It is time, and I am taking advantage of this moment. I have been making maps, data visualizations, and performing geospatial statistics and analysis for a long time now. For the past 12+ years of that time, I have followed a similar pattern: Work, have a cartographic spark of inspiration, create a completely unpaid side project based on that inspiration, blog about it, create tutorials, and sometimes give talks about the techniques. All the while, working at my full time job in parallel.

Because these side projects have been what I've publicly represented, many people have assumed these side projects are my bread-and-butter work. While they encapsulate much of what I love and why I joined this geospatial field, they have been unpaid. Wonderful folks from great businesses have found me either via my YouTube channel, Behance, or here - sarahbellmaps.com, recruiting a designer or mapmaker. Because I have a full time job, I usually have had to regrettably decline. There have been rare moments when the stars aligned, and my workload was such that I could accept the freelance work. These have been some of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life.

This constant full plate of work and passion projects is something I probably will be gladly be doing for a long time. But it is time for me to take a step back, and holistically examine my process. You see, when I'm not mapping, I'm rock climbing, Or at least I was until November 6th, 2025. I suffered a shoulder injury doing a simple cooldown in the climbing gym. I had surgery on June 18th and am on the road to recovery.

Here's the thing. I love rock climbing as much as I love cartography. Without diving too deep into it, when my injury took me out of the game (momentarily - I will return), things felt bleak. But it provided a moment of reflection. Out of that moment, I've realized I want to approach things a little differently now. Among the several things this means to me is that I wanted to convert my website into something that can foster those rewarding professional experiences. I'm not exactly sure how this will unfold, but I am excited to find out.

I will eventually be posting my fonts and free tutorials. I'll also be leaning into the inspiration for the passion projects. They aren't going away. I'm just upgrading my approach so that, again, I can say yes more often to the reason I got into this field in the first place.

I look forward to sharing soon!

Sarah Bell