TYED ART, INC - HISTORY VI

Desperate times, Desperate measures:

While still employed with that same company, I had another idea. The idea was to create cartoon images of children doing religious things, like taking the sacrament, or reading the scriptures, and then making packets out of them for kids to color while in church. My boss thought this was a very good idea and, as usual, offered all kinds of encouragement. I didn’t really do much about it then, but the idea was good enough that it was placed in the back burners of my mind to simmer.

In 2002, now, with a child, a non-working wife, and a mortgage, the real pressure was on. The wheels in my head shifted into overdrive. The logo income was steady. Of course it was never enough to replace my regular income provided by a full-time job, but it was steady nonetheless.

In June of that year my boss “let me go”. I’m still not sure what happened. One day I was in his good graces, a project manager, and friend. The next day…I was unemployed. I have to say, the wind was truly knocked out of me that day. Although I honestly harbor no hard feelings now, it's taken me a while to get to that point. As with many unexpected blows, I was in denial for the first couple of days. Shock and confusion followed, and anger after that. Eventually I accepted the fact that I would probably never know what happened, but began to intentionally remember the good experiences I had as his employee, student, and friend. Now, though I still don't know what happened the day I left, I recognize the fact that I am better for having known him. I guess sometimes you just don't get the luxury of a tidy closure. Instead, sometimes you need to fabricate a synthetic one made from fond memories and valuable lessons learned.

In a rush for some security, I ended up getting a temporary position with Nevada Power about 2 months later designing power distribution plans. In so doing, I took a substantial pay cut. Although never really considered EXTRA money, “Tyed” Art income would never be more useful that during that time period. As we all do, we made it work. The ideas never stopped flowing throughout all of this. My idea to create coloring pages for kids had, of course, resurfaced as I scrambled for income and for the first time it was an idea that didn’t seem unattainable. THIS was an idea that I could work with. Because the pages were all LDS-themed, I needed to come up with a name that fit the product, but also the genre. “LittleLDS”, it was decided, would be the name for my coloring page creations. This would be a brand name under the umbrella of the “Tyed” Art Company. Although I new what I wanted the kids to color, I hadn’t worked out, yet, HOW I wanted to present them.

Little by little, Tyed Art was progressing. I had spreadsheets designed that organized and tracked all my Tyed Art spending and income. I found a website called “VistaPrint.com” that allowed me to design my own business cards for dirt cheap, so I created and ordered new cards. I had also been looking into website design for a while, and spoken to a friend who mentioned that she had created her own website. Knowing that I would eventually go through with it (whether that meant designing it myself or hiring someone else to do it), I purchased the URL “www.tyedart.com” and parked it for later use. One of my clients told me that her husband was looking for a logo for his website design business. I jumped on the opportunity to barter services with him. Not only did he custom build my website for me (with all the design specifications and graphics that I had design myself), but he also maintained it for me. The only problem with this arrangement was that the web designer didn’t always get to my updates within the timeframe I needed. He was running his own business, after all, and couldn’t always get to my work right away. I was sure this couldn’t be a long-term working relationship. I saw this as a potential problem.

Sure enough, about 8 months or so into our agreement he dropped off the face of the Earth. He was unreachable. As far as I was concerned, he was just AWOL. Baffled and paralyzed, my website quickly became outdated and embarrassing. Finally, I contacted the hosting company to see if they could shed some light on things. They explained that he had turned all his business clientele over to them. All in all, I decided to be thankful for a good lesson in bad business. It worked out for the best though. I had TechPro give me access to the FTP server where my website was hosted, I downloaded the website and all it’s files to my hard drive, and I taught myself how to manage it. It was a bit of a set back and took some time to get over the learning curve, but I know I’m better off for having gained the autonomy. Now I can change my website however AND whenever it suites me.

Another benefit to having learned how to manage websites was that I also learned how to create new ones. I started to create a template for a brand new website for LittleLDS. Although it wouldn’t be published for some time, I purchased the URL “www.LittleLDS.com” early so that I wouldn’t have any competition for it later.

I started drawing the individual coloring pages for the coloring books and digitized them by scanning them into my computer. These images grew in number to become a database of images. Eventually, I had three distinct LittleLDS titles finished. “In Church I can…” was the first to be completed. “What do missionaries do?” and “I’ll keep the Sabbath Day holy by…” followed. At one point, I had considered taking on a partner. For some reason, having a business partner appealed to me. I needed a partner who was willing and able to work on this idea with me at a faster pace. Or did I? After some consideration, I decided that taking on a partner might not be in my best interest. It was my brainchild, after all. Having a partner, although fun would have meant less profit for me in the end.

The idea to put my LittleLDS coloring pages onto CDs really was a great one, and I was all over it. I started looking around for methods of achieving this end. I contacted a friend of mine from the old days. He was a software engineer and computer guru. I figured he might be able to, if nothing else, point me in the right direction. Although not a member of the Church, he was able to see past the religious application of this idea and thought it had a LOT of potential. As it turned out, he himself, would take on the project…. for free! He was more than willing to help me as I had done some logo work for him a few years earlier while he was trying to get his own software products off the ground. I couldn’t have been luckier!

So, we got started. All in all, it took us just over 2 years to completely finish the first CD exactly the way I wanted it. With many iterations and reiteration, we finally had a product we were both VERY pleased with. Once the first CD programming was done, the 2nd and 3rd were virtual turnkey processes. He was very innovative in the way he built the software. He actually had built, first, a program that would automate the process that married my images with his background software, so that when the artwork was finished for the subsequent CDs, he would be able to just take my images and run them through the program that built the entire interface. It was really well thought out. The idea to create digital coloring books (i.e. virtually never-ending coloring books), it turns out, was so unique of a concept that he suggested that I apply for a patent. To see if it was even patentable, he referred me to his patent attorney who performed a search. Charles footed the bill of several hundred dollars, reasoning that I would be helping him in the future with more logos and graphic artwork. The patent search came back a few months later with shocking results. My idea WAS patentable!