Make Every Day a Friday!

Now let me be super clear regarding the title of this message: do not…and I repeat DO NOT slack off like you usually do on Fridays. And no, happy hour doesn’t start at 11am every day. This is merely a mentality or a “mantra” I’ve used for myself and it’s also helped quite a few friends during their times of frustration on the days that aren’t Friday. Or Saturday. Or whatever day of the week is your favorite. Perhaps it’s a Wednesday. Make every day a Wednesday then! In my best practice, I’ll tell you why and how….

Why

I just don’t want to hear “I hate Mondays” or “I’m having a case of the Mundays” like in the best comedy ever Office Space. That bit of small talk is worse than two introverts meeting for the first time and discussing the weather as their first topic (although I don’t mind bringing up a snowstorm or two). 

How

This has been my mantra ever since I left the corporate world and cannonballed into freelance. It’s freeing. There are no restrains or handcuffs when you can visualize your day(s) of reckoning into a day of “it’s actually not that bad.” Try this: either meditate, lay on your yoga mat or go for a walk (not in that predicted terrible snowstorm that turned out to be 1” of snow) and set your intention to putting any fears of frustrations away on that fateful day. 

Another thing you can do is to toss one of the tasks that pisses you off onto another day. Don’t stack up one day of complete sh*t and make another day the culprit. Spread it out, but in small amounts. Put an hour in the books on Tuesday to heal the wound of Monday, say.

Just don’t turn this into a lazy lifestyle. I suggest journaling/monthly/weekly/daily planning. That helps you organize not only your priorities, tasks and action items, but also can set an affirmation and tone for better times to come. 

Okay, I’m done. Happy Friyay, ya’ll! And Saturday! And Sunday! And Monday! And so on….

Choose wisely (but really just slow the ƒ*#* down!)

Did you know that we make around 35,000 decisions a day? Not surprised. Most are small, automatic choices and the rest are deeper, conscious decisions. I saw this hand drying option at a local brewery (surprised I was at another brewery?), and thought deep about the decision. Too deep perhaps. Well, not about my decisions but how many of us make choices and why we chose what we chose.

I always opt for the dryer due to it’s economic efficiencies (however I get how you may want to avoid the feces particles on the exit knob left by stinky pants by using your paper towel as armor). I also made the decision years ago to slow down and take my time, so taking 30 extra seconds to dry my hands is fine with me. Well…of course unless the stink is just too much, feeling like a trapped astronaut that accidentally slipped one out is not fun. I get it. Exit immediately.  

I offer this: try taking some time to think of your decisions and why you came to that conclusion a little more in life. Was it rational or was it lazy? Did it make you feel good afterwards, or was it a slip and you’ll fix it next time? 

When it comes to your brand identity, did you make a conscious decision to hire an experienced designer that specializes in visual storytelling and has an art background (ahemm…meeeee), or did you decide to go the fast route and hire that Fiverrr kid to create you a $50 looking logo? 

Whatever decision you made, you’ll probably end up with me in the end. Not being modest at all…I just know what a $50 or even a $250 logo looks like. Probably not your personality, your voice or your soul. I care about you! You deserve a better option. You get to choose. 

Come see me and we’ll make good decisions together!

How clean is your house?

If you are home right now, do me a favor: take a look at three things: the baseboards of your your bathroom, the sides of your dishwasher door and the top of your picture frames and tv. Pretty dusty, gooey and filthy huh? It happens though. 

We tend to focus on the messes that are right in front of our eyeballs 👀 . Then we do a quick clean of the counters, sink, mirror and (hopefully) the toilet 🚽 often. We vacuum the main areas of the house, but don’t always get the extension hose out for the corners. We’ll just do that next time…yah. Sure. Then once it’s done, we move on and feel better. But what if we cleaned the entire area more often? Would we feel even better? More complete?

Maybe todays focus can be on the small things. The small tasks. Taking care of those dust bunnies lurking in the cracks, one by one. 🐰 Then, we can have everything nice and clean as a whole.

Let’s look at your company’s brand. Any little things you ignored for some time that can use some attention? What about that personal connection you wanted to add for your clients, such as custom thank you cards? 💌 📫 And those powerpoint decks have had the same backgrounds for some time. What about the Canva templates you use that ended up with way too many colors, extra fonts and styles to your brand? Whoa, it’s a bit much. Let’s update that. Those little things are part of your entire look, and needs to have consistency for your audience.

Better yet, have you just been squeegeeing over your own logo for some time and haven’t even noticed if it still connects to you and your audience? I am making a push for companies to consider a rebrand, because lets face it–we are all not that gratified by our overall look. And we change and change often with the times. 

I’m happy to sit down with you and give a detailed visual brand evaluation for you. This involves researching your biz, your industry and competitors. Then diving into the overall look and feel. 

Respond here what you’ve forgotten to clean for many a years in your house. Would love to here the nastiness. No judgements here! 

Let’s talk art shop!

5 Tips for Reviewing Designs

I can’t imagine how it feels to have a vision for your business and not be able to design it yourself. To have to rely on someone else to create it for you seems nerve-racking. That’s where I work hard to calm the storm and try to fit in your shoes. I’m a size 12, so if I have to squeeze in there, I’ll do it! 

My number one goal when building one’s brand and delivering a visually compelling story is to make sure the process is FUN. I want my client to feel like they are a child opening that first present under the tree from Santa. This is a relationship wrapped with empathy and excitement, not a “transaction” full of stress and doubt. It’s art after all!

To avoid getting stuck, here are some pointers on how clients can help us help them when reviewing logo designs in any round:

1. Be a sponge. Let it absorb. Take your time…grab a glass of wine (okay, a bottle) and visualize how these designs can look on your website, brochures, signs and even reversed on an image. If you can’t visualize that, ask me and I will show you by mocking up some examples! Try to give yourself more than a day or two to get back to me. Even up to a week, but caution….overthinking could occur!

2. Phone a friend! Maybe I give you new ideas you never thought of. Maybe this blindsided perspective needs a few more sets of eyes. I’d recommend asking family, friends or colleagues who’s opinions you value to help nudge you one way or another. 

3. View large first. When you receive the file, there are usually 2-4 designs per page. This allows you to compare a little easier. Viewing them nice and large on screen is super ideal, so you can see all the fine details. So I beg you to open the PDF on your desktop monitor, laptop or tablet first! You could take it a step further and print them out and view them from a few feet away. Make sure your screen and printer are color calibrated like your phones are (meaning they should print the same as you view on screen). I would recommend viewing on phone and compare colors to the desktop.

4. Feed me! Give and you shall receive. Round 1 is not always a victory lap. But I cannot make much progress in Round 2 if there isn’t enough constructive feedback. I recommend giving an eagle’s eye to every design–even if it’s one you didn’t care for much–look for font styles, colors and characteristics you may take away from them. Mixing design elements is possible as well. For example, favoring the font from design A, but joining it with the icon from design D may look good. Us designers are also capable of giving more iterations of a concept. Just ask!

5. Give us love. It’s okay to give us artists some warm fuzzy encouragement or a pat on the back. (I suppose my love language is words of affirmation) Even if you are not at all in love with the designs, saying something like “thanks for all these concepts, but I’m not quite resonating with any of them” would be great for our own nerves. I’m just as anxious waiting for your email response to any of the rounds given as you may be. 

Now having read these tips, we can celebrate our victories of being on the same page! This leaves a lot guesswork and time back in our pockets. Karma is on our side!