Tips & Talk 44 – My Revelation as We Designed our Handmade Heals the World Logo

Hi there.

It's Sue.

And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.

These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and

things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.

If you'd like to submit a topic,

DME over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped happy new year,

I'm thinking you're in celebration recovery mode right now,

all the making,

selling, shipping,

decorating, shopping,

wrapping, cooking,

and partying has all been done.

Wonderful new memories have been created.

And now it's time to sit back and warmly reflect on

it. All I'm envisioning being wrapped up in a Sherpa blanket,

holding a warm mug of steaming cocoa marshmallows included with a

sugar cookie scented candle burning nearby.

Of course,

there's a time and a place for everything,

and this is the time to refuel,

but do it quickly because I have some new festivities coming

your way and we're going to be celebrating you last year.

I officially registered a national day,

honoring all the makers in the world.

It's called national bakers,

crafters makers day.

It's marked in the national day archives as celebrated on January

21st. But we are going to be celebrating all month long.

You'll hear a lot more about this as we continue through

the month today,

I want to share with you the development of the theme

and the corresponding logo we're using for national bakers crafters.

Maker's day.

This year,

I'm thinking that my experience will give you ideas and how

to move through this type of a project.

If you're in a place where you're either creating a logo

for the first time or updating or completely replacing an existing

logo. Now I've done my fair share of logo development in

the past,

never using standard clip art.

As you know,

I'm a stickler for that always original imagery.

I won't go down a rabbit hole here with that right

now, but this time I approached it differently,

I decided to employ a professional artist,

someone that I've been working with on other projects to do

our logo in the process.

I learned something that made a huge impression on me,

which is actually what prompted this tips and talk episode about

image development.

I'll share that revelation with you in a minute,

but let me back up here.

National bakers,

crafters makers day celebrates makers of all sorts hobbyists,

and those who run a business,

selling a handmade product this year will be the second time.

This day is recognized and I'm bumping it up a notch,

knowing that I couldn't accomplish this alone.

I recruited a committee.

I asked for volunteers from within gift biz breeze,

the Facebook group to help out.

We're now a team five strong working towards making this day,

celebrating you special.

Our first task was to decide on a theme for the

festivities after much discussion on the background and intentions.

For the day,

we brainstormed a number of ideas and settled into the theme

of handmade heals the world.

It takes into account the vibe we're after and the warm

emotions making and receiving handmade pieces provokes.

And the domain was available to voted in by unanimous decision

and with the help of GoDaddy domain registration,

we were on our way to work on image creation.

We put our brainstorming hats on again.

Gosh, I have to tell you,

this is where multiple perspectives on a task brings such a

value. There were so many different ideas presented some hand drawn

on paper,

some screenshot images for inspiration and even just commentary,

which sparked even more ideas.

Personally. I loved all the angles and variations that arose from

the same base information.

It was really fascinating.

Next I brought in Sonya paws to be the professional artist

for the job.

And this is the point where I think things get most

relevant for you.

I'll share the steps we took from here with Sonia's professional

guidance to get to the image that we have today.

Sonia first took a look at all the ideas presented by

the committee.

We already had our theme,

which directed the visual.

As a reminder,

the theme is handmade.

Heals the world based on that,

you can probably guess some of the image ideas.

We were reviewing things like a world being held within outstretched

hands, a world with a heart,

all sorts of things,

dealing with hands and Globes and hearts.

This is the point where Sonia said something that I've never

heard before,

but it made so much sense.

She explained that this is often the spot where people get

stuck in logo creation,

thinking that the image has to specifically represent the name instead.

So when you explained that the best approach is for the

image to compliment or enhance the words,

not duplicate them.

Does this land with you?

Like it did me images should compliment not necessarily duplicate your

business name.

Okay. I get that.

In some cases,

the logo does match the name,

like think of apple,

but it doesn't always have to like Nike's swoosh a clearly

recognizable image known everywhere with this new insight.

We moved to,

to step two,

which was concept drafts.

Sonya took a couple of days to let her mind ruminate

on all that.

I told her a creative mind,

needs time to do its thing.

And I'm sure you've experienced this too.

You sit down to do something creative and the ideas just

don't come to you right then and there.

But later in the day,

when you're doing something totally unrelated to it,

all the perfect idea presents itself.

That's how Sonia works.

And with that,

she came back to me with four pencil sketched concept drafts.

We had a zoom call to go over all the options.

And this is why I love working with Sonya so much.

We both had a hands down favorite and luckily it was

the same one.

So decision made,

we had the design next came colors since we've been working

together for a while,

Sonya knows my brand colors and the colors I generally stay

away from.

But even though national bakers crafters maker's day originated from gift

biz on wrapped.

It doesn't need to stay completely true to those colors.

Sonya brought forth six different color schemes,

and I have to say it was a tough decision immediately.

I gravitated to one color set an hour later,

I liked a different one.

Then I went back to the first one.

At one point I was going to choose two and go

to the committee for a vote.

But then again,

after letting it sit for a bit,

the obvious color scheme choice presented itself,

there was no second option.

And I'll explain why after I finish up with these steps,

okay, with the design and colors selected.

Now it was time to get legal.

Sonya drafted up the contract for me to review and sign.

As I said,

I've been working with her on other things.

So we've already reviewed the legal issues before,

but each new project needs a new contract.

I'm leasing use of the artwork in these cases.

I don't own it.

My exclusive rights to this design though goes for 30 years,

plenty of time,

but the ownership and copyright of the art still resides with

Sonia. Some artists retain ownership and some handed over to you.

So this is something to look at.

If you go this route with any image creation,

other things in the contract include how I'm allowed to use

the images.

The specific wording required to give Sonia credit for her work.

Things like that.

Finally, delivery of the images was done through a shared Dropbox

folder. And the image format was a dot PNG.

If you're doing a company logo,

most businesses will provide you with multiple format.

But for my purposes,

this will suffice upon signing the contract and the delivery of

the logo that closes the book for the design development project.

Let me summarize these steps for you.

Again, first giving initial input,

second, reviewing a few concept,

drafts and deciding on one specifically,

then bringing in the color variations.

And once all that's put together and the image is created,

you finalize with the contract.

And then of course the delivery of the image.

Now let me explain to you the logo,

since this is an audio podcast and you can't see it

right here.

If you'd like to though,

you can go over to handmade,

heals the world.com

where you'll see all the information about the day and right

there on the top sits our beautiful logo.

You'll see how we encompassed the meaning of the theme.

Handmade, heals the world without duplicating the words.

It's a little bit hard for me to explain here.

I'd really love for you to go over and take a

look, but let me do my best.

The basic image is a heart,

but when you look deeper,

you'll see that there are multiple hearts inside the overall outline.

I'm not sure yet how we'll play off that,

but it presents an opportunity.

Additionally, the world is represented inside the heart in different colors,

blue for the water green,

for land and yellow for the sun,

along with the little pink heart of love.

See handmade,

heals the world.

It's perfect.

The committee loves it and I smile every time I look

at it,

a most beautiful logo image to honor you and your special

day for more information,

it's all there for you@handmadehealstheworld.com.

And you'll hear more about the day in the next tips

and talk episode.

That's a wrap.

I'm a get to the point kind of girl.

And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream

of yours.

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