You carefully cut them out with scissors. Every character felt precious. They came with tiny outfits that attached with little folded paper tabs. You had to cut those tabs perfectly or the clothes wouldn’t stay on. I loved them. Later came a doll named Lala. She was, in many ways, a Korean version of Barbie. A bigger head. A slimmer body. I gave her haircuts. I tried curling her hair by heating chopsticks on the stove. I burned the doll’s hair. I nearly burned my own. I cut my bangs thinking I knew exactly what I was doing, only to discover that hair somehow keeps getting shorter every time you trim it. I did all the things children do. But what I loved most was not playing with other people. I loved playing alone. Lala had a kitchen. A closet. Furniture. A tiny world. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if I am still doing exactly the same thing. Only now the dolls have become illustrations. And the dollhouse has become LALATOWN. In LALATOWN, nothing has to follow the rules. You can place a striped awning in the middle of a street. You can put a tteokbokki stand beside a Spanish-style building. You can add one character. Or twenty. You can let Franky sit under a balcony. You can let Dolswe wander through a plaza. You can place Sarang beside a café window. You can even put a Seoul subway sign where no subway has ever existed. Who cares? That is the point. Nobody is standing there saying: “Excuse me, you can’t do that here.” No city inspector. No zoning regulations. No permission forms. Just imagination. One brush can become a street. Another can become a café. A corner awning can become the beginning of an entirely different neighborhood. You can combine things that were never meant to go together and somehow create a place that feels exactly right. That is the game. That is what I have been building. Not a tool. Not a product. A creative playground. And despite what it may look like, it is not only for artists. It is for anyone who enjoys making little worlds. Anyone who enjoys arranging characters. Anyone who enjoys naming places. Anyone who has ever stared out of a café window and imagined a story for the stranger walking past. Some scenes become festivals. Some become quiet mornings. Some become neighborhoods where everyone seems to know each other. Sometimes the sun is too strong and everyone gathers in the shade. Sometimes nobody is doing anything important at all. They are simply sitting there, enjoying the day. And somehow, that is enough. I hesitate to call it healing. That word feels heavy. As if you are expected to fix something. This is lighter than that. It is a place to rest. Many of these characters and places were created during difficult periods of my life. They appeared while I was trying to move forward, trying to understand things, trying to build something hopeful out of uncertainty. Some came from longing. Some came from memories. Some came from the simple wish for kindness. When they first appeared on the page, I was happy to meet them. Over time, they found each other. The neighborhoods grew. The stories connected. And little by little, LALATOWN became a town. Not because I planned it. But because all of these small pieces eventually decided they wanted to live together. And that is how a collection of brush sets slowly became a world. ✨ What’s Next? One of the questions I get most often is: “What do people actually do with these brush sets?” That’s a fair question. Because what I have been building isn’t just a collection of stamps, characters, buildings, or color palettes. It’s a way to play. And sometimes it’s easier to show than to explain. So very soon, I’ll be sharing a tutorial where you’ll be able to watch a LALATOWN scene come together from scratch. Not as an illustration lesson. Not as a “how to draw better” class. But as an invitation to play. We’ll build streets. We’ll place characters. We’ll move things around. We’ll create little corners, cafés, neighborhoods, and stories. And somewhere along the way, you’ll discover that there is no right way to build a LALATOWN. Only your way. See you soon. The neighborhood is still growing. 
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Branding, Packaging Design and Illustration
Branding, Packaging Design and Illustration
Empowering Local Businesses with Google
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5.0
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Empowering Local Businesses with Google