When it comes to building a brand, there’s quite a bit that goes into it: a logo, brand drivers, colors, reputation, typography, visual identity, psychology, design aesthetic, recognition. If you were to ask someone what their brand is, I’m pretty confident you would get a string of words with a few of the ones I just mentioned.

The truth is most people don’t understand what exactly their brand is, but most everyone has a congealed definition based on other people’s definitions and how others around them have used the term “brand.”

But it’s ok. I’m not here to shame you for using these terms wrong, or not knowing the difference between them (it’s my job to help you!). I’m here to help you know what the true meaning of these terms are, so that you can use them correctly. The main two things that I want to clarify when it comes to branding is: logo and brand.

Contrary to popular belief, your logo does not equal your brand.

Read that statement a couple of times if you need it to sink in. Your logo in and of itself is not the entirety of your brand. It’s actually a very small part of your brand.

What your logo is and isn’t

I could actually write an entire book on branding and the different aspects that involve branding, but for simplicity and to keep this article short, your logo is simply a visual identifier to represent your brand. It’s meant to be used as a quick signal of recognition and validation.

You go through having a logo designed for you so that it can be easily recognizable as quickly as possible. The colors, typography, style, layout, and other design aesthetics were chosen to help distinguish you from your competitors and other businesses.

Those things were also chosen for psychological reasons too. When you were having your logo designed, did you ever say something similar to “I want to use the color blue because it is calming and peaceful,” or “I really like that font because it shows authority and that we’ve been in business for a long time.” These are psychological reasons behind the decisions you made when you designed your logo.

All of these things come into play as being the sole visual identifier for your business. Your logo evokes these feelings and represent these things in the quickest visual form possible.

However, these things in and of themselves don’t make your up your brand; they only help to make your brand more cohesive and match their visual counterpart.

What your brand is and isn’t

Now that we’ve established that your logo is not your brand, I’m sure you’re wondering exactly what your brand is.

Your brand is an umbrella over everything you do, everything you represent, your reputation, and what you put out into the marketplace.

Believe it or not, you aren’t the one that gets to create your brand: you only get to influence it.

Your brand is established in the marketplace through the combination of aspects such as recognition and reputation. The market determines what your brand is; you can only hope to put things out there into the marketplace to help influence it so that it is more in line with who you actually are.

In other words: you put out bits and pieces of information (both intentionally and unintentionally) that the market then uses to come to a consensus or conclusion about your business. It’s your job to make sure that those bits and pieces of information are positive and in line with your businesss’ goals, mission, and what you want your brand to say about you.

Thus, your brand is something that you have very little control over, where your logo is something you have 100% control over. Your logo is a small part of your brand that you can control, a bit of information that you put out there to build your reputation and recognition in the marketplace. The marketplace then mentally attaches your logo to their opinion and consensus of your business (your brand).

A brand is established when it becomes recognized by seeing the logo in the marketplace. Apple has established a brand because wherever you see their logo, you have feelings of high-end computing, well designed products, and technology that is meant to work flawlessly. You have a brand when someonen can see your logo and start explaining what your business does and the reputation in the marketplace.

How your logo and brand work together

So now that we’ve established that your logo is simply your visual identifier to your brand, and that your brand is determined by the marketplace, how can you get something that you completely control work with something you have very little control over?

Your logo actually contains several bits of information that you’re putting into the marketplace. I covered some of these things above when I talked about the psychology of your logo and how your design aesthetic choices help influence the psychology behind your logo.

For example, using calm colors (blues, greens) help evoke feelings of relaxation and peacefulness, which can work in your favor in the marketplace by encouraging a positive reputation. In contrast, if opt to use red in your logo, it’s showing energy and excitement, thus your brand could develop into one that’s very energetic and ready to tackle any problems thrown your way.

Your logo is putting out these psychological signals into the marketplace. It is a way you can use the design of the logo to help influence your brand in the marketplace. Thus, when you’re working on designing your logo and brand identity, keep in mind that your logo is putting out bits of information on who you are, so be sure that your logo represents you well in all aspects.

Conclusion

Your logo is not your brand, but you can help influence your brand by designing your logo and brand identity well to help put positive bits of information into the marketplace. Use your logo as your visual identifier that the marketplace will then attached to your brand you’re influencing. Remember, you can’t make your brand, you can only put bits of information in to the marketplace that the marketplace will then congeal to make your brand. Your logo represents that congealed collective of information that represents your brand.

You see it all the time. Famous and well-known businesses changing their brand identity and launching it into the world. One would think that if they are well-known and making money hand over fist, their brand identity must be working well for them, so why go and change it.

New businesses go through discovering and developing their brand identity because they don’t have one and need to make a great first impression as they enter the market. However, businesses and organizations that already have a brand identity or visual identity in place know there will come a time where their current identity is no longer working for them.

The reasons behind why businesses and organizations want to change their brand identity or give it a nice refresh are numerous, and each business will have their own unique reasons as to why their current identity no longer works and why they feel they need a change.

If you’ve started to feel your current brand identity is no longer working, or even wondering if it may be time for you to refresh your identity, the info below may be just the push you need to get started on updating or changing your brand identity.

You couldn’t/didn’t spend adequate time or resources to develop a brand identity for your business when you first started.

The number one reason why businesses undergo an update to their brand identity or change it all together is because they quickly threw together a logo when they initially opened their doors.

Unfortunately, most businesses from the start don’t take the time to properly invest in a brand identity that is tailored for them and professionally developed. They often wanted to start their business right away and quickly put together a logo just to have something to work with in their early years.

I totally understand this and see it all the time. It’s either time, money, resources, or all three that weren’t available at the time the business started and they had to make due with what they had. Heck, I even did the same thing when I started my self employment almost a decade ago - and I’m a designer!

(Do I recommend that now? Absolutely not! Having a good brand identity from the start helps your business much more in the beginning because establish a professional appearance from the beginning.)

Since my early days of self employment, I’ve probably changed my logo and brand identity about four or five times. This is because when I first started I wanted to get started right away so I quickly pulled an identity together. Since I’ve grown (and even undergone a name change), I finally spent more time and money on a proper brand identity and visual identity for myself, and it has paid off for me in dividends.

If you also did this when you first started your business, it may be time to properly invest in your brand identity and give it a nice refresh to better align with your business now, and create an asset that will only grow as your business grow. Working with a professional designer who specializes in brand identity design and marketing can help you through this process.

You’ve seen tremendous growth but want to rocket the growth further

Your brand identity is an asset to your business that grows in importance the more you’re able to grow. Leaving it neglected or forgotten while you’re trying to grow your business could stunt your growth without realizing it.

Growth (no matter how small or how big) is often one of the reasons why established businesses start to take a look at everything about themselves to find ways for improvement. They look to find things to improve, streamline, enhance, or overall make better so they can capitalize on their growth and not be held back by inefficiencies or a poor look.

Your brand identity could be holding your growth back by being outdated, no longer fitting with your mission, or you’re competing in a new industry that your brand identity doesn’t appeal to. Most of the time when businesses grow, they mainly find their logo is outdated and often needs a refresher.

If you are in the same boat and have seen substantial growth over the last few years, then it’s likely time to take a hard look at your brand identity to make sure it fits with your current growth strategy and better represents the company you are now and are wanting to be in the future.

You’re ramping up your marketing efforts and taking your business to the next level

I’ve worked with several businesses who felt it was a great time to ramp up their business and marketing efforts, and wanted to present a fresh brand identity along with it. This often coincides with seeing growth as stated above, but could also be because they’re offering a new line of products, pivoting their offerings substantially, entering in a new industry, or have patented a new technology that they’re excited to bring to market.

It’s pretty common for businesses to pivot or change their offering shortly after they lunch their business or within a few years of opening their doors.

They find new marketing opportunities, niche down their offering, or tap into untapped potential. With this drastic change comes many more ways to market, and comes a hard look at their brand identity.

Updating or even changing your brand identity if you find yourself in this situation can help you present a fresh identity to generate even more excitement and interest in your new marketing efforts, technology or products, or new niche. Whatever your pivot is that you are wanting to drive your business to the next level, your brand identity needs to keep up.

Refreshing your brand identity, updating your logo, establishing design standards and best practices, then updating your marketing materials and website to match this new identity will often be well received and show your customers that you are serious, professional, and pay attention to the details. A professional designer with marketing experience can guide you through this process and make sure all of your basis are covered with your brand identity.

You’ve encountered some bad publicity and you’ve seen a downturn in business.

Most businesses update their branding and brand identity because they’re seeing successes within their business and are wanting to capitalize on of the growth by presenting a fresh identity. However, not all businesses are relishing in the limelight for good reasons. Some have went through some troubling times in the public eye and are looking to turn things around.

If you’ve been in that situation where something has happened that has put some negative attention on your business and it’s fairly well-known with your customers and potential customers, it’s hard to get things going again as you’ve likely lost some trust and have damaged your reputation along the way.

Businesses can bounce back from a tarnished reputation and bad publicity. You’ve change your policies, replaced employees that may have been the cause of the issues, you’ve settled any legalities that may have happened, and you’ve righted your wrongs. If you’ve done the work to correct what got you into the negative light to begin with, but still need something else to help get you back on the right track, then refreshing your visual identity is a good way to do this.

Refreshing your brand identity when you’ve undergone a turbulent time in your business can give clients and customers the impression that you’re new and improved, learned from your mistakes, and you’re ready to do business right. You’ve taken your beatings, but you’re refreshed and ready to put the past in the past.

Take the time and make the investment to do the brand refresh and update your visual identity while you’re attending to other needs within your business, and it could help you erase the bad reputation.

Conclusion

If you thought brand identity design was meant for only new businesses and organizations, then hopefully this article was able to give you some of the reasons why an existing business may look to refresh their current brand identity, and why it is important to take a hard look and make the investment in time and money to make your brand identity one of your most important assets.

Either you didn’t take time when you first opened your business to develop a brand identity, you’re growing like crazy and want your brand identity to keep up, you’re taking your business to a new level, or you’ve encountered some bad times that tarnished your reputation.

No matter the reason, if you’re feeling like your brand identity may be holding you back, it may be time to update it or even develop a new one entirely.

If you’re still unsure and want to chat with a professional designer wth extensive marketing experience who can take a look at your business and your current situation to get their opinion, feel free to contact me and we can discuss your brand identity in full detail!

Have you ever been to a website and it takes forever to load? If you have you likely did one of three things: waited it out in frustration, checked your internet connection, or simply left the site.

When visitors come to your site, the last thing you want to do is frustrate them or cause them to leave your site prematurely because it took too long for the site to load. We don’t want your visitors to jump ship and go to a competitors site or be frustrated before they can even read the first word on the page.

The rule of thumb has been that half of your visitors will likely leave your site within the first 2 seconds of waiting for your site to load, and another 20% will leave after 3 seconds. That means, on average, 70% of your visitors will leave your site if your site doesn’t load within 3 seconds.

If you think your website loads pretty fast, it actually may be painfully slow for others. If you’re one of the lucky ones who have fast broadband internet, you may not notice that your site takes a while to load. However, someone on slow 3G mobile internet or even DSL internet may be saying some bad things about you while they are waiting for the site to load.

This is the reason why professional web designers and developers like myself strive and make it a mission in the work that we do to make sure sites are lightning fast for everyone, regardless of their device, internet speed, browser, computer, or any other technical limitation.

Many of the tactics that designers and developers use involved manipulating code, compressing code and site files, and moving some things around to make things appear to work faster. If you don’t know code, not sure how to do these things, or don’t want to be responsible for possibly breaking your site, then what are some ways you can help your site speed that won’t break your site?

Below are three very easy ways that you can start speeding up your site, so that your visitors have a great experience and not leave yours to potentially visit a competitors.

Host your website with a reputable hosting company

This is one of those instances where you get what you pay for. The cheaper hosting companies often are cheap because they can cram thousands of sites onto the same server. While this is smart for the hosting company to keep costs down and profits up, it hurts their users, as now thousands of sites are trying to use the same resources as compared to a few hundred.

This fighting for resources inevitably will result in slow loading times. It works the same way as interstate traffic, or people leaving a concert or major sporting event. The more cars or people you put into small traffic areas, the longer it takes for everyone to get to where they are going.

Look for a hosting company or hosting option that keeps you away from sitting next to a thousand other websites on the same server. This is called shared hosting. When hosting is shared, resources are shared, and everyone has to take their time. This results in slow loading times for your visitors. Not all shared hosting is bad, however. Just look for the providers that look to put you on a server with as few sites as possible (asking them directly this leads you to the best answer).

Find a hosting company that is not charging bargain basement prices on their hosting plans. They are able to charge bargain prices because they are shoving everyone together in tight nit quarters fighting for air (well, not that extreme, but you get the point). It’s worth a few extra bucks a month to get a really good hosting company and reap the benefits of better customer service for one, and better site loading times.

If you aren’t sure of a good hosting company, I offer hosting that provides great hosting and one where you won’t be sitting on an overly crowded server. If you feel your site is slow thanks to your hosting provider, reach out to me and I can help you make the move painlessly.

Limit the number of plugins on your site

It’s likely the bulk of you reading this use WordPress or some other content management system (CMS) to update and manage your site. Well, kudos for you if you are! However, while having a CMS is a great way to keep your site updated, it can also be the source of most of your website slowness.

If you are using WordPress, how many plugins are you currently running? This is the number one website speed killer where it comes to WordPress websites (and I’m assume this is the case with other CMS’s that support plugins).

It’s so easy to go in and add a plugin for any functionality you want, but must plugins are bloated, require multiple HTTP calls, and are probably not serving you very well.

I know, it’s tough to not add a new plugin to your site that will add this really cool functionality that benefits you more than your visitors, but resist the urge if you can. The more plugins you add to your site, the slower your site gets. So, please resist the urge to do plugins for everything and be selective and picky; your site loading times will thank you.

It’s best to play it smart with plugins. Depending on the functionality you seek, it may be better to have that functionality coded into your site instead of relying on a third-party, possibly bloated plugin to do it for you. This is where having a professional web developer can help you make that determination.

Compress your images

One of the easiest ways to improve the speed of your website is to optimize every single image you use on your website, and I mean every single one. Optimizing and compressing your images will help reduce the weight of your images anywhere from 30-70% or more. In other words, in most cases you could actually have two optimized images on your site for the same weight as one unoptimized image.

Reducing the weight of your images improves load time. The less a browser or internet service has to load, the faster your page will load.

For example, if you have an image that is 500 KB and you were able to optimize it to 250 KB, your image will load twice as fast as before.

One would think that optimizing and compressing your images will make your images look terrible or change the dimensions of the image, but that is not the case at all. Optimizing and compressing your image actually won’t change the way your image looks (or it will be so microscopic that the naked eye can’t see it).

The best tool for the job of optimizing and compressing your images is hands down compressor.io. This is the website I use regularly to reduce my image files before I upload them. The best part is that it is designed for anyone to use; it is the perfect site for clients as it does the heavy lifting for you.

You upload your image, click compress, and it shows you the before and after (with a fancy moving bar), along with the new weight and the percentage amount of the original weight it was able to trim for you. After you’ve compressed your image, you download the new one and it adds “-compressor” to the name of your file; that way you know that it is the compressed one and not the original one (because you can’t visually see the difference).

Any time in the future that you have to add an image to your site, run it through ocmpressor.io before adding it, and reap the benefits of your site becoming faster to load. It also may not hurt to look through your site to see if you have any large and heavily weighted images and replace them with a trimmed down compressed version.

Bonus: Hire a professional designer or developer

If you feel after doing the three things above that your site just isn’t loading right, or want to find more ways to improve your site loading times to help keep your visitors on your site longer, hiring a professional web designer or developer to look over your site and make improvements is the next step.

A professional developer or designer can run tests on your site, look for bottlenecks or areas of potential slowness, and start making the changes necessary to improve your site loading times.

This includes things such as compressing your coded files, loading certain things at different times, changing your hosting environment, reducing your requests, or even recommending and installing software that is designed to speed sites up.

If you’re looking for such a designer or developer, I know of a great one, and her contact info is at the bottom of the page (hint: it’s me)!

Conclusion

As web designers and developers, we obsess over how fast our sites load, always looking for performance improvements and ways to shave off a few milliseconds (yes, milliseconds).

As a client, you can do some of this on your own without a designer or developer. Making sure your site is on a reputable host, avoiding installing all the plugins (queue meme), and compressing your images that you add to your site are all great starts to improving your site speed.

If after those things you don’t feel like much improvement was made, then call in reinforcements and hire a professional designer or developer to help evaluate your site for the slow pain points and work with you to optimize them and get your site to loading under the two second rule-of-thumb!

I recently wrapped up a large project with a client who wanted a booklet designed and printed for their company (details on this project will be on the site soon).

It was a great experience not only for my client who was feeling their way through the project themselves, but for me as well, as every print project I work on is different and full of opportunities to learn.

After the project wrapped up, I realized there were several really great take aways; things I would love to share with all of my clients for when they start working on their next print project.

That’s what I’ve outlined here; tips from my point of view as a professional designer on how you as my client can and will succeed on your next printing project so the final outcome will make you drool, all while saving you time, headache, and even some money.

Work with a professional designer

Of course, being a professional designer, you would expect me to say “work with a professional designer.” However, when it comes to making sure your print project turns out perfect, working with a designer who knows the ins and outs of printing really helps get you to that perfect end product more efficiently with less headache and help you consider options you didn’t know were available.

Working with a designer who knows the ins and outs of printing really helps get you to that perfect end product more efficiently with less headache and help you consider options you didn’t know were available.

Professional designers who work on print projects know about paper stocks and coatings, colors, the types of printing processes (i.e. offset, digital, lithography, etc.), and special printing techniques. They help you take your vision and match it with the correct types of paper (or material), check to make sure the colors are represented correctly, choose the correct printing processes, and walk you through any special printing techniques that are needed.

When I work with clients on their projects, I ask them how they envision their final product; what, how, and where their final piece will be used; and what message they are wanting to communicate. I also look for ways to help save money in the printing process by recommending things such as using standard sizes and choosing more affordable paper stocks for their uses.

Sometimes, I’ve even advised clients that their desired printing technique or paper stock may not be enough or produce an unexpected result, and caution them against making a possibly poor decision that could lead to a disappointed final print product.

When you have a professional designer working with you, you eliminate the chances of making poor decisions or even costly decisions when your project goes to print.

Allow for enough time to make your way through the process

One common misconception about printing is that it is a fast process. For most printing projects, expect about a two week turn around time from the time the final proofs are approved to when they are delivered to your office.

This means you should be working on your print project well in advance of when you actually need it by. Give yourself enough time to produce the design of the piece, go through internal proofing to make sure everything is ok, then give enough time to get proofs and hard copies (discussed below) before your project actually makes it to the presses.

The proofing process with the printer will take some time, depending on how many different proofs need to be done and how many changes need to be made. The last thing you want to do is spend all of your time designing your piece, but leave very little time to have the process proofed at the printer and be printed correctly and without printing errors.

If you have to rush your piece to be printed, then you won’t have opportunities to make sure everything is covered, that everything is proofed right, and you may miss out on opportunities to catch possible errors such as during a press check.

Be mindful of how your printed piece will be used

When I work with clients, one of the first questions I ask about their print project is “how are you going to use it?” I ask because I want to make sure we pick the right paper stocks, finishes, and other aspects so that their printed piece will hold up to the task.

When you’re planning your printed project, think about all the ways in which your piece will be used. For example, if you’re looking to have postcards printed, how will those postcards be used? Do you plan on mailing them? Will they need to be written on? Will they be handled frequently?

One thing you don’t want to happen is to opt to save money by choosing a thinner paper stock, just to end up with printed pieces that are tore up from frequent handling. Another thing you don’t want to happen is to have post cards printed for mailing, and find out that it will cost you twice as much to mail than you anticipated because you didn’t understand USPS mailing guidelines and sizes.

All of these questions and more are important to determine exactly the best way to print your postcards (or, in general, your printed project) so that it holds up to the demands and still looks great no matter what.

Be open to special printing techniques

There are quite a few ways to print projects, and there are even more finishing techniques that can be implemented. Printing techniques such as die cuts, spot gloss, foil stamping, debossing, embossing, thermography, and letterpress are just a few of the ways to bring your print project to life.

Designers often will recommend different printing techniques for different reasons. For example, if you are wanting a high-end printed invitation to a black tie event, a professional designer (like myself) may recommend a letterpress technique on high quality paper to make the invitation really stand out and match the luxury event.

While certain techniques may cost you a few extra pennies per piece, these techniques, when used well, can bring your print project up a notch and be well worth it in the end. If these techniques are mentioned, be open to them and listen to why they may help benefit your project instead of thinking they could be out of your price range.

Ask questions

The process of getting something printed, including all of the print terminology, can be a bit confusing and overwhelming. Working with a professional designer will help you understand the print jargon and simplify the process by being the middle man and communicator between you and the printer.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you are unclear on something involving your printing project.

There’s a vast amount of print terminology and jargon that may not be perfectly clear. This is when having a professional designer working with you on your print project will come in handy. For example, you want your booklet to be stapled at the fold, but the printer keeps saying “stitched” (which makes most people think of thread and needle), it can definitely lead to some confusion. Ask your designer what that means if you aren’t sure (by the way, when a printer is going to stitch your project, it means they will be stapling it on the fold).

Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you are unclear on something involving your printing project. This also holds true during any part of your project when working with a designer. If you aren’t sure about something, something is confusing, or not sure what a certain term means, asking questions is the best way to gain clarity and understanding, along with making sure you make the best informed decisions about your project. Asking questions also helps make sure everything is covered: from quantity, to paper stocks, to delivery times, and everything in between.

Work with a local printer if at all possible

There are hundreds of printers all over who can print projects for you. However there are some benefits to working wth a printer who is in your own backyard. Professional designers often build relationships with local printers so that they can go and do things such as proofing and press checks.

If possible, insist on working with a local printer. There are several benefits to working with a printer that is within driving distance to your business: proofs arrive quicker, designer can do press checks, no shipping costs, and quicker turn around times.

When you work with a local printer, you are not only within a short drive to them to check on the project (and thus they are a short drive away from you to deliver it), you are also helping out your local economy— a win win for everyone!

Insist on hard copy proofs and press checks

The process of getting something printed opens the door to a lot of possible variations and unexpected results. Professional designers who have experience in sending dozens of projects to print understand what could result in an unexpected result and what will look fabulous when it is done.

Since the chance of seeing an unexpected result is high with printed projects, insist on seeing hard copy proofs directly from the printer. These hard copy proofs are created from the printer and are their best representation of how the project will look before actually being put on the presses.

You won’t be able to receive a hard copy proof of the exact final product, but the hard copy proof will allow you to check for things such as bleeds, color, sizing, and any types of folding or stitching. The hard copy proof will allow you to see if colors are not right, something gets cut off in trimming, or if something is too close to a fold or a stitch.

Since the chance of seeing an unexpected result is high with printed projects, insist on seeing hard copy proofs directly from the printer.

In addition to the hard copy proofs, designers will often go to the printer in person (another benefit of working with a local printer) to do a press check. The press check is seeing the printed piece on the press that will print the project and on the paper desired before all of the copies are actually produced.

They often print about 10 on the press, make any adjustments they feel necessary, then offer the designer a chance to see the full press sheet to make sure everything comes out as intended. Press checks are the last chance to make sure everything looks good before the project is completed and delivered.

Consider a small first print run

One piece of advice I often recommend to my clients is to order a smaller initial print run of a project. In theory, the more printed pieces you order, the less per-piece you will be paying. However, if you’re working on a large printed project, printing a smaller run may help you make sure that the finish product is exactly as you want, and to give it a test run in the wild before dedicating to a larger print order.

Since the chance of some unexpected result happening is high with a first project to press, having a smaller print run at first will allow you to check out the final printed piece to see if any unexpected results occurred (in particular with finishing details or colors) and test out the final product as you intended.

Consider it a trial run: printing the smaller print run gives you a chance to test out the product before ordering more. You won’t want to invest a lot of money in a large print order then have something come back that isn’t as you intended and have to spend money again to reprint. The smaller print run keeps you from having to fork over more money to correct the project if something happens or something needs to be fixed.

Conclusion

There are many variables and several moving parts that go into having a project printed. If you aren’t familiar with professional printing and are looking for help, a designer can help you navigate the waters, help you understand print jargon, guide you through the decisions of your project, and work with a printer to make sure the project comes out well.

Keep the above tips in mind for your next print project, and I have no doubt that it will come out stunning!

Earlier this week, I joined Gumroad’s “Small Product Lab” which gives creators the motivation and support to come up with, develop, market, and launch a small product in 10 days.

Ten days doesn’t seem like a lot of time to put together much of a product AND market it, but I’m up for the challenge.

About 10 days ago, I came up with a great name for something that I knew I could turn into something great (funny story, I was actually trying to come up with a name for something else I’m working on that’s completely unrelated when I came up with this). It had a great ring to it, and it opened doors to a huge potential to help out my clients and future clients.

I love spending time educating clients about design.

You see, when I work with clients like you and potential clients, I take time to educate you and help you understand the importance of design and how to make great design decisions. Each client is different, but I often find myself sharing the same advice to all of them, no matter how big or how small they may be.

One client may be struggling with embracing simplicity and constraint, while another client may not know much about a visual identity and how powerful it can be to their small business. Over the last eight years, I’ve helped numerous clients like you understand design.

I believe that the power to make the best decisions for your business relies in education and having trusted partners.

Education and understanding can go along way in your business. It’s often said that small business owners know a little about a lot of things, and that’s so very true. We wear the hats to so many roles that we have to learn a little bit about each to keep our business going and growing.

Educating my clients is so important to me that I recently redesigned my website (and changed course half way through) to focus on providing educational and informative content and advice to my clients, future clients, and those who work with design. I don’t want design to be this mystical, untouchable idea and have people struggle with it, especially when it can be the most powerful asset in a business.

I came up with “The Client Guide to Great Design” to help lower the veil of mystery when it comes to design.

I want my clients to understand the basic concepts of design, what a visual identity is and how to use a style guide, and how design is a very important asset to any growing business.

The guide will be written for design clients and non-designers, all of who typically have to manage design or make design decisions in their every day life, but don’t consider themselves designers. It’s for those who manage marketing and brands of businesses, for those who hire and work with designers regularly, and for those who are just understanding design in their business for the first time.

I’ve already started writing the guide, and can’t wait to put it in your hands.

While I’m busy over here writing the guide just for you, I invite you to read more about “The Client Guide to Great Design,” which will launch on Thursday, August 6th at 9am EDT (or 8am Nashville time). I’m offering preorder discounts to those who sign up early, so don’t to sign up at the bottom of the page.

I’m excited about “The Client Guide to Great Design” and I hope you join me in the initial launch of this guide, the first for January Creative!

As you are reading this article, you are doing so on the new January Creative website. A website that I have poured many hours, days, weeks, months, and yes, even years into. When I started designing a new website for January Creative, I got started way back in March 2013. I finally launched the site you see today two years later in July 2015.

There are numerous reasons as to why it took two years for me to get a new website up and running for my consultancy. First, my clients’ work always took priority. I’m there for my clients and they are hiring me to help them, not to push their work aside to work on my own stuff. That often left me working on my own work often on nights and weekends.

Also, in that time, I was going through the process of buying a house and moving. The initial attempt to purchase a house fell through at the last minute in the summer of 2013 (through no fault of our own). Come winter of 2014, we were able to finally purchase the house, make repairs and paint over the summer, and move in late summer 2014. I’ve been unpacking boxes ever since.

Finally, I struggled a great deal with the overall design I wanted for the site. If you didn’t know this already, some designers have a hard time designing for themselves. I, indeed, fall in the category of designers who can’t design for themselves. I struggled with the design and ended up changing the design multiple times before becoming happy with the design you see today.

Being a business owner and a web designer and developer, creating my own website is not only a joy, but can be tough as well. I’m not only the designer, I’m also the client. Clients often hire me because they would like a new website and need some outside feedback. When I work with a client, I can help steer them in the right direction and give them outside advice and tips. That wasn’t so much the case for me, as I was playing all the roles in this web project.

My old website (January Creative 1.0, if you will) was the very first under the January Creative name. It showcased my work, had a notebook that I published articles, and talked a little bit about me. However, as it aged and my business grew, I knew it wasn’t quite working out anymore and that it needed a major update.

As a business owner, I wanted the new site to accomplish certain goals, such as developing a hub of information to help educate my clients, show off the work I’ve done for my clients in a more meaningful way by describing what was done and what the results were, and allowed visitors to see the site no matter what device they were using. I had so many goals and plans for the site, that it was hard to get all of those in line and come up with a design that also worked well with those goals.

While my clients often bounce ideas off of me and turn to me for advice, I didn’t really have one single person I could turn to to do the same. I had to rely a lot on my gut instinct, experience, and decision making with a committee of me, myself, and I. This isn’t to say I didn’t seek out advice from others.

There are many of whom I requested take a look at what I was doing and give me honest feedback and advice. There a handful of trusted fellow self-employed designers and developers who helped me along the way (several of which are probably more happy to see my new site live than I am because it means I won’t be bugging them as much anymore!).

Not only was I wrangling the design part of the entire process, I was also trying to work on business objectives and changes inside my business. The more you go through running your business, the more you realize some things have to change in order for you to keep up and stay competitive. I was going through refining my processes and working on several aspects of my business while I was working on a new website.

This also often resulted in a lot of revisions to my designs and a few times of just pitching it out the window and starting anew. With every new attempt came better insights as to what I needed to accomplish, and with every revision things started to become more and more clear and refined.

In the end, after the entire process is complete, I’m happy with the site you see today. Version 2 of January Creative’s website will allow me to work more on growing my business while proving educational articles and advice pieces for clients and potential clients. It allows for my work to be showcased better for my potential clients to read about in a nicely designed layout.

I’m pleased with version 2 of January Creative’s website and I hope you are as well. I have many more things planned for January Creative as I work to grow and help more clients reach their goals through the use of professional and effective visual identity design.

I also want to take the time to thank the many people that I turned to for help and advice over the last couple of years about my site. For a roll call, a huge thank you goes out to Brent Galloway, Matt Brown, Jack McDade, Patrick Rice, Fred LeBlanc and several others who offered advice and helped me fix things I broke.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to outline more about the two-plus year process it took me to launch my new site, along with some tips and words of advice you can use when you undergo your next website redo. I’ll talk about why I needed a new website to begin with, show you some of the scrapped designs, discuss why I dropped a popular content management platform, and give you a look at some of the business decisions made that influenced the design and functionality of the site.

If you don’t want to miss any future articles or want to stay in the loop, feel free to subscribe for regular updates to your inbox in the box at the end of this article (and every article on the site). I send out regular updates that feature new client work, articles that you will enjoy, links from around the web, and exclusive pro tips and short advice for those who subscribe.

It seems like every day you hear of companies boasting about being eco-friendly: they reduce the amount of paper they use, they do everything electronically, they use less electricity. But how many companies can actually say that they live it?

Over the past couple of years, I have turned my focus more on recycling and reusing materials around my office, just on a small scale. I have been working to go paperless by scanning in all of my important records, reducing the amount of things I printed, and keeping it all digital on my computer. I took the time to recycle every bit of paper I could, even down to magazines and catalogues I got in the mail. It felt good to do all these things, but I felt I could do more.

While creating the business plan for January Creative, the main message I was working on was “new beginnings” and “fresh restarts,” something you see throughout this entire website. Well, being eco-friendly is a way of giving a fresh restart for our planet.

Some of the many ways January Creative is going green includes some of the expected–such as reducing the amount of paper I use, recycling any paper I do use, and reducing the amount of electricity I use–and some of the unexpected–requiring my host provider to be eco-friendly, doing business with eco-friendly printers, reducing the amount of traveling to meet clients, and using a computer that uses electricity efficiently and is highly recyclable.

I barely scratched the surface in the ways that January Creative is going green. I’m always exploring new opportunities to better my business and make the environment a bit healthier. With that, I plan to post from time to time ways my clients and other businesses can easily implement their own ways of being eco-friendly, with very little time and money involved.

For instance, most businesses can easily afford a collection bin that can be used to collect paper for recycling. Depending on the size of your business, this could range from a regular-sized trash can to a large rolling trash bin. Once you set it in place, you can make it a habit to put your recycled paper in the bin. There are companies that will come and pick up your recycled paper for recycling, such as EarthSavers.org here in Nashville.

I’m excited to share with you in the future ways that January Creative is helping our planet. I will be posting ways we are being eco-friendly and ways other businesses can do the same!

Author’s note: This post originally appeared on version one of January Creative’s site on January 9, 2012. For the launch of version two of January Creative’s site, some of the original posts were republished here, edited and republished here, or got booted permanently. Starting July 1, 2015, all articles published will be brand new articles.

After many sketches, revisions and tweaks, I had a logo I was happy with and was eager to start using it on all of the different marketing materials I needed, such as business cards and my website.

However, before I could get started on all of those things, I had to set some ground rules, or in this case, design rules. These design rules came in the form of creating a visual identity system.

A visual identity system is a set of design rules and guidelines in which a logo and its related design aspects are to be used to visually represent an entity.

I needed to create this visual identity system not only for my own sanity, but to make sure that every marketing material I designed in the future and every piece that my logo will appear was all cohesive and on-brand. I spent a lot of time developing my logo, so I wanted to make sure the environment in which it would be was designed as well.

The start of the visual identity system

In starting my visual identity system, I wanted to make sure I defined specific things, such as the exact colors to be used, what typefaces were appropriate, and how to use and how not to use the logo.

A couple of those pieces of information were fairly straightforward, as I had established them in the logo design portion already. The colors would be blue and green and the main typeface would be Philosopher.

Colors

Starting with defining the colors, I developed a four-color system for my visual identity that I would use throughout any design piece I would create. These colors would be blue and green for the main colors, and dark gray and light gray for the secondary colors. The secondary colors would be used to support any other design elements that I felt weren’t as important as anything you would see in blue or green

You can see here that I defined the specific color of each of the four and gave them simple names in which I can use in other places: JC Blue, JC Green, JC Dark Gray, and JC Light Gray (JC of course being the initials for January Creative).

Each color was then assigned a specific PMS (Pantone Matching System) color used for printing. The CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) colors were determined as a secondary option for representing the colors if PMS colors were not available.

For digital use of the colors, RGB (red, green, blue) and HTML (hypertext markup language) colors to represent the exact colors on digital monitors and on the web. With these values, I know that now any time I want my JC Blue color represented somewhere, I can ensure the color matches as closely as possible to all of my other materials both print and web.

Typography

Since I had already defined that the type in the January Creative logo would be Philosopher, I needed to also define a secondary typeface that would pair nicely with Philosopher but also flowed well with the new logo design.

Philosopher was chosen as the primary typeface that would be used for any and all headings and other important pieces of information represented in my marketing materials.

Philosopher was often going to be represented in either blue or green depending on its use. The bold version of Philosopher is what is seen in the January Creative logo.

New Cycle was chosen to go with Philosopher and mainly used as the body typeface and for secondary information. It is very easy to read, very clean and could sit with Philosopher as a compliment but can still hold its own.

News Cycle would mostly be used in a gray version and rarely would be used with the blue or green color.

They flow well together and compliment each other. They also make a great match when designing marketing materials and help keep with the overall look and feel I was going for. So far they make a great pair as you can see on this site!

Do’s and Don’ts

I needed to also establish some ground rules as to how my logo could be manipulated. While I would always want my logo to be in full color with the blue and green, I do realize that there are some practical moments that this isn’t feasible, such as printing in black and white, or wanting to print it on a red background for instance.

Therefore, I established how to use the logo and how not to use it. First you see how the logo is to be used in different variations, including full color, one color, grayscale, and grayscale reversed.

The full color logo would be used everywhere and as the primary way to represent January Creative. If necessary, the one color logo option would be secondary.

There are times as well that I may need to use my logo but the color versions will simply look terrible or otherwise won’t work. Therefore the grayscale version will work in places where color would be too much or when the only option would be to remove color (such as in printing in black and white).

There are other times where the logo may need to be placed on a background other than white, be it solid or textured. The two variations show a grayscale version that can be used on a solid background, and a full black and white version would be used on textured backgrounds such as an image.

Now that I defined the appropriate ways in which I wanted the logo to be represented, next, I defined how the logo should not be treated. I didn’t want to mess up the new logo or have it represented in a way that could be harmful to my visual identity or brand, so I wanted to outline what should and shouldn’t be done in terms of using my logo.

For the good uses, I reiterated the ways in which are ok to use the logo. The bad and the ugly are ways in which are a no-no.

The bad variations show different bad treatments, such as squishing the logo either horizontally or vertically, reversing the colors (so that the green is first and blue is second), using different color blues and greens, reversing the gray scale colors (so that the light color was first then the black), or having a logo represented in a tint of gray that made it extremely hard to see.

For the ugly, these are just plan terrible ways to treat my logo, such as using colors that aren’t even in the visual identity (such as purple and pink), using a solid color that has nothing to do with my visual identity, using a gradient for the logo in any way, and turning the logo (rotate) in a way in which wasn’t horizontal or vertical.

These rules helped outline exactly how the new January Creative logo was to be used and what not to do when creating different marketing pieces.

Creating the visual identity style guide

I now had all of the visual identity system figured out and written down, so I was armed with the design rules I needed to create things such as my business cards and my website (the two most important things I needed on this new endeavour).

With these things complete, I needed to create a reference guide that I could pull out any time I needed to reference a color number or show others who may be using my logo, such as printers or someone needing to use my logo for a promotion.

This is where my visual identity style guide came into existence. This was actually my very first piece designed for January Creative, even before my business cards and this website!

A visual identity style guide is a reference book in which outlines all of the design rules and aspects needed to carry out design work using an entity’s logo and visual identity system.

You can browse through the PDF version of January Creative’s style guide, designed like a book and currently laid out in spreads (imagine that the center of the book is down the center). All of the images you see above was taken directly from the style guide I designed and produced based on these design rules and guidelines outlined above.

On to the next

With my business name established, business defined, logo designed, and visual identity system developed, it feels great to finally have my business in place to start promoting and building the business. From here I designed my business cards and this website! Everything has come together and it is time to celebrate by using these things and marketing myself for new clients!

So why did it take me so long and so many names before I landed on the name “January Creative?” And why did I decide that “January Creative” was the best name?

It’s all about the name

I already had a business definition. I already knew what services I was going to offer. Heck, I even knew pretty much what colors I wanted to use in the logo (I am a designer, after all), but I couldn’t move forward with any of that without a business name.

I came up with so many different combinations of names. I did what everyone suggested: take things you love and the things you want to do and combine them. So while there are many things that I love and I obviously do a lot of things in my freelancing, I came up with combinations of names that included flowers, colors, shapes, design terms, etc. I went from very small things (i.e. pixels) to very large things (i.e. Milky Way).

I really liked the ending “Creative” so I pretty much stuck to anything that sounded good before “Creative.” But I did try a few combinations with the ending “Design.” I just felt like the ending of “Creative” sounded so much more sophisticated, and it allowed for me to expand my business into anything creative into the future.

So with my combination of words and the ending “Creative” I came up with over 50 documented names, including:

• Blissful Creative
• Color Creative
• Sapphire Mist Creative
• Blue Orchid Creative
• Purple Orchid Creative
• January Creative
• Perfect Pixel Creative
• Milky Way Creative
• Beyond Creative
• Blue Sky Creative

And so many more. After careful consideration of each name, I slowly started marking through the names of those that I didn’t think fit the bill. One thing that helped tremendously with this process was checking to see if the domain name, Twitter Name, etc. was available. If those names weren’t available, then it was going to be extremely difficult to start a business around that name.

If the domain name was not available, it was immediately crossed off the list. As you can imagine that eliminated 75% of the available names. The other 25% went off of how I felt about the name, if I could market myself with that name, and other factors.

Why did I chose January Creative, out of the 50+ names? Some of the good things about the name January Creative included:

• Available domain names and Twitter handles.
• Gave a feeling of fresh beginnings.
• It wasn’t too long or hard to pronounce and/or spell.
• Left the design possibilities and marketing possibilities wide open.
• There was no preconceived notions about it except what came with the month of January (i.e. new year resolutions).
• Was not dependent on one specific color (except for garnet, January’s birthstone, but how many people remember that?).
• Just so happens to be the same month I was born.

Sounds like some really great reasons, huh? Well, there were also some negative factors too, such as:

• The feeling of winter and snow being “cold”.
• Wasn’t very descriptive in the type of services I offered.
• Provided a challenge in creating a logo.
• Some similar domain names were taken.
• There is a local advertising company who uses the name “January” (but has dropped down to using initials for their business name).

All in all, after many discussions with my boyfriend, friends, family, and other freelancers, it seemed as though the winner was January Creative. Now the only challenge was to come up with a logo for it.

Putting a logo with the name

Now that I have my fancy new name picked out, it was time to dress it up with a logo and visual identity design. It is pretty obvious to see what the outcome of this process was, but what other concepts and ideas did I come up with before landing on the one you see all over this website

In the image to the left you can see some of the better logo concepts that I came up with for January Creative, but none of them fit just right. It is safe to say that while I came up with a minimum of 50 business names, as a designer I came up with a minimum of 100 logo concepts.

Ever heard of the concept of designers can’t design for themselves? That is very much true for me, especially in designing the January Creative logo.

As you can see in the image, I started hitting around the “swirl” idea, after doing some research on what symbols are mostly associated with “fresh restarts” and “new beginnings.”

This symbol kept popping up and I loved how simple it was. After playing with a few layouts and tweaking it ever so slightly, I came up with the combination you see in the logo today. Not only was the layout very pleasing to the eye, it also secretly formed the initials J and C. Very clever huh?

So for the typeface(s) I wanted to use for January Creative, I wanted them to be very strong, elegant, and professional. I first started out with Optima, which is the typeface I had been wanting to use for the new business for many months, way before the name January Creative was even conceived. Try after try, I just could not get it to work the way I wanted to.

After hours of searching and testing different font combinations (well, maybe days), I finally felt that the combination of Philosopher for the main typeface and News Cycle for the secondary typeface would be the best combination.

What happens next?

As you can probably guess, once the logo was finalized for January Creative and everything was finalized, it was time to start developing the visual identity, or the way January Creative would look, including colors, how colors would be used, etc. I even summed it all up into a visual identity style guide, all of which I will talk about in the next part of this series.

Author’s note: This post originally appeared on version one of January Creative’s site on May 16, 2012. For the launch of version two of January Creative’s site, some of the original posts were republished here, edited and republished here, or got booted permanently. Starting July 1, 2015, all articles published will be brand new articles.

One of the problems I was having before is figuring out exactly what I did in my freelancing was, “Am I only a graphic designer and web designer?” If so, why do I consult my clients about marketing as well? So I knew I was more than just a designer. But what was I, and how would that translate into a business?

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that 75% of small businesses don’t have a solid definition of their business. Sure, it would be easy for me to say “I am a graphic and web designer,” but that leaves a lot out that I do, some of which I do very well.

One of my favorite examples of business definition (or mission) comes from Google (the company, not a search result). Think of all of the things that Google does. They do search, email, documents, videos, social, translations,advertising, maps, and shopping, among so many more. So what would you say Google’s business definition is?

They elegantly and precisely define their business as ” Organiz[ing] the world’s information and mak[ing] it universally accessible and useful.” Pretty powerful stuff. Everything I listed above, and everything they are currently developing fit perfectly into that mission statement.

So what is my mission, or business definition? It’s not quite ironed out as nicely and short as Google’s, but I can tell you that I am not a graphic designer, or a web designer, or a geek behind the computer for the majority of her day.

What should my business say about what I do?

Before I tell you what January Creative’s business definition is, I must first explain what I wanted my business to say. You have already heard some of those things, such as being green, going behind design, and helping clients with visual identity design and marketing. Some others were to help businesses grow, make design projects easy for clients, educate clients on proper uses and techniques for design work, and so many other things.

When clients come to me, they often do so because they are either starting a new business or looking to take their business to a different or new level, and want me to help them visually represent them. This was the idea behind the “fresh restarts” and “new beginnings” phrases you see on the home page of this website.

I also had the issue of “who am I providing services to?” After several sleepless nights trying to define my target market, I stopped. Why? Because the type of services I was offering and for who was pretty much already defined. I wanted to work with clients who were starting a new business, or working to take their business to a new level.

Narrowing that target market even more could have caused some repercussions, such as not being able to sustain enough business to keep the doors open. My market needed to be small enough to become a niche provider, but large enough to provide enough income to stay in the niche. Bit of a catch 22.

I didn’t define my market based on variables that didn’t change. I defined it by situations or opportunities that are changing.

This went against everything I was taught in my six years of business school, but why wouldn’t it be able to work? It does work. For instance, who would you say is the target market for a body shop? You could say those that own cars, but that is a very large market.

Their target market are those that are in the situation of needing their car repaired. Today, my car could be in perfect condition, but tomorrow I could back into my mailbox, and all of a sudden I go from not being in the body shop’s target market to being a perfect prospective client.

January Creative’s Business Definition

So without further adieu, January Creative’s business definition is:

Conceptualizing, developing, and executing successful visual identity design for businesses, organizations, groups, and individuals who are in the process of starting a new beginning or seeking a fresh restart.

Not as pretty and sexy as Google’s, but I felt it covered the highlights. The point was to bring focus and clarity to a seemingly open type of business.

I defined my business as the above (and I am still working on that definition) because I wanted to focus on one part of the design world and cater to my strengths. Along with that, I find an absence of graphic design professionals who don’t offer this type of service to the level I know I can provide for my clients. With my strong marketing background and even stronger design skills, I knew I could position myself in an area that more and more clients are seeking.

For the next post, I will talk about how I arrived at the name and logo. The longest part of this endeavor, after I defined what the business is, the name and logo was much easier to conceive and finalize on.

Author’s note: This post originally appeared on version one of January Creative’s site on February 8, 2012. For the launch of version two of January Creative’s site, some of the original posts were republished here, edited and republished here, or got booted permanently. Starting July 1, 2015, all articles published will be brand new articles.

The Backstory

I decided around May/June 2011 that I wanted to revamp my freelance business. There were several reasons why: I am graduating college soon (August 2012 to be exact), my freelancing was growing at a steady pace, and I never really formally started freelancing.

That last one sounds crazy, right? After all, I had been freelancing for four years when I decided to revamp my business. Like most freelancers, I fell into freelancing with no plan or initiative to do so at the time. But that is a whole other story.

Enjoying my self-employment life and a solid date in hand on when I get to walk across the big graduation stage, some things needed to change. I had a very strong desire to own my own design firm, and never felt like I owned my own business, even though I was freelancing and the IRS seen me as being self-employed.

The Set Up

Soon after the Spring 2011 semester ended, I realized graduation was finally in sight (probably because three weeks prior I had to defend my future career plans in front of about 12 art professors at my university). What a wake-up call! Along with that cold bath of reality, I had this itch that would not stop. That itch soon turned into a six-month marathon to chase my dreams.

I chatted with those closest to me (my boyfriend and my family) to find out what they thought of my crazy itch-soothing idea. These discussions helped add to the excitement and the ideas I had. After talking with them in depth, it became even more clear that it was time to stop that itch.

The Beginning

So the itch needed to be scratched. After thinking about different things I could do to soothe that itch, I finally decided what would make it go away:

Come January 1, 2012, I would relaunch my freelance business as a formal business with a new name, new logo, new approach to design, and a new business altogether.

It was quite an interesting situation. I would be doing the exact thing that 75% of my clients are doing when they come to me for design work. I was getting to experience the planning and starting of a new business and all the joys, trials, frustrations, and rewards that came with it, exactly like what my clients are going through when they hire me for design work. What a wealth of insight that was going to be!

The Plans

Loaded with excitement, I put pen to paper. I had all these amazing ideas on what, how, why, and when about my new business, but what good would it do if it stayed in my head?

I started brainstorming, jotting down nearly every idea that came to my head. Everything from business names, marketing ideas, services I wanted to offer, to what the logo and website would look like, even down to how to tell my existing clients about the change.

I did a lot of planning. I wanted to make sure I was armed with rock-solid plans going forward. I started out with a spiral notebook and just started jotted everything down. Then, being the over-organized person that I am, I started a three-ring binder that would be organized by major topic.

I took all of my ramblings and organized them into sections in this binder. That three-ring binder was the start of something amazing: it was the roadmap to opening my own design firm and marking that wish off of my bucket list.

Everything from a rough “launch list,” to a SWOT analysis, to a marketing plan, even down to what ideas I had for the website. EVERYTHING went in this binder.

I started reading a lot of “how to begin your freelance career” books, and anything I read that was relevant to my situation I wrote down or did using that binder.

As far as I was concerned, that binder was my future life, and I wanted it filled to the max with ideas and plans for my new business.

What’s next?

I spent until August filling that notebook full of everything I needed and all the plans that were soon to become a reality. I was set to put those plans into motion. Right before school started in the fall, I decided that I had done enough research and planning, and that I needed to put the pedal to the metal. It was time to make this happen.

In part two of this series, I am going to talk about part of what was in that notebook, my “business definition.” It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, nor was it as short of a process as it is a phrase. Next to coming up with a name, defining the business was probably the biggest struggle I had, and something I am still refining now, a month after launching.

Author’s note: This post originally appeared on version one of January Creative’s site on February 1, 2012. For the launch of version two of January Creative’s site, some of the original posts were republished here, edited and republished here, or got booted permanently. Starting July 1, 2015, all articles published will be brand new articles.

At January Creative, we are excited to announce that we are now a BBB accredited business! I have been working with clients for over five years to produce great design solutions in both print and web design. With my business growing faster than I could keep up with it, I decided it was time to change the name on the door and make it my full time job.

Since the first of this year, I have been working hard to grow January Creative into a full service design firm offering services such as visual identity design, logo design, print design, print services, website design and development, and website hosting services.

To become accredited, I had to prove that we have been in business for over a year, had no issues with clients, and agree to adhere to strict guidelines set forth by the BBB, of which includes honestly, providing quality services, and treating our clients and vendors well. I have always done all of those things, and will always continue to conduct business in this way.

I’m excited to share this news with all of our clients and prospective clients and will continue to provide great services to great companies and organizations in Nashville, Tennessee, and throughout the United States!

Author’s note: This post originally appeared on version one of January Creative’s site on July 24, 2012. For the launch of version two of January Creative’s site, some of the original posts were republished here, edited and republished here, or got booted permanently. Starting July 1, 2015, all articles published will be brand new articles.

It’s January 1st, 2012. The day that I decided over six months ago that will be the start to my dream. It has always been a dream of mine to own and run a design firm, and with college graduation just months away, today seemed like the perfect day to kick-start that dream and make it a reality!

I’m eager to share with you over the next several weeks about my trials and tribulations I’ve experienced over the last six months. It has been a long road full of excitement, stress, planning, and work. But I am so glad I stuck through it. I’m sure many other business owners and those in the process of starting a business are going through the same thing, and I can’t wait to share with my potential clients, current clients, friends, and fellow freelancers the road trip to my dreams.

I have been asked many times “how did you come up with the name January Creative?” Well, it didn’t start out with January Creative, or even a month for that matter. I originally started with flowers. Yes, flowers. Probably not the best starting place for a business name, but it did develop into some great business names (one in particular involved “blue orchid”). I was settled on a flower name, but I ran into the issue that most business owners do: the name was already taken. Bummer.

January Creative was a name that I had originally wrote down because it was the month I was born. That was the last time I thought about the name. Something still resonated with me though every time I seen the name “January Creative” and was in the process of coming up with other names. The more I kept thinking about what my business was about, the more January Creative hit home.

I ultimately picked the name January Creative because, like many of you are thinking about now, the month of January is often associated with “new beginnings” and “fresh restarts,” as right now is the prime time of year most people are thinking of ways to improve themselves through new resolutions and goals. When clients come to me, they are often starting a new business or in the process of taking their current business to a new level by rebranding themselves.

The primary service I offer is visual identity design, which normally starts with a logo design for a new business or a business that is in the process of rebranding, then extends to other services such as business card design and website design.

Since I just went through that process, it feels like a “new beginning” and a “fresh restart” for my business, and I am sure others that come to me feel the same way about their undertakings. Thus, I wanted clients who were having the feelings of new beginnings and fresh restarts about their business to feel comforted in knowing that I can help them through the process through visual identity design.

The site went live today, and it is the crown jewel to this journey. Being my main marketing tool, it had to be perfect; so much so, I was thinking about the website way before I nailed down the name for the business! Well, that is what web designers do.

I’m so eager to finally be living a dream: To own and run my own design firm. It has been a long road, but an exciting and great experience! I want to thank everyone I have talked to about my business and what I wanted to do over the last several months.

Special thanks to those that have helped me the most, including my very supportive boyfriend Steven Lassan, who has been there for every decision and every aspect of this journey since June.

Also want to thank my family for their support, my friends for listening to all of my ideas, my professors for giving me guidance and direction, and to the handful of special freelancers who have helped me when I asked for opinions or advice. Here’s to a great 2012!

Author’s note: This post originally appeared on version one of January Creative’s site on January 1, 2012. For the launch of version two of January Creative’s site, some of the original posts were republished here, edited and republished here, or got booted permanently. Starting July 1, 2015, all articles published will be brand new articles.