Challenges (rather than resolutions) in 2014

I am a person who needs the proverbial carrot held on a string in front of my face in order to succeed at anything in life.  Although very driven as a career woman, wife, and mother, I really need that push to keep me getting better.  Resolutions, to me, are a way to change what you are doing. I like to look at life with challenges, rather than fixes. Otherwise you're always looking at what you did wrong, rather than what you can really push yourself to overcome or do.

As a kid, I would do chores on our horse farm as fast as I could so I could go do what I wanted to afterwards. In high school, I joined the school council, leadership team, chess club, took tennis lessons and just about every sort of activity that I possibly could so I could go to a good college, and ultimately,  escape the Midwest.  In college, I took loaded class semesters,  summer and night classes, so I could graduate in 4 years. Now as an adult [well into] my thirties, I still challenge myself in order to get ahead in my career and in life. Otherwise I'd probably be one of those recluses you see that need to be surgically removed from their couch cushions. Well, not that bad, but you get the idea.

I have already set some personal goals for myself for the coming 2014 year. The first hurdle was for me to run my first half marathon in about 6 years. I signed up for the Miami, Florida Half Marathon in February and have been training 5-6 days per week. I also raised $3,000 for the Crohn's and Colitis foundation, which researches a cure for Ulcerative Colitis, of which my husband suffers from. I will be racing with the Team Challenge for the organization. For this race, I have two very noble goals:

1. Don't finish last (standing goal I've had in every race I've ever run).

2. Don't die or get too terribly hurt.

As long as I hit both of those goals, I have committed to running my first marathon.  I've got my eyes on the San Francisco Marathon in July, but we'll see how that goes. This would be a huge race for me considering 1) I suffer from hypothyroidism which pretty much says I shouldn't even be able to be a runner in the first place and 2) I am as flat footed and knock-need as a Himalayan donkey. But I enjoy it and find it therapeutic nevertheless.

Career-wise, I am setting some pretty lofty goals for myself as well. 2013 was a great year for me and I am truly grateful to my many clients. During the year, I have had the pleasure of working with clients from such an array of industries:  technical, pharmaceutical, arts, health, software, fashion, food, automotive, nonprofit, and financial industries.  There is nothing I enjoy more than fusing solid written word with meaningful graphics. When I work on branding concepts for my clients, I go to my true happy place where nothing else matters. In the coming year, I hope to continue to provide top notch branding and marketing support for my clients. I will be adding to my repertoire: 

1. Promotional product management

2. Outside events marketing planning

(Stay tuned for details about these initiatives!) 

I also hope to have my work published in at least one design publication. This is going to take a lot of work, but I am ready. Writing is something that I have loved ever since I was young and I look forward to combining my writing with design abilities. 

There is probably so much more, but I don't want this blog post to be too long. Thank you for reading this far. Happy new year and best wishes!

Better late than never?

Last spring, my husband bought me a wonderful Macro lens for my Nikon camera. Instantly my mind was flooded with ideas of subjects I would photograph up close, hang on my wall, even sell locally at art festivals. 

Then life took over. As spring and summer came and went, I had neglected to capture even one of these images (beyond what images I take for work). 

That is until today. In April of this year, my son Wesley took a pack of sunflower seeds that he had received from a gardening class at school. The philanthropic organization Katie's Crops teaches the kids about giving back to the community through various food growing programs. I watched as he pushed his little index finger into the ground, inserting one small seed in each hole all around out house. Well, now that it is October, these beautiful flowers are finally ready to show themselves and bring a bit of that beautiful summer colors back. Finally, I was able to use the gift my husband had given me last spring and take this picture. Better late than never, right?

You want a website, but where to begin?

I have had clients that have either never created a website or have stuck with a boring, horrible one for far too many years simply because they don't understand the "web world". To this I say, poo poo!

Are you one of these people? If so, here are the basics that you should be aware of.

WHAT DO YOU NEED VS WHAT DO YOU HAVE?
So there are a few simple components to a successful website that you will need, and a plethora of places to find them.

DOMAIN NAME: An address which includes your name, slogan, initials, etc. Hopefully something that remotely identifies your purpose. There are many services that will sell you custom domain names, but be careful how you search as you may accidentally "lock" it out or drive up the price just by searching.

HOSTING SERVICE: This of this as the place that holds your site, like a post office box for your website where only you hold the key. The price ranges can vary greatly with hosting services, so be careful to go with a no-name one that will also provide you with no-service.

WEBSITE: This one is pretty straightforward but also limitless with regards to options. It is the actual files of your website containing the code, images, look etc. I can help you decide what type of site is best for your organization.

EMAIL: By having a unique email identity your business or organization will seem more cohesive (and related back to your domain name). So lose the yahoo, hotmail, etc. I'll show you how to do this easily. Whether you need one email account or 100, I can help get you set up with these as well as establish management procedures for adding and changing these down the road.

SEO: You have a website, now what? How are you going to get it noticed? How are you going to drive traffic. I tell my clients that SEO (search engine optimization) is not something that you do and forget it. To optimally stay at the top, you need to develop a SEO plan and stick with it. I can help you develop a plan that will work for you.

So that may or may not seem like a lot. Now the question is, where to begin?

When I have a client that has existing services, I work with them to make sure that they are subscribed to the most beneficial ones and that they really truly need these services. I can't tell you how many people are paying for things that they never use! (Such as the market with 10 employees that was paying for 100 email accounts each month!) By making sure that you have the most meaningful services, you will then begin to maximize your usage of these services.

For clients without existing services, I do my best to package these services together. For example, many hosting clients will offer a free domain name registration when you sign up. So it is important to make sure that you have the proper hosting client prior to domain name purchasing. Also, I always recommend buying a few domain names when registering, to ensure your business's integrity down the road.

HGC offers hosting, design, and consulting services.  I am happy to walk you through the process of website creation.

Creatively - HG

Found Type at the Henry Ford Museum

I recently visited the Henry Ford Museun in Dearborn, Michigan. Having grown up in Michigan, I remember visiting the museum with my elementary school class. However, it has been a good 25 years since I've been there and was excited with the opportunity to go back.

It quickly became apparent to me that this place was a capsul for found type. For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to interesting type found in various locations. (My husband is sometimes afraid to ride with me when I am in the driving seat as I am often distracted by signage and that sort of thing. )

I wanted to share some of my favorite findings from my trip! Keep an eye out, you might see some inspiration from this trip in designs to come!

The BelAir logo just makes me smile. 

I was in love with how the black shadow of these letters was actually a shadow...the type was raised off the side of the truck. Awesome. 

If there is a vintage poster in the proximity, I will find it. 

Just adorable. 

Va, va voom! 

I could look at these for hours.

My new favorite font! 

Which is your favorite? 

Applying The 4 Step Process to Successful Logo Development

I was recently commissioned to design a logo for a new yoga clothing company.  In my initial meeting with the client, they arrived prepared with a written list of what they wanted their logo to look like and they just needed someone to make it for them.  They envisioned a cut and dry process which would yield what they wanted and nothing else would do.

Rather than simply functioning as a workhorse to develop a logo that fits their vision, I urged them to allow me to take them through the steps of successful logo development. I like to call it “logo enlightenment.” They agreed.

I have been down the road of “we know what we want so just make it” before and it never yields a useful product for the client and at this point in my career I was not willing to compromise my work.  I often have to remind my clients that they have worked so hard to get to where they are, so why stop that hard work now? Logo development is not something that should be thrown together like last night’s salad.

The path to enlightenment is simple: 1) Discuss needs 2) Conduct industry analysis, 3) Define your place within the industry, and 4) Develop a plan to meet needs in a way that will be both unique and functional. It’s that simple but I can’t tell you how many times clients want to skip these simple steps.  The time taken now will save you much aggravation in the future and earn you great rewards from beneficial branding. (This article does not attempt to go into the details of the survey process but highlight the stages needed to yield a beneficial, useful design.)

Discuss Needs - Thoroughly.

As is true with many clients, logos are thought of as a need to fill white space on business cards. Luckily since my client was product oriented, they understood the need for beneficial branding with everything to clothing tags, in-store branding, catalogue and online marketing.  The logo would appear on more than just business cards. It would help define the brand. 

Within my questionnaire, I ask all sorts of questions pertaining to the use and perception of the desired logo and brand. Since this was a new clothing company, we did not have to overcome negative branding which is many times the need with existing companies.  In this case, the underlying scenario was that this clothing line needs to define itself in a sea of existing products. My client had several defining items with their product line that I hoped to help them highlight.

Conduct Industry Analysis

Never before had I been hit in the non-literal face by a branding search as I had with this client.  A quick Google search yielded countless yoga studio and yoga accessory companies of the same basic design: a lotus flower. (It just so happens that my client also envisioned a similar design for their logo.)

The Lotus Flower Throughout Yoga Product Companies

I get it. The lotus flower is the national flower of India. It emerges from the mud and brings beauty to an otherwise ugly situation. The image of the lotus flower has built-in mental triggers for die-hard yogis since they see it at every turn in their practice. But does that mean that my client will benefit from taking the same route? Not necessarily.  What this means is you don’t always need to be so literal in your approach. Rather, go back to the 4 simple steps of logo creation.

I conducted a detailed review of the yoga clothing industry in the marketing sectors they were hoping to launch in. After showing the results of step 2 (Industry Analysis) they were shocked to learn that their idea wasn’t exactly unique.  It was at this juncture that I was granted permission to explore other options based on step 1 (Needs of logo).

Define Your Place Within The Industry

At this stage more so than any other, it is helpful to have a second set of eyes. Business owners (rightly so) have a preset notion of what their business is.  Some clients feel it is almost wrong to focus on others in the industry for fear of copying or stealing ideas. This is where they shoot themselves in the foot. By knowing the industry, inside and out, you are able to better define where you stand and how you will be unique. For example, my client offers a unique bamboo, organic clothing line that is made in the USA that will appeal to eco friendly users. Rather than just appearing as another yoga clothing company, by highlighting the attributes, my client will stand out. With regards to logo development, it is important to keep these factors in mind rather than just do what you think you should do to fit in.  When we defined their place in the industry, we went on to the next step.

Develop a Plan

Many people think that once their logo is complete, that they are ready to hit the ground running. Actually, a logo is just a portion of your complete marketing plan. If you have a solid plan, the logo will be more beneficial and help serve as a foundation from which you build your identity.  In other words, don’t put too much weight on the effects your logo will have on your business. 

I once worked with a fortune 100 company on a total rebranding of the company. I was happy to hear that the CEO did not want to spend a large portion of time discussing the logo, rather, she wanted to spend the majority of our time on developing a solid marketing plan. By doing that, we were better able to develop a logo that would fit within the framework of that plan. 

By following these steps, I was able to develop a meaningful logo for my client. Since they launch of the company, they have seen a tremendous amount of growth within the eco friendly community that appreciates the products (and is willing to pay a little more for them.) Their path of logo development was an eye opener for them. They remain grateful for me pushing them through this process, and allowing them to see that what they had was something different than the rest, and therefore they shouldn't appear just the same as everyone else. 

_____________________________________________

Hope Guyer
hguyer@gmail.com


*Please note that my client wished to remain anonymous within this article. 

Hope's first blog post.

I hope to use this blog as a way to share my thoughts and ideas about the world of creative marketing and design. It will contain articles written by me as well as others that I come across that I feel will also benefit my followers. C R E A T I V I T Y is what is important to me, and I intend to share more of it with you.