Turning the idea in my head to reality!

So you know that I love logo, design, branding, marketing... all of it. I LOVE IT! You also know from business week that I know a little bit about this stuff and since I'm supposed to know a little about this stuff, you may have thought to yourself, 'girl you brake all your own rules - are you really not seeing that?!*&^#%$?!' And it's true I do but there was this nagging reason that has been driving me bonkers.

Have you ever had in your head what you wanted but you just couldn't get what was in your mind to match with what you had to work with? This happened to me a lot in Elementary school. I'd be given a piece of clean white paper, a brush and fresh paints with the freedom to create what ever my heart desired. Only what my heart desired was something similar to 'water lily pond' by Monet but what my hands were capable of was a big messy puddle of brown in the end.

This is a little like how I've been feeling with my entire logo and branding division - not so muddy but certainly not Monet either. I knew what I wanted but couldn't find it. And so I have gone from logo to logo and paper kit to paper kit trying to find what really felt right. Which by the way is a huge branding no no. Learn from me, don't be impulsive, take the time and do it properly from the start! And when in doubt - ALWAYS error on the side of simplicity!

The problem was I kept liking what I was creating or buying so I thought it would work, but then when I began to implement it just wouldn't end up selling my style, images and personality the way I wanted it to. This one to the left I absolutely loved when I bought the paper kit and created the logo but soon I started seeing it's flaws. I knew that I wanted my main color to be YELLOW in tribute to my dad as well as the fact that I'm a very happy person but it also needed to be a muted yellow to show sophistication and style. I also wanted my look to be COMPLETELY different from anyone else out there that I've seen. A direct reflection of ME and nothing else. (I should interject here to please not copy me, I assure you that I plan to make it so big that when people see yours they will just think of me so it really wouldn't be a good idea. ;)

I had literally just tried to describe to Noelle what I was envisioning, "a mix between Anthropology and Gap meets high society". And then I stumbled on it! I saw a book cover and it was almost exactly what I'd been envisioning all along I did a lot of work to track down the designer and found what I needed to create my very own digital paper kit. Now that I finally have what I wanted it's time to go into full branding mayhem! I can't wait. Eeeee!! I have three major areas of focus to start...

1. THE BLOG. I'll try to talk about it here and will definitely show you all the finished products once they are ready but here are some of the big changes I'm making. A whole new blog design! I'm super-duper excited for this and have chosen to go with Pro Photos Blog. Noelle and I did a lot of research on who to use so we'll do a post (and when I say we I mean her ;) on why Pro Photo Blog was the best choice for us.

2. WEBSITE. Next is updating my websites. This has a lot of different parts to it but is getting closer to my final vision.

3. MARKETING KIT. Last is to completely revamp my own marketing kits, packaging and presentation.  Which is going to be sooo much fun when it's all printed and tangible!!

One of the biggest bonuses to getting this all done is to FINALLY have this off my plate and be able to focus energy on other aspects of my business. For example I've been in process of moving over to projection sales (only I don't call it that!) for the last month or two and once this is all done I'll really be able to fine tune that experience for my clients. Yes. I will be doing a full post about Projection Sales sort of soon.

When I ran my dads company he was always telling me to, 'touch it once' or in other words take the task and do what ever you have to do till it's complete and filed away and then move on to the next thing. I'm not good at that. I have this habit of letting my ideas take over sanity and allowing dozens of projects to be happening at once so I'm not actually seeming to make measurable progress on any of them, nope - not one stinking project makes any progress! (sigh) Ever do that? I kind of think it's a creative thing at least I feel better labeling it that way. Maybe?

How's your branding and marketing going? I know two gals who are well on their way (Jennifer & Liz)... I'm creating full logo and customized marketing kits, when they are done I'll make sure to show you a little peak! Here's to PRODUCTIVITY!