In Horoma's Head 12

Hi everyone,

Here we are, last newsletter of the year. I managed to keep up with this simple task of producing a monthly newsletter for the past 12 months which is a little yet important achievement for me in my search of consistency, sharing and transparency. While this little newsletter is still trying to find its true purpose, I still got some feedback of people enjoying some of the content which gives me hope I will somehow manage to turn this little experiment into something more and more valuable over time. 

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The world of Youtube 🎵🔈🧠

Last month has had its good share of nice video uploads on the channel.

One video I was really looking forward to doing, and will probably do more versions in the future, was dealing with what archviz artists should read. In the video I present my 10 favourite books that can help any archviz artist strengthen their skills, as well as my favourite 10 monographs where I often grab some inspiration for personal and commissioned work.

Another video was dealing with the fundamentals of dynamic symmetry. What is this? Well, just watch the video! This video is to watch in conjunction with the video on the rule of thirds where I tackle the shortcomings of common grid systems. While dynamic symmetry still is a grid system, it is more robust and flexible than others, and can lead to some renewed interest in building your images methodically.

Last but not least I released a video where I explain my take on the necessity, or not, of going to architecture school in order to be a good archviz artist. In the video I emphasize the different aspects that are valuable in working efficiently and how you will most probably learn them in architecture school. Overall the video will give you a nice list of what are the fundamentals you should keep an eye on. Whether you went or intend to go to architecture school or not is almost secondary as long as you have those aspects in mind when you're on the lookout for new things to learn.

The World of Cute Cities 🏚🏠🛕🕌

I remember seeing a little video about Townscape some months ago but now the game is finally available! This game lets you create small worlds with a simple algorithm system that generates the look of the city based on nodes you’re creating. Very fun to play with and leads to nice looking results that can remind one of Monument Valley.

Definitely enjoyed speneding some time on the free version and will purchase the complete version on steam to get more customization option soon and waste a bit more time hehe.

The world of jellyfish 🐟🐠🐡

A short video of the weirdest deep-sea creature encounter of recent years (no offence 😙). Typically the kind of random yet awe-inspiring content I love.

The world of (many) books 📚📕📖

Here is a fun list of the most famous book hoarders past and present. Definitely can't compete with those despite my love of books. But it is true there's definitely nothing more relaxing than gazing at large shelves of books. Interestingly Umberto Eco was not mentioned despite his HUGE collection totalling over 30 000 books (and 1200 antiques)!

The world of G.B. Piranesi 🖌🎨🖌

As some of you might remember I mentioned in my video about what should archviz artists read one of my favourite monograph namely the one on Giovanni Battista Piranesi. While I was very familiar with his visual work he also worked a lot with books and there is a very nice online exhibition explaining how he used to use scraps of past sketches to save on paper and create new stories. A sort of palimpsest or atlas principle where the sum of parts create a new whole that I am really fond and sensitive to. While I wish I could visit the exhibition properly, this little excerpts is already very informative and enjoyable and I'll make sure to make some more research on this subject as it is already sparking in me some research and practice ideas I could implement.

The world of Horoma in 2021 🥋🎭👨‍💼

End of the year is usually a good time to look back and see what has been going on, how many of your goals you reached, which ones changed along the way. I personally am abandoning more and more goals in themselves and try to focus more and more on implementing systems that support the new habits and overall life I want to build. I don't know if it's because I tend to not reach some of the goals and I get demotivated, or if it's just because I'm growing up and understand myself better and better and know more how to tackle growth in general. Let's say it's the latter :)

So this year in metrics sort of looks like this :

• I worked on 33 contracts this year spread on only 7 months meaning I had 5 months with absolutely no work. This is something I've always had an issue with : how uneven the work distribution is throughout the year, and kind of non predictable. Hence my "system" idea mentioned earlier where I'd like to build the ability to bounce back very quickly every time I seem to have some free time in the following days.
• I made around 86 images this year, which sort of equates to one image every 2,5 days. Put like that it looks non realistic, but of course averages sometimes don't make sense. But I had a lot of overlapping projects this year, but on average I spend around 7 to 10 days on an image. Just that there was a point where I would be dealing with up to 8 or 10 at the same time. One thing that is noticeable is that the overall quality of the images didn't suffer : the final result was still meeting (sometimes exceeding) my clients's expectations as well as mine. Still this is an unhealthy rhythm for work which is why I'll have a stricter rule on workload next year.
• I generally don't count the hours I work so I can't really give any metrics but I did overall work pretty normal hours per week (from say 10am to 6pm and some hours on the weekend because I tend to enjoy the quietness of it) except in July and September that really were heavily packed with commissions.
• I was hoping to do 3 cohorts this year for the Composition from the ground up masterclass, but only did 2 in the end, plus the beta. Had a total of 18 students which is more than the 0 i was anticipating.
• Managed to stick to my 12 instalments of this newsletter.
• Posted 37 videos on YouTube this year which is pretty nice. Definitely didn't get much growth in audience but still got very positive feedback from the few people actively following my work so it still makes it worth it. Also on a more selfish note I do get a lot of value out of these videos since they help me clarify my own thoughts and understanding of topics I have at heart. Hence why I'll keep on doing them despite this absence of decent result (I was hoping to reach 10k subscribers by the end of the year, we're far from that and I'm starting to think I'll never reach this number. Good thing is, it is a very vain goal when you think about it, so it's fine if I don't get anywhere near it)
• Was also really psyched on being invited on Federico Biancullo podcast There's Something About Archviz to talk a little bit about my work and client relationship philosophy

Overall I’m very happy with those results especially since these are still the result of organic growth and me sticking to my guns in terms of pricing, work ethics, content curation, etc.

As I wrote above, I’m trying to stay away from goals so there's a high chance the end of next year will look very different. Probably more cohorts, less YouTube videos, still a very slow growth for my different social accounts, but already some very promising collaborations in the pipeline and a podcast so nothing to complain or worry about.

This past year has been more about putting down on paper the extent of my knowledge in the field and structuring it so that I can make it accessible through videos and masterclasses. Next year will be mostly me trying to optimize my weekly schedule to carve out more time to experiment and learn new things. A new dynamic I’m really looking forward to tinker with!

Anway time to close this little laptop, take my last sip of coffee for the year, and wish you all the best for the year 2022!

See you on the other side.

Cheers

Simon