Strisorean - The Rebrand

Let's talk about the Rebrand

Because don't we always talk about the rebrand?

TL;DR - At the Start Because I get Long-Winded

The drive to put my art online met me at a very strange time in my life.

"Bird Occurred" was the best umbrella name I could come up with at the time. I didn't love it, but I went with it, and it followed me like an email address you made at 16 based on your anime hyperfixation.

I bought the domain, signed up for all the websites as per internet advice, then promptly dropped all activity once I got a job.

In health care.

Mid-march, 2020.

Yeah.

2023-- New me, new drive. A night illustration course gave me the oomph to continue with art. Put it on Redbubble under Bird Occurred (begrudgingly).

2025 & 2026-- Disability hit me hard. I have a tablet and no deadlines, and art brings me joy. Inspiration struck and I rebranded. Strisorean is it, y'all. ❤️✨️

Current-- Locked in, bb. Many projects and ideas, doing it when I have enough energy. Still disabled; bad days, less-bad days. Got everything online re user accounts and the like. Website is ongoing. Shop is coming but I've got mad task avoidance with that... which means one day in 2 weeks I'll just sit down and knock it out in like 16 hours. I got it covered. ✨️😁

Upcoming-- More "serious" art, a series on mistakes/terrible attempts, remakes of older stuff, my tools & set-up, videos possibly. The website (theoretically). I got my mics, so I really wanna do something with them.

Upcoming (personal)-- New specialists, possibly physio, maybe a complete retooling of meds, new bonkers meds that fix me (lol), who knows. I will still be disabled but with more good days (theoretically).

Now, on with the show!

I was never a fan of the 20's, tbh.

2020 took most of us by surprise, and not in a good way.

Now, I can't remember when that year I decided on the name for my artistic umbrella, but I can tell you that I was adrift even before lockdown hit. For example, in January 2020 I went online and became an ordained minister with Universal Life Church, and got scarily good at the Gibson Girl style bun.

I was jobless, bored and tired of being ghosted by companies.

So, I got the idea in my mind to put my art online. But I wanted to do it right-- find a cool name for it, then buy a domain, set up a website, the works. But nothing was coming to me. I was impatient, and instead of waiting for inspiration to truly hit, I just kinda...

... made a choice.

A need for immediacy

"Bird Occurred" was the best I could come up with after, like, idk, a million years of thinking (it was probably a week tops but for an AuDHD brain with a hyperfixation and the dumbest of roadblocks it was llllllloooooong).

So I bought the domain, signed up for all the websites as per internet advice (DeviantArt, Reddit, Imgur, Redbubble, etc). Then things got more complex, because I had to come up with a logo. And content.

And I thought choosing a name was difficult. I was hella unprepared for designing a logo.

At this point I was just some guy with some bird sketches and a strong notion to show them off, maybe make a few stickers, actually do something with my hobby/talent.

But after all that, stuff happened, and I had to put it to the side.

2023 & the new normal

Time skip-- I'd found a more sensible job that didn't get me bitten on the regular, and on a whim I signed up for a night course at the local college for Experimental Illustration.

It was great. It got me to try new things, mess about with materials I never had, and gave me structure. Before this, the only digital art I'd made was the oriole and the blackbird logo monstrosity you see here.

But as you may have seen in social media posts, I progressed to the point of completing my Stupid Birds Collection, as well as 2 more serious pieces, which made it into the college art show. All this rekindled my desire to show off, maybe put my stuff on Redbubble, buy myself a sticker or two...

... but "Bird Occurred"?

Lightbulb!

To be blunt, the name sucked. It was long, easily misspelled, shortened to "B.O." (which I'd never even thought of), and hard to say in a Scottish accent.

But I didn't have anything else in mind... until I did.

Strisorean. As in "of strisores", a grouping of birds that includes owls, potoos, and nightjars. So many of my favourite birds. How could I not?

Most of the rebrand was simple. I bought the domain, set up some accounts and social media... anything I could just change the name on, I did. All good, right?

I found out that some sites don't let you change your account name, others say you can but then it doesn't work and your workaround gets you suspended (*cough* Redbubble *cough*), and then some are getting with the times and let you do what you need. Others just... never respond if you're locked out. It's all still a bit "wild west" out there.

Strisorean rocks!

Y'all, I effin' love the rebrand.

It's given new life and new energy to my creative endeavors, and given me something I can do during recovery or when my disability limits my activity options.

The website is slowly coming together.

I’ve got a google calendar that helps me remember when posts are happening because my ADHD remains unmedicated.

Meta lets me schedule posts for IG and FB, and Twitter lets me schedule posts, so as long as I remember to do that on my good days I'm free to rest on my bad ones.

NGL, the social media stuff is tricky-- I've only used Reddit and Tumblr since 2020, and that was mostly lurking. But I'm gettin' the hang of it, despite what Facebook and Instagram would have me believe (I think they're expecting me to really grind for followers, you know? And do reels? I've googled reels. What am I supposed to do, can someone from Gen Alpha explain; so I have to get a software? Uhhhhhh maybe I'll ask my nephew idk).

We're getting there. At my own speed.

Conclusion

The last thing you want is more words, yet here we are.

Thanks to those who made it this far. I know I can be wordy; I never got that under control. Publishers used to pay by the word, you know. But to put a notice in the paper as a faceless everyman, you paid them by the letter? Egregious knavery if you ask me. Which you didn't, but I'm informing you nonetheless.

Oh, dear reader, I suffered too much sun exposure at the time of writing this conclusion. It's actually been a sweltering, oppressive tanning booth outside for most of this, the summer of two-thousand and twenty-six, and I'm constantly suffering sun exposure to a frankly uncouth degree.

Any sun is too much, tbh... feels unnatural.

And no, of course I'm not a vampire. Maybe you're a vampire. Ever think about that? Of course not, you only think about yourself. Wait, that's... that's not how that works...

Yeah, mmmm'kay.

I'm gonna lie back down in my coffin regular human bed for a regular human sleep. With snoring, breathing, and a marked lack of fangs.

Regular human over here.

See, look? Sunlight on my sleeve. That hurt, like, zero percent.

- Toren Gunn

... you will remember none of my conclusion and its associated vampiric ramblings.

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