Speaking at Circle Day, Chatting with Tony, and Custom Cursors

Hey friend,

Well, to absolutely no one’s surprise, this summer has been a busy one. Ren and I are wrapping up our time in Seattle and we’re getting ready to leave this weekend. We’ll be bouncing around the South seeing friends and family for the next month or so, and as of right now we’re unsure where our next longer (2-3 month) stay will be. I’m taking suggestions if you have them!

This is the first time since we’ve started our digital nomadding adventures (over a year ago now) that we’ve left a place without having our next stay booked. I always thought that a situation with this much “unknown” in the near-term would really stress me out, but for whatever reason (maybe all the general unknown of traveling around this past year), I actually feel pretty ok with the whole situation. We have a few things up in the air with our personal lives and our business right now and we’re waiting to make our next move until some of it lands. I’m kinda leaning into this transitional place of not really knowing what comes next, and trusting that we’ll know what decision to make when it’s in front of us.

Even with all the uncertainty and lack of stability, digital nomad life has been pretty good to us. We’ve been able to live in some pretty amazing places and kinda “try on” a bunch of different ways of living and working. I feel lucky that we’ve been able to do this.

Speaking of digital nomad-ing, our podcast guest this week is Tony Howell, who builds brands, websites, and digital marketing strategies for people in the entertainment community. He himself was an actor for 20+ years, performing on and off Broadway around the world (fun fact- he played Skimbleshanks in Cats!). Tony has a really unique and creative approach to branding and web design that emphasizes educating and empowering his clients, and stems from his expertise in storytelling.

In my mind, Tony is kinda the pinnacle of a digital entrepreneur - he runs his business from Bali, while he manages a team and works with clients around the world and across time zones. He has some really interesting insights into the brand/website building process, managing your work schedule, AND some really practical tips about traveling and living abroad. It’s a great conversation about his website building process, building long-term relationships with his clients, and how he manages it all from a world away.

Keep Building,
Will

Plugins

We don’t have any new plugins for you today, but rest assured we’re working on some new ones and giving some older ones a fresh coat of paint.

Right now, we’re working on a Pricing Table plugin, which is looking really good. A tricky part with it has been figuring out the most straightforward way for you to install it. We want to make it robust enough to give you all the options you might want, while keeping the installation simple for you or one of your clients, and I’m pretty happy with where we've landed. More coming soon.

And as a reminder, I’m always launching new code snippets in the Code Curious membership (which also gives you 20% off all plugins & business licenses), but even if you’re not a member you can still peruse the code catalogue page.

A Peek Behind The Curtain of a Web Designers Process.

In this episode of Somewhat Useful, we get to pick the brain of Tony Howell, a personal brand strategist and web designer for award-winning artists. Join us as we discuss:

Tony's journey from Broadway actor to web designer
The ins and outs of running his agency from Bali, Indonesia
His process for producing quality websites and building long-term relationships with his clients
Insights on managing a remote team across time zones
The evolution of his education-focused business model
His unique approach to building brands, not just websites
Practical tips for aspiring digital nomads on healthcare and work-life balance

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Speaking: Circle Day 2024

Christy Price and I are going to be taking our Somewhat Useful podcast on the road this year… all the way to The Big Apple for Squarespace Circle Day! Our talk, 7 Ways to Save Time as a Squarespace Designer, is going to mostly focus on tactical strategies we’ve used in our business to create efficiency and simplicity, and generally help us enjoy our businesses (and lives) a little more.

For those that can’t make it in-person, you can watch it online or participate in World Loop. World Loop is basically a recording of all the events of Circle Day, but replayed in a couple of different time zones so that you can still get a similar “live” experience with other designers near you, without having to watch in the middle of the night (or whatever time it will be for you while Circle Day is happening in NYC).

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Code Curious

Code Curious is my membership for professional Squarespace designers. As a member, you get 20% off all plugins & multi-use licenses, exclusive access to the Code Catalogue (with over 100 copy-and-paste code snippets), the Targeting Library (over 270 Squarespace CSS Selectors), and exclusive tutorials.

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