Sometimes you need a kick in your culo,..Ciao tutti worked very well for me! Italian Summers came out off the closet for the first very first time with out t-shirt and ceramic collection! I was so exited but also had some sleepless nights finishing the website, webshop and realised,..it’s never really finished…
By Lisa van de Pol
Amore for Italy
Since a couple of years I share some happy looking collages of Italy on Facebook page Italian Summers and since about one year I share my own photo’s on Instagram. Meanwhile I was busy working on a website where I wanted to share my Amore for Italy with the world. Several times I was completely sick and tired of creating the website, which I was still learning, stopped and threw all my notes and moodboards back into the closet.
Italian Summers Collection
This last time I really wanted to finish it! Especially since Italian Summers had gotten a tremendous added value because of the Italian Summers collection (t-shirts and ceramics) that Claudio Assandri and I design together. But at the moment that the website had such a base to put it online I suddenly had anxiety. NOOO! I know my family and friends loved it all but you know,… sometimes I see particularly bad singers on TV and it’s the family who send them on that stage!
How boring is that?!
In this case, it was perfectionism which ensures that it is never good enough. Everything that was important for the Italian Summers website had to be perfect! The photos, the names of the photo’s, the text, my English (I’m Dutch). But you know what?! That’s so not me, I’m far from perfect and I don’t want to be perfect. How boring is that?!! Also, perfectionism kills your passion and creativity! Yes, you probably will see mistakes in my English, but it’s all written with passion. Like all our designs are made with passion and big smile.
Carefully I posted a few pictures of the collection
So finally I put the website online,…. BUT TOLD NO ONE, HAHA! In my opinion it was only for the Google bots! Talking about baby steps, haha! I was sooooo exited about the collection that Claudio and I had designed! The cute, cuter, cuutest had lost count! Carefully I posted a few pictures of the collection. To my surprise there were many positive reactions including a fun, enthusiastic response from Saskia of the biggest Italian blog Ciao Tutti in the Netherlands. She liked the Italian Summers t-shirts that much, that she wanted to do a giveaway contest with the t-shirts. Now there was no turning back, the website would be out in the open.
We’ve worked on our designs with lots of love and laughter!
This resulted in a, ‘Yeeey, so happy and a jeeey, more sleepless nights’ to really finsh the website. But in the end the result was a good one. I finally, finally showed the website with our designs we’ve worked on with lots of love and laughter. The Ciao Tutti competition was a huge success with more than 1000 people who have participated! And with this, Saskia, I want to thank you for kicking my culo (but) without you knowing it!
IT'S LA VITA,..AND IT'S DOLCE BABY!
Here you can read the article on Ciao Tutti here!
Photo’s and text by Lisa van de Pol, Italian Summers
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