🌞 the dawn of a new era!
hmm I definitely wrote “error” the first time…
Hey everyone!!
I won’t assume you’ve heard my personal news already, even though it feels like the only thing I’ve talked about for the last month straight:
I QUIT MY JOB!
To not work for a year!!
And to instead build some software of my own!!!!
I was at The Browser Company for a little over 2 years, and it was truly an unforgettable, life-changing experience. I could not be more grateful for my time spent there; I learned so much, shipped so much, and made so many wonderful memories & friendships. I’m so sad to be leaving such a fun, thoughtful and talented crew 😭 but it felt like the right time to take this next step!
Q: but whyyy, vrk?
A: So many reasons!!! But mostly:
🎨 I’ve been feeling a bunch of creative energy
✂️ I’m very obsessed with paper things and noticed there are very few software tools for hobbyist paper enthusiasts
👩🏼💻 I want to try applying my creative energy toward building software of my own, particularly software that helps people create with paper!
❔ I’ve been working in Series A & earlier startups for the last 4+ years and I want to decide if I want to become a founder of something myself
My last day at Browser was last Friday June 23, and my first day of work at vrk enterprises* was Monday, June 26.
*not an actual entity
If you’re reading this, you’ve made it to my new newsletter, vrklovespaper! I’ll be posting my updates here as I play with software meets paper.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your stay! 🌱
♡ vrk
🍩 the new victoriakirst.com
It’s only my first week of solo adventures in paper & software, so I don’t have too much to show yet, but I did redo my personal website:
Here’s the before & after:
Now that I’m on my own, it seems a lot more important to have a landing page I can point to that explains who I am and what I’m trying to do.
It’s been a while since I’ve been responsible for a whole website, including the content and design, and not just the coding part. It was challenging to figure out what to say and where to put it! I also haven’t designed anything in… a while…………
My goals were to tell my story and give you an idea of who I am, while making the experience cute, inviting, and fun to click around. I am happy with this as a first attempt 😄 I expect I’ll evolve my site over time!
Check it out and lmk what you think!
➡️ PS: My favorite interactions are the link hovers on this page - try it out!! (though fyi it only works on desktop aaand I only really did the first section)
✨ ooh shiny: thermal printers
I was talking with my friend Aaron who is also on a solo venture (and available for freelance work!!). We want to do a collaboration of some sort while we’re both job-free 🤠
One thing led to another and Sunday night I went down a DEEP rabbit hole of thermal printer (receipt printer) hack projects.
A few notable ones:
In the journaling world, really cute thermal printers have been popping up for the last few years as tiny sticker makers:
So naturally… I’d love to code something that prints to one of these very adorable printers! Could be an awesome to tie it in with Aaron’s artwork too.
There are very few resources on writing software that controls these adorable tiny printers though — the projects I linked above all connect to, like, real receipt printers that most definitely support ESC/POS, which is Epson’s official protocol for such things.
It’s quite unclear if these tiny printers also support ESC/POS (I’ve seen conflicting information online) — but at least one person got it to work so….
I ordered one:
Haven’t tried hacking yet, but it’s on the to-do list for this week! Will let you know how it goes in the next newsletter (probably).
I really hope I don’t need a bluetooth packet sniffer (for debugging if the printer/bluetooth libraries I’m using don’t Just Work)… but I’ll do what I need to do 🫡
🪐 july’s topic: printing photos?
I described how I want to structure my exploration time: I want to roughly choose a topic each month to research and explore
I had chosen a topic for this month already: printing photos! Like printing photos for use in journals, memory books, albums…
I’m still super excited by that, but alsoooo some shiny side quests have popped up! The thermal printer stuff I just mentioned, my friend Eric had an awesome project that lends itself well to a zine format, I’ve got some ideas for making fun paper business cards…
So I’m gonna keep things open and just see where July takes me!
🍡 miscellaneous
There’s a stamp company that makes stamps meant for decorating around stamps?? Let me start writing some letters…
I feel like Mind Wave has been putting out reaaally good stickers these days. Household objects with a few casual whales, dinosaurs, and alien abductions mixed in? Into it. A less quirky, only gorgeous option: Mind Wave in the Forest
What a fun thing!!!
Isn’t this just like, so clean and stunning? People are so good at journaling
This olive oil that we got in our gift bags from our friends’ wedding at Lake Como last month is sooooo good and I already almost finished it but it looks like the only way to buy more is through a $200 Amazon order of 6. I wonder if Eataly carries it…