Showing 26 results for Behind the Scenes
Here are all the blog posts and podcast episodes that apply:
The Wonder Jam’s Friends Share Tips on Working From Home
Ahh, working from home. It’s a dream come true and simultaneously a nightmare. Lucky for you, The Wonder Jam is made up of individuals who work remotely—some entirely and others just a few days per week—so we’ve polled our team for their best tips to help you work from home, reap all the benefits and still meet every single one of your deadlines.
If you’re not using presets, you’re missing out.
When I first started the dive into photography I made a lot of mistakes. That’s all just a part of the fun when you’re diving into something new. One huge mistake I made right off the bat? I refused to use presets. I thought I was “too good” for them and that it was too…
Building Community and Friendship in a New City as an Adult
I moved to Columbus, Ohio in the Fall of 2017. Just me and my partner and our U-Haul. At this point, I was living in New York for about seven years, and despite how much I love New York, my second home, I was ready to leave for a couple reasons: for one, I wanted…
How We Made a Whole Entire Website (Without Allie)
In late 2018, we partnered with the Ohio Farmers Market Network to kick off a three-year project to help drive more shoppers to local farmers markets. Out of that project, Grow Eat Ohio was born, along with a soon-to-come farmers market trail guide. Over time, it became clear that the core organization really needed a…
What Does It Take to Photograph a Room?
Have you ever seen something so strikingly beautiful that you have to stop what you’re doing to snap a photo? So fun, right? But then, when you look at the photo, it looks nowhere near as beautiful as it does in real life. Um, what gives?! I don’t know about you, but this used to…
How TWJ Lights Up: A Quick Breakdown of Natural vs. Artificial Light in Photography
Let’s play a game. Imagine you’re a busy photography client of ours—heck, maybe it’s your first time working with us! You probably have a slight vision of what you want your brand’s photos to look like, but you don’t know the exact vocabulary to explain it. When you arrive, the photographer asks you, “So, would…
Never Give Up
I heard these words over and over growing up. In fact, my dad had it written on a Post-it note on our treadmill and on his bike. He even wore a bracelet with these words on it. So, I guess you could say it’s something that’s become a part of who I am. While this…
Let’s Talk Competition
Turning Competition into Creativity and Collaboration A couple of years ago, I partnered with two other female photographers* for a passion project. We photographed the same 10 women independently in our own style (see our work here). It would be easy for someone else to casually lump us together and label us as competitors. While…
Top 3 Tips for Productivity from a Project Manager
It’s hard to believe that next month (September!) I’ll be celebrating one year of working at The Wonder Jam. I spent most of the last year in a part-time role, but have recently been hired as a full-time employee…cue the celebrations! In the past year, I’ve learned a lot about managing a remote team and…
6 Tip-Top Referral Generating Tactics and Why They Work
Each week, The Wonder Jam sends out an email with news and updates from our wonderful community of ambitious, creative people (you can sign up for this email at the bottom of our homepage). Sometimes folks from that community ask questions. We respond to those. One reader recently asked, “How do I generate referrals? Do…
You Wouldn’t Rush Cooking a Chicken, So Why Are You Rushing the Design Process?
Just as you wouldn’t rush cooking a chicken, you never want to rush the design process. Good design needs time to marinate—to soak up as much goodness as it possibly can. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a subpar design that won’t convert (and a raw, undercooked chicken). Whether we like it or not, everything seems…
Show Me a Catchy Headline and I’ll Show You More Clients
It took me 25 minutes to write this headline. No, that’s not a typo. In fact, headlines sometimes take me longer to write than the actual body copy of an email or website. Sounds kinda backwards, right? Well, allow me to personally welcome you to the wonderful world of copywriting—where high school grammar rules no…
We’re Doing Forgiveness Wrong
Have you ever won an argument only to lose a relationship? You know that moment: you’ve argued too hard, voice is raised, tone shifts, and you summon an argumentative point that is really a personal attack masquerading as a debate point. I recently experienced this moment with my business partner—who also is my spouse, roommate,…
You Don’t Need Photoshop to Create Beautiful Things (Use This Free Tool Instead!)
I’ve been managing social media accounts for over 8 years now. For some of my past clients, the content was easy to create because they had a plethora of photos and a designer who would make on-brand graphics for me in real time. For others, I wasn’t so lucky. Instead, I caught myself having to…
Web Development for Our Parents’ Generation
The Wonder Jam’s team is 100% Millennial. I’m the team’s elder statesman at 35 years old, and the vast majority of our clients are either generational peers or targeting our demographic. So, it was a great change of pace — and an exciting creative opportunity — to work with Paula Harer and her business, “Starting…
What I’ve Learned After 70 Inquiries in 83 Days
During the last week of 2018, I knew our website’s homepage needed a refresh. My gut told me that it wasn’t strong enough. We launched the update at the beginning of 2019. When approaching the new layout, I wanted to tackle a few goals: Clearly state what we do Visualize what we do Communicate who…
Design + UX + UI = ♥ on Emily Mollineaux’s New Website
We recently designed, built, and launched wedding and portrait photographer Emily Mollineaux’s new website. Besides looking fabulous (how could it not with Emily’s gorgeous photos all over it?), this project posed some interesting challenges—especially in my website construction phase. The way in which we addressed these challenges illuminates some of The Wonder Jam’s core design…
Your self-care is our lifeblood
We recently had our entire team in the same city and we took full advantage of that fact. But first, I have to share a little bit about what we value here at The Wonder Jam. There are a few things that we believe are key: – We believe that focusing on the work and…
Food Photography Teacher Brag
I will be teaching my 5th Food Photography and Styling class in January 2019 (I’ve taught this class a handful of other times outside of our studio) and an idea came to me while I was cooking. I emailed all my past Food Photography Class students and asked them to submit their best work since…
Tools We Use to Run Our Business
There are so many tools to run your business and choosing the right one for you can take a lot of time to find, so we thought it helpful to compile a big ole list of the things we use. It’s important to remember that technology should make your life more simple, not more difficult….
Things You Learn When You Own A Business
Setting up shop. Training employees. Getting your website up. Marketing your brand. These are all expected parts of owning a business. But there is a lot more that goes into the experience that most people don’t tell you about. Below are a few things Allie and I have noticed that most people don’t talk about….
Pouring Out vs. Filling Up
Pour Out. Fill Up. Repeat. In early days of The Wonder Jam, we had 22 open client projects at once. Twenty-two people who needed our effort. Twenty-two people who – at any given moment – might email us and tell us how disappointed they were in our inability to pay attention to details or hit deadlines. Allie…
Creating A Retreat For Your Clients
When we first got the keys to our studio, we had a lot of work to do. Hunter green carpet, mint green walls and dark brown curtains. The kitchen and bathroom were painted puke yellow and the only lighting options were the flickering fluorescent lights. Over the past 15 months, we’ve slowly made it our…
When and How to Barter
If you’ve freelanced longer than a day then you know that moment. Someone reaches out to work with you. You get excited. Then they drop the “T” word. “So I was curious if you would be interested in a trade?” Either your get the stink eye (behind the privacy of your own computer screen) or…
Two Reasons We Give Back A Client’s Check
There have been a few times (a very few) – where a relationship with a client went bad. Today we’ll describe the times when The Wonder Jam will refund a check. 1. When a Client Shoots Themselves in the Foot At one point, we agreed to a 3-month retainer (billed hourly) with a client. We grossly…
How Introverts and Extroverts Make Great Teams
We get a load of questions about what it’s like working together as a husband and wife team. Folks are curious and they should be. It’s a bit odd. But at the same time it’s really not. What is more unique about our situation is the Introvert/Extrovert combo we’ve got going on. Allie is more…
