Branding lessons from a 5-year-old

As a mother to two little girls, ages 5 and 13 months, I am simply amazed every single day by what they know, what they learn, and how their personalities progress. It’s like getting a surprise everyday…whether it’s something good or bad.

Just over the past few weeks, my pre-schooler suddenly started having real conversations with me…not the usual one-word answers when I ask a question, or her ignoring me when I’m asking her to do something she should have already done. So this past weekend I was in total awe of her while we were on our way to my surprise Mother’s Day picnic.

We’re riding along in the car, the girls are in the back, and the baby drops one of her toys on the floor. We’ve had this toy since my 5-year-old was a baby so it’s nothing new. It has a cloth strap with Velcro that you can strap onto a stroller, shopping cart, or whatever. The strap is white with black, outlined circles scattered around. My preschooler said, “Mommy, did we buy that toy at Target?”  As I turned around to look at it, I said, “I don’t remember sweetie.” She immediately says, in an authoritative voice, “Mommy, I KNOW we must have got it at Target because it has circles just like Target.” I looked at my husband and told him I felt a blog post coming on!

Remember when my daughter mentioned the circles on the toy and immediately associated it with Target? The circles on the toy were not red, they were black. There are also other colored circles that resemble a target. She knows her colors, but she does not know how to spell other than her name and a couple of other short, easy words. She knows Target because we shop there a few times per month. But the fact that a 5 year old can associate thick circles with Target stores says a LOT about branding. It’s way more significant than her recognizing a McDonald’s from a mile away…which she can because of the big, yellow arches towering over everything else in sight and the fact that she would probably eat there every day if we let her.

Another example that didn’t hit me until this weekend with the whole Target branding was a few months back, when she was still 4, told me daily that she wanted Yelly Kelly shoes. I had no idea what she was talking about and started doing research online for these shoes that she saw on TV. I couldn’t find anything and then remembered that sometimes she has a problem correctly pronouncing certain letters. After a few days I thought, oh they must be Jelly Kelly’s because she sometimes pronounces the letter “J” like a “Y”.

So I did some more research and came up with nothing. The only thing she could tell me about them was that they had Strawberry Shortcake on them (one of her favorite characters) and sparkled like jewels (she is her mother’s daughter!) Finally one day I happen to be in the room with her when the commercial came on…for Lelli Kelly. The commercial featured a few young girls sporting the adorable Lelli Kelly shoes with a cute little ditty that my daughter had been humming for weeks. They have a ton of styles from hi-tops to boots to sandals to pumps.

First, the shoes she mentioned that had Strawberry Shortcake…didn’t have anything to do with the character at all. They simply had cute little strawberries all over the canvas shoes…another example of associating an item, the strawberries, with a character, Strawberry Shortcake. Needless to say my research on the shoes proved to be a disappointment for my daughter because I’m not willing to pay $70 for 1 pair of shoes for a 4 year old that she’ll only wear a few months at best no matter how darn cute they are. But one day we were at JC Penney’s to shop for a spring wardrobe and she spotted a pair of Lelli Kelly shoes…or so she thought. They actually weren’t Lelli Kelly’s at all, but Sketchers that looked very similar. But as far as she was concerned, they were Lelli Kelly shoes and wanted them badly.

In business, we are not only defined by our products or services and how we conduct our business, but sometimes business owners forget that our branding is just as important. It is all about the image whether you choose to believe it or not – even an iconic symbol that can be recognized worldwide like the red circles of Target’s logo. It doesn’t even matter if you use the product or service of a particular company because their image stays with you. If you see a swoosh symbol, chances are you immediately think Nike. If you see an apple, then you think…Apple of course.

Have you ever noticed that you recognize those companies by their icons alone? Nike and Apple don’t use their name in their logos at all, probably a couple of the only companies to do this, yet they are both recognized throughout the world. And if you visit Target.com, you’ll notice they only use their icon, not their name on the website.

So does your business need an iconic image as part of your logo? Not necessarily. There are plenty of well-renowned companies out there with textural logos: Google, FedEx and Yahoo to name a few.

Are you making the same mistake as many business owners do by trying to over-complicate things? Can you apply the wisdom of a 5-year-old into your business? Look at your logo from a 5-year-old’s perspective. Is it visually striking? Is it memorable? Is it simple? Because if not you should go back to the drawing board? Or, of course, I’d be happy to help!

By the way, my 5-year-old graduated from pre-school today and I am one PROUD momma!

Creative Spotlight: UnModern Mom

Jaime Mann has been a client, a colleague and a friend of mine basically from the moment we met (even though it was virtual!). I’ve done so many different branding exercises with Jaime that we’re at the point where she barely gives me any design direction at all anymore, trusting me to bring her vision to fruition without any input at all. I love working with her because she gives me so much creative leeway and we generally nail a design on the first try now that I’ve worked with her so long and know her likes and dislikes as far as colors, fonts and other design elements go.

I was excited when Jaime contacted me last year to bring her personal “UnModern Mom” blog to life with a logo and WordPress theme design. I’ve also recently set up a Café Press store for Jaime; the UnModern Mom Boutique, where I designed all of the products in there based on Jaime’s ideas.

If you’re a mom or would like to see inside the workings of a successful work at home business, check out the UnModern Mom blog. You’ll find some great recipes for home-cooked meals, ideas for keeping your kids entertained or you can just have a chuckle at her expense!

Check her out:

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

After doing some research and gathering referrals, you’ve finally decided on the expert you want to take over the design/web development/email campaigns/social media/SEO/marketing aspect of your business.

Good call! But keep in mind why you did this in the first place.

Most likely it’s because you know this area is not your forte and you’ve been muddling through it for long enough. You’ve been spending your “spare” time reading everything you can get your hands on regarding the subject and you’ve tried to emulate others’ success, but it just isn’t working for you.

Or maybe it did for a while, but we all know the only thing about technology that stays the same is that it’s always changing and it’s just too darn hard to keep up with those changes on top of everything else you do.

If you’re going to go through the trouble of hiring an expert to take something over for you then please listen to the suggestions and recommendations offered by the person you’ve hired to give you advice.

Don’t pretend you know everything and tell this person how you want things done when you’ve hired them for their expertise. You’re paying for that expert’s authority in her field for a reason so don’t jeopardize your end result by micromanaging and being overbearing. In a few months when you don’t see any results, you blame the service provider, and then move on to the next one…only to repeat your same mistakes over and over.

Don’t make this your story! This has happened to me time and time again when someone has contacted me with a horror story from their experience with a different service provider. I mean, I really have heard it all…from the high school or college students who couldn’t get the client’s website to work the way it should, to their 6-week web project that is now in month 10 of development, to the SEO expert who couldn’t get them anywhere near the top 10 on Google in a month, etc.

The thing is that while some stories I hear are legitimate, many of them are a product of having too many cooks in the kitchen. The head chef, with years of schooling and experience in top rated restaurants is working alongside the self-proclaimed chef whose family and friends always brag about their macaroni & cheese casserole. How do you think it goes over when this self-proclaimed chef is spewing out cooking tips to that head chef?

Your expert is an expert because they’ve been performing and perfecting their methods for a long time. They get results and they come highly recommended. So why waste time and money telling them the way you want something done – in many cases the same way you’ve been doing all along and getting nowhere? You’re pretty much setting yourself up for failure, aren’t you?

Do your business a favor. Listen to your expert and their recommendations. Have trust in them. Let them map out a new plan of action and then sit back and let them do all the work. Monitor their progress of course, but don’t interfere. Ask questions, ask why they’re doing something this way…go ahead, ask away, but let them do their thing. See where you are after a month and unless something is just horribly wrong, you must give it at least a couple of months to measure the success.

If you’re tired of the broth you keep ending up with, trust the person you hire to make it better and stay out of the kitchen.

Premium Business Cards – For Gratis

If you haven’t figured me out by now (not sure my husband has even after 18 years of marriage), at the very least you should know that I only use and associate myself with the best. The best quality, the best customer service, the best people.

As a graphic designer, printed materials are no exception. In fact, it is a must. If you use crappy paper, substandard ink, or just have poor quality control, you won’t be getting any business from me or my clients.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I don’t want you to take this offer lightly and I want you to know that when I recommend a company or service, it is because I use them, have used them, have experience with them, or just can’t get enough of them.

So here’s the deal. You can get 250 premium business cards absolutely FREE from PrintPlace.com just by clicking HERE. This is NOT an affiliate link and I do not get commissions of any kind…what kind of commission would I get on FREE anyway, right? And these cards will not be printed on flimsy paper. You can choose ANY option, paper type, coating, and EVEN rounded corners…my favorite option ever!

PrintPlace.com is my TOP pick for commercial printing for just about everything. They are the first online printer I check when quoting customers and 90% of the time, they are who I select.  They are fast, inexpensive, but most importantly, they’re products are first-rate quality.

So what do you have to give up for these FREE business cards? Your first-born perhaps? Hardly, all you have to do is enter your email address on THIS page. They will send you a coupon code via email with full instructions on how to redeem it…they even include clear screenshots that anyone can follow. And of course you can unsubscribe at any time.

Of course f you are looking for a one-of-a-kind, fabulous business card design that you can have printed for FREE, I probably wouldn’t turn you down :)

There Can Be Only One

Remember that phrase from The Matrix? There can be only one.

umbrellaThere can be only one of you and your brand which is why you should always hire an actual graphic designer (ahem) when it comes to developing your brand.

You don’t have to look very far to see the work of a wannabe “designer.” Every time you see a piece of clipart in a website header or a brochure, that’s the work of someone who might aspire to be a designer one day, but has found a way to make a buck in the meantime by piecing together pretty fonts and clipart and calling it design.

That is not a true designer and you don’t want this person mucking around with your brand.

Someone like this might have fun playing with design elements and that’s fine if it’s kept as a personal hobby. I think it’s great. I encourage it. But, I don’t think it’s cool when someone like this decides to call him or herself a designer and starts offering to design logos and websites and taking money for it.

See, design is a lot more technical than most people think.

Besides the tremendous amount of forethought required, you need a firm grasp on color analogy and some sort of background that helps you understand why you’re incorporating certain elements into a design.

A real designer never uses clipart or a template. One problem with doing so is that these are free images that a million other people (with bad taste or a bad “designer”) could conceivably be using in their own “branding.” To brand yourself is to set your business apart from your competitors and the world by portraying an identifiable icon or design that directly identifies with you and your company. Clipart totally defeats the purpose.

A designer who specializes in branding knows how to use professional design software. They understand color and fonts and how to make different elements work together. They know what file formats you need for different applications.

When you trust your brand to a real graphic designer (ahem) – a professional artist rather than a wannabe – you will be blown away by your own corporate image because it will seem as though your designer has been inside your head.

That’s because they’re going to ask you questions and probe a lot about your business and your aspirations for the future. Branding is about the whole picture. The big picture. And it’s about making your image match your mission and your goals, all the while resonating with your target audience.

Don’t put your business into the hands of a serial clipart user. It’s not worth it.

It can cost more up front to hire a professional designer to develop your brand, but it will work out to be more cost-effective in the long run because you won’t end up hiring someone to redo it when the day comes and you realize your image sucks or you don’t have one at all.

Remember, there is only one. One chance to get it right. One chance to stand out. One chance to make your impression. Do it right or don’t do it at all.

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