Incorporation? Tell me more

Incorporation means that your business becomes a legal entity that is protected from corporate debts. This means that the corporation that exists is separate from the employees and even the founders. Being “protected” from corporate debts means that they aren’t applied directly onto the founders and workers as a debt of themselves.

Why Go Through the Trouble?

Going through incorporation will offer a ton of opportunities. First off, it’s important to remember that when you make the company into an incorporation, it is something that survives and can be passed on forever. This is important in planning for the future. Not only does the ability to pass the business on show this, but the ability to transfer shares is a benefit as well. Because of this, that means that the ability to have individuals invest into the stake of your company is much easier than if you weren’t a corporation. However, don’t forget about the drawbacks, including the required annual status updates to all involved in your corporation, as well as the expenses and tax issues that arise with a corporation.

Going Alone or Getting Help

So, how do you go about actually incorporating your business? There are two options. The first way, with the greatest amount of flexibility is to do it all yourself. It isn’t as daunting as it seems, however individuals with more complicating issues at hand, and those who are still a bit nervous about the endeavour should consult the second option, an advisor. However, in either situation, your first step will be to contact the entity in your state handling corporations. But, and this is a bolded but, “your state” isn’t what you may think.

Finding Your Business’s Home

When incorporating your business, the business need not be in the state that you reside or even where you grew your startup or business. It can be anywhere in the country, however you may say “what is the benefit of incorporating elsewhere?”. There are many benefits, depending on where in fact you are, of course.

However, keep in mind that business outside of where you’re registered is a foreign corporation – one that comes with taxes and added fees if you fail to register in the new state that you are conducting business. The main benefit is that some states may have lower filing fees than others. Also, some states, like Delaware, for example, are very startup friendly. Many well known startups, including Facebook, is incorporated in Delaware. Situations like this exemplify why it’s important to consult outside help when incorporating.

There are multiple aspects that encompass incorporating a business. However, this also means that are are a lot at stake when you go about making things official. It is important to take these incorporations in mind when you go about the process. Is incorporation truly for you? Are you a LLC or not? These are the questions research or a legal advisor can answer for the specific situation you have.

Powerful Explosion

Alien Invasion

Woman in Water Reflection

Scary Eye Edit

Pencil Sketch

The Mystic

Bring on the Heat

Turning Neon

Lightning from Hands

Dynamic Lighting

Aging Photo

The Tree Man

Raining Effect

The City-Globe

The Comic-Book

Reduce the Distractions

Reducing the distractions starts in the area in which you work. If you are a blogger and cranking out articles in your bed, under your sheets, then how credible does that make you feel as a blogger? It may feel comfortable, but it’s not the working environment you can really thrive in.

Working in an area where you are able to get enough room for your thoughts to air out is crucial. This can be in multiple forms. Some opt to find creative ways to work from home (designating a home office or even a treadmill desk), others choose to leave the house all together and work in a coffee-shop or communal working environment. It may not be work from home however, for most individuals, the point of being able to get out of the cubicle confines is what draws them to work – elsewhere.

Separate Work from All Else

Working from home is still work, and that means that you must take this a bit seriously. This includes ensuring that others in the house know that you are in work mode too. This doesn’t mean kicking the pets out when you are typing away, allowing them to hang around you is actually a good thing, but it does mean ensuring that your regular contacts know that you may not want to be disturbed throughout the day so you can focus mostly on the work at hand.

Take a Hike!

While I don’t literally mean going out to your closest hiking trail and hiking away, there is a bit of seriousness to this advice. Taking a break from working at home is quite stimulating and allows your brain to essentially take a breather as well. As a result, when your brain isn’t occupied on a task at hand, you are able to allow new ideas to flow in. Getting some fresh air is a great way to achieve this as well. However, what if you are prone to unconsciously making your breaks a little longer than they should? Maybe you even have a work assignment with a tight deadline? No worries, moving the office outside for the day or even the week could be the change of scenery you need.

Apart of the Morning Routine

It’s your first day of working from home, and you know that the email from your boss the night before outlines the tasks that need to get completed this week. Your first thought, “it can wait”. However, it doesn’t have to. When you make working from home apart of your normal routine, you can complete your work efficiently while still on your own time. While it doesn’t mean having to wake up at 7:00AM like you did when working in an office, it can mean waking up at a reasonable time of the morning and even dressing the part. At least having decent casual clothes, even jeans and a shirt, will put you in the mindset that you are getting something done, not just surfing the net in your PJs.

Stay Updated With the Co-Workers

Despite working from home, staying updated with other co-workers is a must. It not only allows you to stay updated on company news, it also allows you all to continue to feel like a team. This doesn’t mean staying updated through your company’s mass weekly email. Having some form of face-to-face contact is essential. In this technological age, you don’t have to leave your home for this. Having a weekly or bi-weekly Skype call can allow you all to touch base. As work-at-home employees, it’s also important to leave time to connect with each other on both professional and casual bases. We do the same at the water cooler, why should this be different when working-from-home?

We went over the ways in which you can create and increase the amount of productivity found in your work-at-home environment. We also learned that working from home isn’t for everyone, but if it works from you, it can be the break you need from the cubicle. Let us know in the comments below how working-from-home has changed the way you view work.

And we’ve discussed that here on LMW, and will continue to do so in the weeks, months and years ahead. But there are more pressing, more basic questions than that which we’ve often overlooked because we think they’re a given. But they’re not necessarily.

One of the most basic questions that those starting out on their logo design journey is what kind of programs do logo designers use? Here’s a quick rundown of the most common:

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator is classed as the pre-eminent logo design package out there, because it’s used by so many graphic designers. The important thing about logos is that they’re infinitely scalable. What you’ll see on less reputable logo design websites are a bunch of JPG graphics created in Photoshop or some other program that, when scaled up in size, look pixellated and natty.

Illustrator doesn’t do that because it relies on vector graphics. What this means is that rather than being a pixel-by-pixel image, it’s a whole block of information that can be scaled up losslessly. It’s the one program that’s a must-have for designers of all shapes and sizes.

Corel Draw

CorelDraw was originally developed for Microsoft Windows 3.

Adobe Photoshop

We cast aspersions against Photoshop just above, but it does prove useful. Though it can’t handle vector images anywhere near as well as Illustrator, it is important and useful for those people looking to mock up designs, and for showing how a logo might fit onto marketing material or promotional t-shirts. It costs money though, so if you’re not willing to splash the cash there are alternatives:

GIMP

GIMP is essentially an open-source Photoshop. You don’t have to pay for it, and years of development mean it’s packed with essentially the same feature set as its costly older brother.

With these programs – and a few more that we’ll look at in subsequent posts – you’ll be well on your way to being a professional logo designer.

Joko was not only a great designer, he was a great friend that would share his dreams, ideas and stories with us on a regular basis. He will be missed by many.

His wife emailed us that JojoDesign passed away
February 7, 2013 due to Kidney failure.

PLEASE send any donations to his wife and two children to his paypal account using this address jokosuwono(at)gmail.com

He told us that one of his dreams was to have a fish farm/pond and I’m glad to know that his dream came true with all the winnings he earned from Logomyway.

Please click his Local Indonesia TV segment about his Fish Pond
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=242443259122651

Let us all remember JojoDesign (Joko Suwono) who became one of
the Top 3 Best Logo Designers at Logomyway and Friends to all.

Below is an interview we conducted with Joko about a year ago.

To you Jojodesign – May You Rest in Peace! We’ll always remember You!

PLEASE send any donations to his wife and children to his paypal account using this address jokosuwono(at)gmail.com

It can lead to burnout, very quickly. So here are five ways to prevent that, and to get (and keep) the creative juices flowing:

1. See what others are doing

There’s nothing better than looking at what other people are doing for inspiration. Select your logo design idols and take a look at how they present their logos. What trends are coming up? How do they deploy text?

This isn’t a way of saying go out there and plagiarise their logos – far from it. That’s something that needs to be avoided. But by seeing what others in the field are up to, it can help get your juices going.

2. Visit an art gallery

We are in the artistic world, after all, and inspiration doesn’t have to come from logo designers alone. Go out into the city and visit your local art gallery. They’ll be thankful of the patronage, and you might well get an idea or a new way to approach your work.

3. Talk to others

Talking on communities like LMW can help people better think up ideas. You’ll find other designers are a great sounding board for your ideas – and they might suggest you take things in a new direction to that which you’re comfortable with.

4. Go see a movie

Sometimes you’ll be amazed where things converge in the artistic world. You can learn an awful lot from movies. These are where our futures, our hopes and our dreams are portrayed – on the silver screen.

5. Go outside for a walk

For all the futuristic stuff that we might see, there’s also a massive part of our lives that can often get overlooked: nature. Connect with it by going for a walk. You’ll be surprised what you’ll learn.

You might not think about the people who end up designing the world’s most iconic logos – but you should. Becuase there is a chance that in the LMW community there is a designer working right now on a design for the world’s next big company. You might not know it at the time, but when it comes down to claiming credit for the iconic logos that we see in our everyday lives, people ought to know who did what.

Nike – Carolyn Davidson

Carolyn Davidson was working towards her degree at Portland State University in the early 1970s. In 1971, she was asked by Nike to design their logo. The iconic swoosh which is visible from 500 yards was the result – and gave her 12 years of paid work with the company.

Apple – Rob Janoff

Rob Janoff tells the story that he decided to design Apple’s logo based around the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve. Little did he know that Apple’s products would – nearly 30 years later – be the temptation of us all.

Paul Rand – IBM

Everyone knows the IBM logo. Few people know it was the work of Paul Rand. Rand was one of the best-known logo designers that the world has ever seen, and IBM’s logotype was just one triumph in a career full of them.

Lindon Leader – FedEx

Did you know that the FedEx logo only dates back to 1994? Lindon Leader was working for agency Landor Associates at the time that they were given the design contract, and came up with one of the most notable logos of all time.

Ruth Kedar – Google

Google’s initial logo was, well, pretty ugly. And given its popularity on the internet, it was important that the search engine had a presentable face for its brand. So it got Israeli Ruth Kedar to design this using the same elements of the initial design, but with a little more finesse.

The same thing happens to logos. Invariably they never stay the same – they’re constantly evolving, adding new elements and becoming slightly different. Every so often they undergo the equivalent of a massive cosmetic surgery, and change beyond recognition.

It happens to the best of companies, and the finest of logos. Here are some of the most memorable logos that anyone has ever seen, and how they started out their life.

This is a magical mystery tour of how design tastes change, and how some elements in logo design can be set in stone throughout the generations, while others come and go like fashion in clothes.

Of course, you’ll notice that some of these logos changed dramatically from then to now. But others stayed pretty much the same. That’s an important lesson for designers: timelessness matters much more than fads. It may be the latest cool thing to introduce gradients into design, but ultimately a year down the line they can look aged and out of date.

Think carefully about how you design your logos: you never know how long the company might last.