Kraftworks’ Nodnol Jameson – Following the Rules
By Robert Galland
Many may recall the days when Love to Decorate published a magazine on a regular basis. Those back issues may still be perused and offer a window into various home and garden trends, brands, and personalities as they emerged and helped make our world more beautiful. You can view those back issues by going to the following link: https://issuu.com/ltdmagazinesl
One of the features I always enjoyed was each edition’s featured designer interview. You can learn a lot from other people’s stories, and also find inspiration when learning how people overcome challenges and use their gifts to succeed. Everyone likes a good story and they are all around us in the home and garden community. Thus, it is with great pleasure that we at Love to Decorate renew the featured designer series with the intention of bringing you a new featured designer interview on a bi-monthly basis.
As I was considering who to feature in this inaugural edition, at least since I have been involved with LtD, my thoughts quickly turned to someone I have seen emerge who consistently creates beautiful designs and at a fairly prolific rate. This month’s featured designer is Nodnol Jameson of Kraftwork and I think you will agree that she is someone you will enjoy rooting for.
I recently had the pleasure to sit down with Nod – as her friends call her. If you have been paying attention to the home and garden genre over the last few years, you will no doubt have some familiarity with this ever growing brand.
Photo by Bambi Foxdale
Creators are commonly asked what inspired them to get started or how did they even find Second Life™. Each designer’s story is unique, and Nod is certainly no different. In fact, what was surprising to learn was how much time Nod has spent in SL before she began creating and operating a business.
Nod shared that she has been a resident of SL since, 2007, but she didn’t join the creator community until 2016. Rather, Nod was initially attracted to the openness and freedom that Second Life offered.
She continued, “ I found a newspaper article about this Brazilian couple that played Second Life together and were able to do anything they wanted and I thought it was interesting. I logged to check it on, out of curiosity, and never left.” SL’s international presence was also a factor. “At that time, I was happy enough with only improving my English skills as my native language is Portuguese. So language learning and improvement played a big part for my retention in Second Life.”
A Business Born of Necessity
What changes could bring a resident of 9 years to finally make the leap and try their hand at creating? For Nod, it was out of necessity. SL offered the perfect tools to capitalize on her education as an architect while also allowing her to focus on what was incredibly important to her- motherhood.
“I had a real life business that was forced to close during 2016’s economic crisis in Brazil and I tried to find an occupation that allowed me to have the freedom to be with my daughter. I had always worked at offices and companies since she was 9-months old and I felt I missed a big part of her growth. I wanted to be able to just be a present mother. Second Life was right there in front of me at my home office, so I decided to give it a chance as a H&G designer.”
Thus, in 2016. Nod took a chance to start a business in SL and entering the home and garden space was an easy and natural decision for her. “It all started out of an idea back in May, 2016, I had done a couple of sim decorations and thought ‘I spend so much with decoration and buildings, why not start creating it all?’ Not only is Nod an Architect, but she also holds an MBA in Project Management and she credits these two degrees and her prior business experience with allowing her to be able to successfully start Kraftwork.
I was aware that Brazil has one of the largest populations of people producing 3D content in the world and asked if her experience as an architect there made it easier for her to begin creating 3D mesh content. Nod believes this was the case, but as is the case for most SL creators, there was an incredible amount of learning still ahead.
“Technical courses for drawing or 3D courses related to architecture, engineering, or modeling are common and finding a good school/course was not difficult at all. Brazilian companies often hire drawing technicians as the construction and automotive industries are some of the biggest businesses in our economy.” Nod herself had come from a background with a construction company and was versed in Autocad programs. She continued, “I went to a Maya course and was slowly able to build the first models to open the store in October, 2016.” Maya is one of the popular 3D creation pieces of software used to create SL mesh content.
Nod has continued to expand on her skills and education. “From then to today, lots of other courses were added so I could gain more skills”, Nod continued. She also credits the many friends who helped with tips and spent endless hours watching Youtube tutorials.
Three plus years later, Kraftwork is Nod’s viable full-time profession.
I asked her what has been her favorite product to make and it soon became very evident as to why.
“I really enjoyed making the Edgewater set (which includes both a skybox and a furniture set).
Edgewater Skybox and Furniture Set by Kraftwork
The theme “grunge” is something deeply rooted in my personality, I am a big Pearl Jam fan (that kind that goes to all gigs), Seattle is probably one of my top 5 favorite cities in the world to visit and I have even stayed in the Pearl Jam room at the Edgewater Hotel. This release allowed me to put all these things together in one single pack. It was such a pleasant work for me I managed to build the entire set, which is not small, in 7 days. I just couldn’t stop adding and adding more to the final product.”
As Nod’s products have progressed, so has her ideas with respect to branding. I was aware that Kraftwork had recently undergone a reimaging with respect to its logo and visible branding and I asked Nod why she felt it was time to take that step. She answered, “I decided to change my logo because the first one was outdated graphically in my opinion. I wanted something a little more up-to-date that would fit better recent releases and was slightly more feminine. I also needed to have a font and ad design template so my work could be easily recognized. It was a mess before! Following the rules sometimes is good.”
As for the future, Nod is happy when others feel joy from her creations. “I will keep doing my thing which is to feel happy modeling something that makes sense for other people. I want people to feel joy, for them to buy my items because they see a purpose, because it’s beautiful for their personal tastes, because it also brings them joy. Second Life is a place that exists to allow us to share our lives with so many different places and cultures. My goal is to provide tools that enrich this experience.”
What’s Worked and What Has Not?
All business owners, whether in real life or Second Life, have to continually assess what steps to take and then know how to analyze the results. All Second Life creators, especially in the event era, speak of deadlines and the time pressures that can accompany creating. Nod’s real life business experience has allowed her to take a very grounded approach in ensuring she can keep moving forward in a fruitful direction.
Nod offered that planning is essential. “My Second Life business is just like any small company in RL. It requires planning (time management), budget management (you need to pay rent, purchase scripts, upload fees, event fees, cash out fees), you need to set goals based on time, you need to evaluate risks (should I invest time to mesh this for that event or not?) and all those aspects of a real Project management enterprise. There is no stress when you know how much you can handle, and not planning is the key for a disaster. It will reflect on sales, your image and of course, it will reflect on how happy you are or not.”
As to what has worked to allow Kraftwork to rise within the ranks of the creator community, Nod had many comments to offer, not the least of which was recognizing the efforts of her blogging team who she feels helped her achieve success in 2019.
Nod went on the share, “First, nothing works more than time and commitment. To me, the secret to grow was to keep working and adding new releases over and over, hours in the day, all days of the week. Be engaged with social media, share, discuss, listen, be involved. Treat customers with the same respect and kindness you would want to be treated and mostly, have fun. Have a smile on your face when you are modeling or meshing or taking a photograph of an item you have just prepared and that’s the reward, to feel happy and fulfilled professionally.
Second, you need to keep creativity alive all the time. As much as we are able to research for references on the web, references only become not enough at some point. How many couches one can have? How many beds do you need? After some time watching my sales go down a bit, I went out searching for help. And I knew this help could only come from a group of people: H&G bloggers. I decided to create this collaboration with them in which they bring me items/ideas of what they are missing in Second Life as far as interior decor or buildings and it worked amazingly. We were able to make sales grow again, I met amazing people, I got closer to them, we shared our views, and in the end customers will profit from more accurate releases. It was a win win.”
The key to a successful business in Second Life has often been attributed to the creator feeling passion for what they are doing, creating quality products, and treating their customers well. Nod clearly operates Kraftwork with these ideas in mind and in this sense, is clearly following the rules which lead to success.