Ever since my very first website, I’ve had a donate button. And over the years, some people have been very generous and I’m very appreciative of that.

I’m no stranger to talking about money. It’s part of my job. For most of my career, I’ve been a contractor, specializing in helping indie developers and companies create app icons and icon systems. And that means writing, negotiating, and signing contracts. Discussing payment terms and amounts is really normal for me. While some people might not look for a new job all that often and seldom deal with those things, I am regularly having that conversation.

But when it comes to my website and the things I make for fun, I hesitate to bring it up. I don’t like talking about money in that context, I suspect because I feel shame when asking for donations. Even though—rationally—I don’t think I should.

These days, most personal websites exist as a single page to merely state someone’s profession and link to their email. But for 20 years, my website has been a free-to-download repository for over 1000 icons and over 100 wallpapers.

I make all of it in the time I have outside my day job. I love it that much, ever since I was a kid. My most-favorite hobby is basically the same thing I do for work. To me, it’s never been a case of “choose a job you love, and you’ll never have work a day in your life” (that’s bullshit), instead, it’s been a case of extreme luck to have people hire me to do what I already love to do.

Last year, I made over 450 freely-downloadable icons to use on your Mac. That represents almost half of all icons I made in the last 20 years. While you can apply them to folders and hard drives, a lot of them exist outside a context that necessitates using them for anything practical. I love making them as art, and I think they’re nice to look at and fun to collect.

Despite all my fears around asking for donations, I’d like to ask you to think about it. If I ever made something you liked and you want to show your appreciation for it, there are a few ways to do that:

Firstly, I’ve put many of my designs on t-shirts, which you can buy from Cotton Bureau. I guarantee you’ll look cute or cool in them, whichever of those descriptors you prefer.

Secondly, I’ve made some fonts based on pop culture logos, which you can buy from my type foundry, Crown. Even if you don’t have any use for them, they’re something you get in exchange for your money.

Thirdly, I’ve made playing cards and poker dice under my Junior brand. I’m proud of them, and whether you want to play familiar games with my poker decks or new games with my Japanese hanafuda decks, they’re a worthwhile addition to your game shelf or closet. You can buy them from my friends at BuyOlympia.

Fourthly, you can donate directly via Stripe. This method is perfect for when you liked something I made or wrote.

Lastly, I started a Patreon account for LMNT. This is new. You can subscribe to one of three tiers: $5, $10, or $20/mo. There are no exclusives or rewards if you subscribe, but if you want to “set it and forget it” with regard to donating—instead of remembering to donate every so often—this may be perfect for you.

On the modern web, my website is an anomaly. I collect no data from you, there are no ads, and I have no sponsors. There’s no cookie pop-up, no email newsletter pop-up, no anti-ad-blocker pop-up, no subscription pop-up. I don’t artificially throttle downloads or put a page in between that makes you wait to get you to buy the capability for faster downloads. My website doesn’t make external requests. I do not require you to jump through any hoops to access any part of my website or any download anything from my website. There are no paywalls. My website does not run on any third-party service that benefits from it. I don’t even put watermarks on wallpapers because I don’t want a logo to get in the way of you enjoying it.

I don’t know many websites like mine (anymore). It seems like most sites have resorted to doing all of that kind of stuff.

Despite all evidence that points to increased revenue by doing any of those things, I’ve rejected every single one in favor of just putting a donate button at the bottom of every post. Not in the middle. Not obscuring the page. Only at the bottom, out of the way. I know not everyone can afford it, so I don’t push it. But for those who can, I’d ask you to click it. I don’t need your money to do what I do. I’m going to do it anyway.

But I’m asking you now to consider buying something or donating, because it makes things a little easier for me to justify devoting time to making this nice place on the web not just for me, but for you too.

Every one of these ways supports what I do, but some more than others. In the interest of transparency, here’s a table that details how much I get from each of those methods:

Thanks for thinking about it.

If you like this, you can make a one-time donation, donate monthly, or buy something from my shop.