FK Guest Contributor Jade Suine chats to Megan of the blogging couple behind McKean Studio.

Tell us a little about your blog and why you started it?
Our blog is quite the mixture of lots of things;  from what we get up to on weekends, fun trips we take together, places we go and projects we’re working on, to what’s inspiring us online or things that have caught our eye lately. We started our blog together around a year ago as we were both blogging individually but often working on projects together. It just seemed to make more sense to be sharing!

What do you love most about blogging?
We love connecting with our readers and having a visual diary of our adventures. We blogged every day we were travelling on our honeymoon earlier this year, and it’s so nice to know that it’s there to go back to when we’re scratching our heads trying to remember everything we did in New York, or what the name of the museum was that we visited in Paris. It’s also a nice way to keep our mums filled in on what’s happening in our Sydney lives!

Does blogging inspire you?
It’s a good motivator to keep working on things, and to take a bit of time to share with cyberspace. Since we’re constantly reading so many other blogs it’s inspiring to see what people like to read about, and what other people are getting up to all around the world.

Do you have any tips or hints about successfully running your own blog that you would like to share?
I don’t really think we’re wise enough to know, we just plod along doing our own thing! We try not to take ourselves too seriously, and if we don’t have anything we want to share on the blog on a certain day we’ll just skip a few until we’re back on track. It works for us, and keeps things stress-free!

How do you balance your content?
We have a very ‘day-to-day’ approach with blogging, so content varies depending on what’s going on for us. If we’ve done something really cool that week and have photos from the occasion we’ll share that, whereas if we’ve been putting in more hours at our respective jobs we’ll share more of other people’s work. There isn’t really any rhyme or reason, (except for trying not to overload the blog with too much of one thing); we just do what seems to make the most sense at the time!

Is there a pattern in your posting habits?
We try to post a few times a week, ideally every ‘business’ day of the week. Unfortunately, workloads have a sneaky way of taking up a little more attention than we’d like and blogging goes by the wayside for a few days. In a perfect week we’d share a personal post, a ‘Chair Tuesday’, an internet find, and something we’ve worked on.

Do you discuss your posts with each other first, or leave it as a surprise for the other person?
A little of both. Joshua handles his ‘Chair Tuesday’ posts and they’re always a surprise for Megan to read, (and learn about). Most of the other content we either work on together, (like ‘The Best Thing I Saw Today’), or is a recap of an activity we were both there for.

Can you share with us your 5 favourite blogs?
That’s such a hard question! We both have lots of subscriptions, and we usually read them first thing each morning. Megan’s is full of design blogs, (and lots of leftover wedding blogs), and Joshua has a lot of chairs happening in his.

Our combined top 5 picks would be:
Oh So Beautiful Paper  – Wedding invitations, letterpresses goodies, stationery stores, and the annual coverage of the New York Stationery Show make this one our combined favourite.
The House That Lars Built – Brittany is an American designer living in Denmark and she shares some of the cutest DIYs, (most of them actually achievable)! She’s crafty, she’s cute, and she’s clever. Her blog is always a good read.
Eight Hour Day  – We really love their ‘Best Thing I Saw Today’ posts, as it ranges from design to illustration, to other weird and wonderful things. It’s always a good source to go to if we want to see something interesting, and it’s always nice to read up on other blogging couples.
The Daily Smudge – Emily has great taste in her paper finds, so it’s always the best of the best on her blog. Also, fun fact, Emily taught Megan for a semester at uni a couple of years back! Small world.
Chairwhore  – A blog about chairs and nothing else. Quite simple! This one is Joshua’s favourite.

www.mckeanstudio.com