6 steps you can take to brand your business for free!

Do you really really need some design help but don’t have the cash for a full blown branding extravaganza? You’re not alone! Lots of startups and small businesses have to put the design budget on the back burner while they’re building the business. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost. You can setup a smart aesthetic to tide you over until the big bucks roll in and you can splurge on a showstopping branding identity. Here’s a great way to get started for free!

1. Make yourself a moodboard. I love Pinterest for this but you can make a physical one too. You can incorporate colors, textures, typefaces, and visuals; whatever feels “right” with your brand. Try using bits of film, fashion, interiors, product, architecture, and art that doesn’t directly intersect with your business but inspires the story you’re going for. Avoid pinning too much graphic design, like logos, web, and ads as you’re apt to inadvertently copy them at a later stage. Think in terms of mood and voice and what will speak to your customer.

2. Narrow yourself down to 2 or 3 key colors and 2 or 3 typefaces that speak to you. Don’t forget legibility! If your presence will be largely online, try to choose typefaces that are easily accessible for web like google fonts. Now you’ve got your colors and fonts!

3. With your colors and fonts and a simple design program like Canva, play around and type up a simple minimal logo for your brand. This does not need to be mind-blowing and earth shattering. It needs to be legible, pleasant to look at, and speak to the brand mood.

4. With your moodboard and logo as your guide, choose a web template that feels close to your style and tone. If you want a sleek design ready to go but you’ll have to sacrifice some creative control, I recommend using Squarespace [free for 2 weeks, then you need to subscribe]. If you want greater creative control and freedom, I recommend WIX [free forever but must subscribe to get rid of ads].

5. Use the free stock photo options (Unsplash) that come with both Squarespace and WIX to add some photography to your splash page. Make sure the photos are in keeping with the tone of your brand.

6. Keep it simple! A splash page with 1 or 2 prominent images, your new logo of course, an about statement, and contact information; is enough to get your name out there and let people know you’re a legit business with a savvy look.

Up next. 3 branding upgrades that are worth the splurge.

Image by Patrick Michalika.

What gets you up in the morning?

As a person with ADHD this is a GREAT question. For those of you not wholly familiar with some of the lovable quirks that come with being a card carrying member of the attention deficit disorder family, let me illuminate. One of the biggest or let’s say more consuming aspects of being an ADHD’er is the trouble with SLEEP. My god! My kingdom for a week of solid, consistent, deep, tranquil sleep. I can’t even fathom what a well slept life could look like.

I can tell you what an unwell slept life does. I usually try to get myself to bed at a reasonable hour and at the same time each night. But each evening is like playing grab bag. It’s a toss up between insomnia, restless half sleep tossing and turning, or waking up in the middle of the night to twiddle one’s thumbs until dawn and every so often a good old fashioned night of the good deep restful stuff just so we can know what we’re missing.

Which leads us to Act 2. The wakey wakey eggs and bakey. Because ADHD seems to operate by the rules of Murphy’s Law, generally around the time one’s alarm is about to pop off, you will find yourself drifting off to a deep, tranquil, restful, luxurious, sleep state that is nigh impossible to wrench oneself from. So getting up consistently and on time is a herculean task.

Which begs the question, what does get us sleep disordered chappies out of bed in the morning? What keeps us from fingering the snooze until early afternoon? And my answer is as corny as it is true. I leap out of bed whether well slept or not if I’m working on a project that inspires and excites me. Good design work keeps me engaged and in hyper focus mode from day in and out and even activates my get up and go come morning. It’s a blessing and that which drives me to keep my work interesting, varied and challenging.

That’s why I’m a one stop shop from logos, colors, and branding to strategy and digital to websites and social. I even squeeze in video editing and infographics to keep it extra interesting. It’s the novelty and quest for originality that keeps me in the throes. A well designed life worth living or something like that.

And how about you? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Image is courtesy of Gaelle Marcel via Unsplash.

september morn.

September is the most bittersweet of months. A call to the end of summer and with it, the death of sprinklers, watermelon dripping down your chin, ice cubes clinking in the rosé, exposed décolletage, thighs, & toes, a great sensuous lethargy that takes over the heart and the body. Well at least if you’re like me and still refuse to get air conditioning.

September is cloaked in the promise of nubby romantic autumn and all the hygge it brings; but also reality knocking on the door, brass tacks, and back to business. And if your business is design like mine, maybe you’re reconnecting with clients over some logos or a website still in need of that final spitshine or perhaps you’re getting in touch with an enthusiastic lead that took a summer sabbatical. I’ll admit we Americans aren’t as accustomed to taking it down a notch in the summer. And if you’re American and about to disagree with me, I dare you to spend a summer doing business in Italy. You’ll be waiting all summer on that feedback, invoice, kickoff what have you. Everything. Is. Closed. The Italians know how to soak up the summer. It seems there’s a collective agreement over there that there’s more to life than work, and that rest, indulgence and good food is integral to our humanity. I for one, am fully on board. I can almost taste the gelato and negronis. Sigh.

But alas, come September even the most diehard hedonists among us will shift gears towards a more industrious and productive mindset. I find I operate best, balancing the pleasure and pecuniary in equal measure. Too much relaxation actually ramps up my anxiety. So I take a deep breath and boldly dive back in. Usually I review my current clients and projects, make notes on new collaborations and gigs I want to be working on, and look at my website and decide on any new work or design updates to add. And then invariably I get that familiar old buzz back. The excitement of beauty and branding and logos and colorways; websites and animation, interactivity and hell even SEO does the trick. Because the thing is, I really do love design work. It’s problem solving at it’s finest and there is nothing so satisfying as a proper conundrum mended symphonistically. Playing a sweet melody where there was once chaos. Only with color and typography and photography and space and light. But I digress.

So how do you ease back into the September season?

Photo, my own.