A few hundred cards are now in the mail to friends, family, clients, and maybe potential future clients. It's not the holiday card, just a self-promo mailer like I usually do a few times a year, but actually haven't managed to this year. I always wonder if friends who have no relation to tv or design are annoyed by them and wonder why I mail these to them. Aside from it being just a way to say hi and show what I've been up to, there are two main reasons. One is that you never know where the next job will come from. I'm a big believer that you often can luck into a referral by someone that doesn't even know you that well and happens to run into someone else they don't know that well at party or the grocery store. In small talk about whats new, one says "I'm working on this tv show and I need to find someone to do titles and I'm not sure where to begin looking." The other says "I know a guy who does something like that, I have no idea if he's what you'd want but you can always check his website." Voila. Not that I expect it, but you never know. But the bigger reason came from when my friend Tres passed away a few years ago. Tres was a photographer, and one of the boards we put together at his memorial service included his promo mailers he sent out of recent projects. I hadn't seen a lot of them, and I was almost a little hurt that I hadn't been included on his list when he sent them out. Of course I wasn't really hurt, I'm sure he had no intent of malice and probably targeted industry people or kept it to closer friends in Dallas or not old friends who now lived elsewhere - who knows. But the point is, I did care and did want to see what he probably figured I could care less about and didn't want to bother me with. So I decided I would rather err on the side of sending to too many than too few. And if you're not on my mailing list and would like to be, just send me your address, whether I know you or not (yet), I'm happy to include you. Cause you never know...