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3/11/14

How to Spend a 6-hour Layover in Lisbon

How to turn a 6 hour layover into a city adventure.

Have you ever booked a trip, and the only way to get there was with a painful multi-hour layover?

Last week, after we booked tickets for the Pencils of Promise project, our best option for travel was a 6 hour mid-day layover in Lisbon. Rather than stay stuck in an airport, I wondered, how we can see the city and spend those six hours wisely?

In scouring Google results, I found a tour company right up our alley called We Hate Tourism Tours, which allowed us to create a DIY off the beaten path adventure. They picked us up from the airport, and gave us a well rounded and unique glimpse into the city, leaving us curious of seeing more.

Here were my favorite stops:

1) Montana Shop & Gallery Lisboa: a small shop of artisanal graffiti supplies for street artists. You can see from the picture in the gallery they have a really beautiful wall of spray paint cans that are color coded.

2) A Vida Portuguesa: a shop of vintage Portuguese brands, with trinkets like bars of soap, notebooks and other gifts with vintage packaging design.

3) We Hate Toursim Tours shop/office. (The last pics in the gallery above.) The tour company was started by a graphic designer so the brand is on point and they have a lot of fun trinkets to go along with it.

To create a mapped out itinerary of our tour, I teamed up with my friends over at Mosey. You can check that out here.

We interviewed the founder of Mosey, Matthew Loyd on Shoptalk Radio last week. Check it out here.

Have you been to Lisbon? What are your favorite underground shops and restaurants to visit?

Screen Shot 2014-02-25 at 5.24.01 PM

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How to turn a 6 hour layover into a city adventure.

Have you ever booked a trip, and the only way to get there was with a painful multi-hour layover?

Last week, after we booked tickets for the Pencils of Promise project, our best option for travel was a 6 hour mid-day layover in Lisbon. Rather than stay stuck in an airport, I wondered, how we can see the city and spend those six hours wisely?

In scouring Google results, I found a tour company right up our alley called We Hate Tourism Tours, which allowed us to create a DIY off the beaten path adventure. They picked us up from the airport, and gave us a well rounded and unique glimpse into the city, leaving us curious of seeing more.

Here were my favorite stops:

1) Montana Shop & Gallery Lisboa: a small shop of artisanal graffiti supplies for street artists. You can see from the picture in the gallery they have a really beautiful wall of spray paint cans that are color coded.

2) A Vida Portuguesa: a shop of vintage Portuguese brands, with trinkets like bars of soap, notebooks and other gifts with vintage packaging design.

3) We Hate Toursim Tours shop/office. (The last pics in the gallery above.) The tour company was started by a graphic designer so the brand is on point and they have a lot of fun trinkets to go along with it.

To create a mapped out itinerary of our tour, I teamed up with my friends over at Mosey. You can check that out here.

We interviewed the founder of Mosey, Matthew Loyd on Shoptalk Radio last week. Check it out here.

Have you been to Lisbon? What are your favorite underground shops and restaurants to visit?

Screen Shot 2014-02-25 at 5.24.01 PM

3/11/14

How to Spend a 6-hour Layover in Lisbon

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How to turn a 6 hour layover into a city adventure.

Have you ever booked a trip, and the only way to get there was with a painful multi-hour layover?

Last week, after we booked tickets for the Pencils of Promise project, our best option for travel was a 6 hour mid-day layover in Lisbon. Rather than stay stuck in an airport, I wondered, how we can see the city and spend those six hours wisely?

In scouring Google results, I found a tour company right up our alley called We Hate Tourism Tours, which allowed us to create a DIY off the beaten path adventure. They picked us up from the airport, and gave us a well rounded and unique glimpse into the city, leaving us curious of seeing more.

Here were my favorite stops:

1) Montana Shop & Gallery Lisboa: a small shop of artisanal graffiti supplies for street artists. You can see from the picture in the gallery they have a really beautiful wall of spray paint cans that are color coded.

2) A Vida Portuguesa: a shop of vintage Portuguese brands, with trinkets like bars of soap, notebooks and other gifts with vintage packaging design.

3) We Hate Toursim Tours shop/office. (The last pics in the gallery above.) The tour company was started by a graphic designer so the brand is on point and they have a lot of fun trinkets to go along with it.

To create a mapped out itinerary of our tour, I teamed up with my friends over at Mosey. You can check that out here.

We interviewed the founder of Mosey, Matthew Loyd on Shoptalk Radio last week. Check it out here.

Have you been to Lisbon? What are your favorite underground shops and restaurants to visit?

Screen Shot 2014-02-25 at 5.24.01 PM

3/11/14

How to Spend a 6-hour Layover in Lisbon

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Personal brand client photographed by Nick Onken demonstrating complete brand coherence where styling, environment, and presence are intentionally aligned

Your personal brand feels off but you can’t explain why. It’s not your logo or colors. It’s a coherence problem, a structural gap between who you are and how you’re seen. Here’s what to do.

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Brand structure framework showing five pillars foundation stopping rebuilding cycle permanently

You keep rebuilding. New brand, new colors, new photos, new messaging, new positioning, new website, new everything. Every six months, every year, every time it feels wrong and stops working. Hoping this time fixes it, this time solves it, this time creates the authority and positioning you need. It doesn’t. It never does. Because you’re […]

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You know things. Real things. Earned through years of experience. Patterns most people miss. Insights that could transform how your audience operates. But nobody knows you know them. You’re the hidden expert. Competent. Skilled. Valuable. Invisible. The shift from hidden expert to recognized authority doesn’t start where most people think. Not with better marketing. Not […]

Daily creative practice and disciplined devotion building mastery through sustained commitment

Devotion isn’t soft. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever practice. Most people think devotion means passion. Excitement. The feeling you get when inspiration strikes and everything flows. That’s not devotion. That’s infatuation. Devotion is showing up when inspiration is gone. When the work feels mechanical. When no one is watching and there’s no immediate reward. […]

Elevated Realism client portrait showing subtle misalignment between inner presence and outward visual expression

You redesign your logo for the third time. Still doesn’t feel right. You hire another designer. Try different colors. New fonts. Different aesthetic entirely. Still wrong. So you conclude: “I just need better branding.” But the crisis isn’t your logo. It’s not your color palette. It’s not your website design. The crisis is deeper. You […]

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You can be visible without being recognizable. Most people confuse the two. They post constantly. Show up everywhere. Maximize exposure. They think: “The more people see me, the more my brand grows.” But visibility isn’t the same as recognition. Visibility is being seen once. Recognition is being remembered. Visibility is impressions. Recognition is identity. You […]

Emma Reicher embodied leadership brand photography transformation mixing streetwear qigong Wales landscapes

Emma Reicher was hidden. No real brand. No photos of herself. Just lofi graphics that looked student-made. She had the credentials. Maturation coach. Qigong practitioner. Psychotherapy background. Real expertise. But nobody could see her. Nobody could feel her. The gap between who she was and how she showed up publicly was complete invisibility. The Fear […]

Visual representation of private, public, and projected self in personal brand identity alignment

You’re not one person. You’re three. Right now, in this moment, you’re simultaneously living as three different versions of yourself. Most people never realize this. They think identity is singular. Fixed. One coherent self moving through the world. It’s not. You have a private self. The person you are when no one is watching. The […]

About the Blogger

I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here. 

I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here. 

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