The Pixel Foundry business plan took a while to write, partly because it was our first time being serious about starting up a company… but mostly because Statistics Canada is useless when it comes to properly categorizing and tabulating information on our industry. For us, the market research was the most difficult part of the entire writing process.

There are many good reasons to write a business plan. We decided against the bank loan route, but still needed the written document… here’s why:

• The marketing plan section forced us to consider where we’re going to find our clients and how to reach them. From what I’ve seen with friends who’ve started up a business, this is where small businesses tend to fail. If you build it, they won’t come… because they don’t know you exist. Spend some time on this area and the financials – even if you don’t write a formal business plan – is my advice.
• The financials section gave us a breakdown to let us know exactly how much we need to break even, pay ourselves salary, or grow and expand our business. From this, we could extrapolate how many projects we should take on per month, what our hourly rate should be, and how many clients we should aim to work with ongoing. Nearly every freelancer or small design studio charges too little at first, and we were no exception, but having these numbers prevented us from pricing ourselves into a corner.
• The research section made us scope out the competition. This helps you develop your USP (more on that in another blog post) and find out if you are even offering something people want. We also gained information on how much other small design studios and freelancers charge, and what their portfolios include.
• We worked on an exact list of goals over a 2 year period, including when to lease an office, when to hire freelancers to help out with work, and how many new clients we wanted per month. Remarkably, we’re close to our goals, perhaps because we set them with realistic expectations. It’s easy to get caught up in the grind of producing work… this goal-setting keeps you focused on the true reasons you’re starting a small business instead of working for someone else.
• We knew what equipment, software, office space, and expenses would be before we even looked at whether or not we needed a loan. It turns out we didn’t need to go through the hassle of a business loan, since we didn’t have much for overhead. Too many people think they can’t start a small business without a huge investment. It helps, but if you’re tough, you can sacrifice for a while and be financially independent from the start.

If you don’t want to go through the process of writing a business plan, I’d urge you to at least write a goals sheet, financial statement, and marketing plan. These are the sections we have found the most helpful. You’ll probably find out later that your numbers were wrong, your marketing plan needed adjusting, and your goals weren’t realistic. Keep revising your business plan and referring to it… it is not a static document to be filed away!

Small Business BC offers an interactive business planner. Other samples and templates exist online.

I was asked to help out with a Save the Date card for a best friend’s wedding. Their unofficial theme is Art Deco, and the wedding is taking place in a lovely summer garden setting.

Instead of copying the inspiration vintage postcards, I opted to illustrate the postcard myself. The figures are based on the bride and groom, the colour scheme matches the upcoming wedding, and vintage typefaces & Deco/Nouveau design elements tie everything together.

I received the finished postcard in the mail; they even found Art Deco stamps to use!

Congratulations, Reen and Lee. <3

The most common password I’ve seen, by far, is “yourname1″ (e.g. “emdash1″). I’ve seen this 3 or 4 times now, or variations thereof (e.g. “yourbusinessname1″). Often when signing up for a web service, you’re told you have to use a number in your password… hence, people tack a 1 onto the most easily-guessed password of all.

If you’re using this password formula, stop right now! Develop your own secure password.

A good password has upper and lowercase letters, some numbers, and even some punctuation (though some sites still use letters and numbers only.) While emdash1 is a terrible password, something like 3dmAw54u! is a far better one.

“But Em Dash,” you say, “I’ll never remember something like that!”

Here’s where I use a formula when devising passwords. Come up with a phrase in English. Mine was “Em Dash makes awesome websites for you!” Now take the first letters of each word. EDMAWSFY*. Can any of those words be letters instead to simplify, as per a Twitter trending topic? (Yes, in my case, “for” can become “4″, and “you” can become “u”.) Now we’re at EDMAWS4U. Next, substitute letters for numbers (à la leetspeak) for a couple characters. Alternate lower and uppercase, add some punctuation, and you’ve got “3dmAw54u!” for a password. Bonus: you can remember it easily, by remembering your special phrase.

You can also take a word without an easy English equivalent (a name, a place, or a nonsense phrase from your childhood) and add leetspeak and alternating case. For example, Nazookitty becomes nAzo0-k1tTy.

Change your passwords once every couple of months.

*Yes, I know, I split “websites” into two words. Bad Em Dash.

The branding refresh: what is it?

A “refresh” refers to a designer working with an existing logo to update, improve, or expand upon it. Rather than a complete redesign or new name, this is an updated look. You might choose a branding refresh because your existing logo isn’t simple enough to reproduce well on certain uses (black and white, signage, etc.) You could also do a refresh when your brand feels dated or inappropriate for your business’s latest direction. You can also choose a refresh as a more cost-effective way to expand on cheap or self-created initial branding.

Sometimes at the Pixel Foundry, we’ve gone ahead and done a branding refresh for clients who have naively-designed logos or aren’t able to supply a vector format for us to work with. Sometimes it’s because the initial logo and the new direction we’re taking the brand in with other design work (website, brochure, etc) feels disconnected and disharmonious. It’s this level of care and attention to the brand that’s the mark of a good designer or studio.

Provided logo for an interior designer

Example: Kate Moore, interior designer

Kate had originally commissioned me to help her with her portfolio layout. When I asked about branding, she’d already created a logo for herself featuring a photograph she took of a bird in flight plus her name. Thing was, I couldn’t actually open the logo file – she made it in Microsoft Word and I didn’t have the fonts. The only version I had of her logo was a scanned image (above.)

I needed a vector logo to work with for Kate’s branding. To create her logo refresh, I traced the bird image to create a graphic element to use in the logo. Then I typeset her name using fonts similar to the ones she’d already chosen. The result is similar in tone and design to her original, self-created logo, but it is now cleaner and in a vector format she can use with any software for any print use.

Branding refresh: an updated, cleaner look

Example: Silver Lady Limousines

(Note: This project is still in the development stages at the time of this writing.) We were commissioned to design a new website look and feel for this luxury limousine company based out of Burnaby. We felt the supplied logos, created in Photoshop, could use a refresh.

Aside from not being vector format, the existing branding had problems when used on a website. The “SILVER lady” text didn’t read cohesively as a single name. The “Limousine & Luxury S.U.V.” text isn’t readable at all when the logo is at a small size. We wanted a clean, elegant aesthetic for the website, but the logo felt a bit busy.

For the refresh (there was no budget so we didn’t spend much time on this,) we wanted the logo to say more about what they do. The chrome elements and oblique text were inspired by the chrome hood ornaments of luxury cars. While the spirit of the original logo is kept, we hope this refreshed logo says more about quality and sophistication of the business.

Silver Lady Limos: Branding before and after

So, if a truly effective branding strategy involves a multi-step process, and you’re starting off your company without wanting to spend any money on a logo design, what can you do?

I’d argue that, even if you can’t afford a true designer working on your brand (which can cost as little as $600,) getting a “cheap” logo as filler for now is not the way to go. Here’s why:

• Most of those cheap/easy/free logo creation/crowdsource websites are full of copyright infringed ideas. If you can’t afford $600 to spend on marketing yourself, you certainly can’t afford a lawsuit for using copyrighted material for your brand.
• If your logo looks cheap, the general public (your potential customers) will assume your product or service is low quality.
• Tracking down every usage ever (especially online!) of your cheap, temporary logo and replacing it with a better one later will cost you time and money.
• By using a design studio or designer from the get-go, you forge a working relationship with someone who can partner with you on future projects and assist you with your marketing strategy.
• A logo created by a true designer or studio will be technically sound enough to use on all your materials, including signage. Most of those crowdsourcing sites feature “designers” who only work in Photoshop – which can’t be enlarged with any degree of quality.

Okay, let’s say you’re not convinced and still won’t hire a professional to develop your brand. (This is the equivalent of me trying to replace my bathroom sink myself instead of calling in a plumber, but I digress.) Here’s what I’d do, if I were you, until you can afford a professional firm:

1. Decide on a name. Then make a list of 50 or so other names. Then narrow your list down to 10 or so. Then ask 10 of your friends to pick one. Chances are, the name you first came up with wasn’t as good as the new, popular one.
2. Make absolutely sure the name isn’t taken. In addition to looking on Google, check your Yellow Pages and try alternate spellings. You do not want to be confused with another company. (Note: if you’re a sole proprietor, good for you – you can use your full name! But if your name is Jane Smith, you might want to consider Step 1.)
3. Go on fonts.com and select a legible, non-silly font that is clean and easy to read, even at small sizes. Buy the font and its full license option.
4. Type your new company name in this font.
5. Every time you need to use your logo on a letterhead, business card, or sign, just provide the font files and instructions on how it should be typeset. Bonus: pick a colour they can match.
6. Now, when it comes time for you to hire a professional, they can build on an existing brand rather than get exasperated with the dreadful cheap clipart you paid $50 for on a crowdsourcing website.

Let’s show an example. Let’s say I’m starting up a florist shop. My friends unanimously agreed that my company’s best name would be “Fiori”. Not very original, but it is fun to say.

Fonts.com search for "elegant" and "floral"

I used keywords “elegant” and “floral” to search on fonts.com. I lucked out – without too much searching about, I found a font that felt like me. I love Art Deco, and the style really took off in Italy, and my shop name is Italian. Plus, I can see that curly R working well with the wrought iron in front of my floral shop.

I can preview my text on fonts.com before buying a logo font

As a last step, I’ve decided the name should be written in leaf green. Now I’ve got enough to start my business – I can give the colour and font to a signmaking company, as well as a copy place that’ll make my business cards and flyers.

The FIORI temporary logo

And down the road, when I decide my business needs a bigger and better brand? I can hire a professional who can refresh my temporary logo and create something more consistent and unique.

Cute branding. Additional photo credit: Colin Smith at http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/3972

(In Part Four, I’ll talk about refreshing a brand and what it means.)

This post is continued from The Importance of Branding: Part One

Aside from the obvious difference in quality, what differentiates a professional designer or studio when it comes to branding, versus crowdsourced or bidding-based websites? The intensive process we go through, from creative brief to finished files, more than justifies hiring a pro. At Chestnut St. Pixel Foundry, our design process for a branding project goes through many steps:

1. The consultation. We want to meet the client and see their place of business. We want to find out more about them: their overall marketing strategy, their current customers, the customers they’d like to have (sometimes they’re not the same as current customers!), who they see as their competitors, what their goals are as a business, everything that could be relevant to the project and even things that might not be. To determine the best brand for a business/client means we need to know everything about them. This is something a one-paragraph writeup on a crowdsourcing design website can never do.

2. The creative brief. This document is invaluable, and we create one for every project at the Foundry. The creative brief lists everything we need to get started: a rough design direction and other creative considerations, any technical considerations, the target market, the project objectives, and a key message (this is, in one simple sentence, what we need to achieve with this project.) Some of the cheap crowdsource/bidding sites ask you, the client, to submit a creative brief. As the client, you may be too close to the project to objectively write a creative brief that will prove to be useful. This is why we create our own, even if our client provides one for us.

3. Research. This step is one inexperienced designers often miss. Even if a designer is creating a logo for a friend as a favour, they should spend several hours looking at other examples of branding in the same industry. They should analyze what trends keep coming up, so they can avoid them and come up with something truly original. For a vintage clothing store that specializes in late 1980s and early 1990s fashion, I spent several hours looking at retro music videos and hip hop posters from the era. (Research can be fun!)

Just some of the sketches I produced for the F AS IN FRANK brand

4. Sketch sketch sketch. On average, we generate over a hundred sketches per person at the Foundry per branding project, before even touching a computer mouse. The sketch process allows us to develop something that’s actually good rather than simply polished. This is a crucial step for any graphic designer, and one which the untrained bidders on crowdsource websites won’t even consider.

5. The percolation of ideas. You can sit down with a sketchbook and strain to come up with something amazing, but it doesn’t always happen. Creativity can be random sometimes. I carry a sketchbook with me everywhere and sometimes find myself doodling project ideas and potential solutions on the bus, waiting to meet up with a friend, or while I’m sitting waiting for software to install. Inspiration can happen anytime. Sometimes a good solution won’t come until the very last minute, after developing the hell out of another idea.

6. Review sketches critically. Stepping back and judging ideas critically is something that takes a lot of practice. It’s not enough that the branding solution is a good idea; it must fulfill the design and marketing objectives for our client! This is where the creative brief comes out again. Logo contenders get pitted against the creative brief – if the logo fails to meet an objective, it’s not a good solution, not matter how clever a design.

Why do we do sketch so many logos that’ll never see the light of day? Well, most ideas that are generated are, unfortunately, crap. Even the most talented designer is going to come up with some real garbage during the creative process. The first dozen or so sketches will likely be obvious, cliché solutions. It’s important to get it down in the sketchbook so that we can move on to something better and more original.

Tight concepts/sketches shown to a client with a web development business

7. Tight sketches for client review. For the first (and often second & third round), we don’t show refined vector logos to our clients. They take a look at black-and-white sketches we’ve produced, to get an idea of the general concept and design we’re thinking of. There are two reasons for this: 1) Many hours can be spent working on a vectorized (i.e. computer-produced) logo version. It’s a waste of our time to produce many of these for client review and 2) showing sketches prevents our clients from getting too hung up on details like the font, colour, line thickness, etc.

Though I’ve written this out as a series of steps, it’s often cyclical… at any point in the process we often go back to sketches to refine and tweak the logo solution.

Vector logo: outlines & selection showing vector points

8. Getting on a computer. When the client is happy with the solution, then (and only then) we’ll create a vectorized version. This will go through a huge amount of tweaking. We’ll do dozens of printouts to check letter-spacing and legibility at small sizes. Often several versions of the logo will be created, with thicker lines for small sizes, alternate versions for use on dark backgrounds, etc. We always create logos in vector (that is, scalable) format. Anything else is useless to you – you cannot make a raster image larger without loss of quality. (Note: raster refers to pixel-based file formats, like .tif, .jpg and .png.)

Example page from a graphic standards manual

9. The Graphic Standards Manual. This is an optional step and an extra cost, but oh so worth it if you’ll have non-professionals (e.g. desktop publishers and office administrators) working with your logo. The Graphic Standards Manual includes notes on which file formats to use for what, which versions of the logo to use for different applications, which colours (in CMYK, RGB, Pantone and html-ready hex) the logo should appear in, which fonts match well to the logo, etc. It’ll also include important information like: don’t stretch the logo. Don’t put it overtop a busy background. Things which you may think are obvious, but people without a graphic design background love to ruin your brand’s legibility.

There you have it: the 9 step process we use at the Foundry for every branding project. How many of these steps will the “designer” on that cheap crowdsourcing site go through? Step 8. That’s all. They won’t bother to do anything else. And the results speak for themselves.

I can’t stress enough the importance, and extent, of branding for anyone in business. I’ve been inspired (by the existence of crowdsourcing websites that deliver cheap and fast logos) to write a series of posts detailing branding for business. I’m going to write about its importance, how not to do it and why to avoid those websites like the plague, how the Pixel Foundry approaches the design process, and how to get by without solid branding until you can afford to hire a professional. Obviously too much to write in one post.

What is branding?

Branding for business goes beyond a mere logo. It involves typography choices, colour palettes, layout and design style to create a mood surrounding your company. All these pieces come together to create an impression your customers are not likely to forget. A good brand is engaging… without even talking to a sales person, a potential customer or client should already have an idea of your company’s personality, professionalism, and overall identity.

Branding extends to the interior design of your office, retail location, or place of business; the colour of your company car; the advertising campaigns you run… these are things that should be carefully considered if you really want to make an impact.

Consider the fake banners I’ve posted below. Neither of these have the company name or logo on them at all, but anyone living in Vancouver will likely instantly recognize the brand!

Most people just think branding involves getting a logo created for them, though.

Which is where the cheap logo design crowdsourcing websites come in. You can set a price for the “winning” design, and ask for hundreds of submissions from designers around the world, and pick the best one. The average logo price on these websites appears to be around $250.00 – not bad for an hour’s work in Illustrator or Photoshop. This probably sounds like an attractive deal to the small business starting up, compared to agency/studio rates in their home town.

What’s wrong with this picture? Aside from the dubious quality of the design work (anyone can create an account and upload submissions), these hopeful designers know next to nothing about your company except your name. They don’t know your brand’s personality. They don’t know the kind of customer/client relationship you want to aspire to. They sometimes don’t even know what your business actually does. This is logo design at its worst: completely irrelevant to the client’s needs. Save your money and spend it on a nice font instead, is my advice.

So how should the logo design process go? In my next post, I’ll tell you how we approach it at Chestnut St. Pixel Foundry.

Both my Mom and I love these easy-to-make pickles from Indonesia. For Mother’s Day, I put together a gift with homemade pickles in a custom labelled jar, the recipe to make them, and a seed packet for growing your own cucumbers. I removed the seeds from their original packet and redesigned the packaging – everything matches.

I used this recipe as a starting point – make your own sweet & sour fresh pickles!

Let me explain. We were originally hired to make some small navigation, form plugin, and page order changes to an existing small WordPress-based site. It seemed a small job; one we could complete in less than a week.

Once I actually took a look at the site’s file structure, theme files, and so on, I couldn’t stop scratching my head. We ended up fixing the giant mess the previous “developer” (and I use the term sarcastically) had left behind.

1. Initially, our client’s website had two separate installations of WordPress running side-by-side, both connecting to the same database. One was in a subdirectory, meaning some of the site’s pages had urls like http://domain.com/subdirectory/page/ . This wasn’t intentional – my guess is the previous “developer” screwed up the installation process halfway through, started over in a subdirectory, and didn’t bother to fix it or the site’s permalinks.

What an insane file bloat. We deleted the duplicate files and moved the client’s WordPress installation to the main directory, where the client wanted it. Before we touched the site, it took up 125+ Mb on the web server – now it’s down to less than 60 MB in file size.

2. The original “developer” installed someone else’s premium theme and walked away. Our client apparently already had a site design before moving to WordPress, and requested it carry over to the new website. The “developer” told our client that wasn’t possible and WordPress was very inflexible to work with – it had to look this way. Our client reluctantly agreed but was heartbroken that the original, attractive site was replaced by the clunky new look – which we discovered wasn’t a “custom template” at all, but something downloaded and installed off a premium theme website. Our client was told a bare-face lie; WordPress can look like anything and its theme system is incredibly flexible.

It was the work of an hour to revise the css to use the client’s original site’s colour scheme and fonts – something the original “developer” either didn’t know how to do, or didn’t care to do. (We also offered to rebuild the WordPress theme from scratch to match the original, lovely site design – there’s no budget for this now, but maybe in the future.)

3. The site looked wrong in Internet Explorer. IE7 and 8 displayed the navigation incorrectly. I was stunned when I discovered this – wouldn’t someone spend the time to browser test a WordPress site they’re developing for a client?? Especially in the most common and (sadly) widely-used web browser. This was a css and theme issue which means either a) the original “developer” made some changes to the premium theme after installing it, and didn’t browser test or, more frightening, b) there’s premium WordPress themes out there for sale that don’t work in Internet Explorer. Fixing these theme display problems in IE took us less than an hour.

4. Some social media icons were introduced to the site, but they didn’t link to the right sites. Facebook’s icon went to LinkedIn. The Podcasts link went to nothing. It takes 5 minutes to test these things – 5 minutes the original “developer” probably spend browsing premium WordPress theme websites instead.

5. According to our client, they were never shown a staging area for final approval before the site went live. We also heard that the “developer” was rude when our client made requests for changes. The thought that a “developer” would go live with something the client hasn’t even seen is shocking to me. At Pixel Foundry, we always, always develop in a testing directory with password protection so the client can see changes before they have to commit to them.

How much did the original “developer” charge our client for this mess?? $2000+.

How much would we have charged?
To install WordPress correctly, custom-theme WordPress to match the existing site’s look and feel, import content into WordPress, configure an SEO plugin, and supply a guide on using WordPress to modify and move pages & write posts?: Starting at $1000.

I’m truly sorry our client had to go through this process with the original “developer”. They were lied to about WordPress’s functionality, ripped off on the final invoice, and the installation job itself was botched.

Clients, please do a bit of research on WordPress to get a realistic idea of what it can and can’t do – there’s a lot of unscrupulous “developers” and “designers” out there willing to work less than 3 hours installing a default template and charging you thousands of dollars. And, while I don’t mind fixing things up for you after the fact, I’d really rather be developing beautiful, flexible WordPress websites from the ground up.

When you’re working for yourself starting up your own business, it truly becomes your sole focus in life. The long hours, combined with the fact your work doesn’t leave you at the end of the day, can leave you too drained for anything else.

I’d never try to talk someone out of starting up a small business (quite the opposite, I’d argue many of the reasons people talk themselves out of chasing their dreams are invalid) but it’s important to know that you’ll have to make a lot of sacrifices for the first while.

Here are some of the things you can expect:

Love & Romance: You’ll be busy starting up your company and won’t have time for these things. Well, okay, that’s an overgeneralization. If you’re already in a relationship, your long hours devoted to your business can put strain on things. Your partner might end up feeling jealous, then weird about feeling jealous. You may find you want to devote time to the person you’re with, but your mind is often elsewhere… worrying about tasks, perhaps, or planning strategies for the next few months. You might be too exhausted at the end of the day for intimacy. I’m fortunate enough to have a relationship that is mutually supportive… we’re both entrepreneurs. However… I’m not going to lie, the fact our schedules conflict can annoy me.

If you’re looking for someone special, you might have a harder time of it. Dating requires attention: attention to the other person and learning about them, attention to yourself and making yourself feel confident and attractive, etc. Chances are, your business requires more attention than the stranger you met off okCupid.com. I also have a sneaking suspicion that many potential mates will find your ambition intimidating, especially if you’re female.

Friendships: You can’t pull that late night getting a project ready for a client and go out to the pub. You might think you can do both, but you can’t. There are only so many hours in one day. So you turn down invitation after invitation, explaining you have work to do, and your friends are confused because it’s after working hours. Here’s the thing: they’re not going to understand. They may accept your reason, but they’re not going to really get why it’s important that you work on Saturday night. It’s useless to try to make them understand, because they haven’t been there. But, they’re your friends and they’ll understand that you’ll have time to hang out later.

Money and Finances: As far as the bank is concerned, self-employed means unemployed. Unless you have a stellar credit rating and a great relationship with your bank, chances are they’re going to be a jerk about lending you money for anything personal. My long-time big bank refused me a $500 limit credit card once, with the reminder that I can always re-apply if “I get a full-time job”. (I switched to a credit union instead.)

Now, there’s really a few ways to finance your small business… you can take out some small personal loans and grow as you can afford to, work from home for the first while, and hope you break even and don’t need to get a “real job”. That’s rather what the Pixel Foundry is doing. You can also seek investments or business loans. If your small business requires a lot of money to start up, you might have to do this. Regardless of how you fund your business, you’re not going to be writing any cheques to yourself for a long, long time. (Well, okay, you can always take your investment money and splurge on Herman Miller office furniture, fabulous salaries, and foosball tables with it… you can also be out of business within the first two years, like every other tech startup that does that.) Prepare to eat a lot of ramen and borrow money from friends to cover your rent shortfalls.

Housework: If you ended up getting an office, you might end up feeling like you live there, not home. I probably have the last apartment in Vancouver (other than my boyfriend’s) without a dishwasher. When I come home after a 12 hour workday, the last thing I want to do is the pile of evil-looking dishes in the sink. So it gets bigger, and eviller. Entrepreneurs should only have a needy pet (e.g. dog) if they work from home or can bring puppy with them to work. (Note: cats are pretty low maintenance, just don’t forget to feed them.) You can’t run the vacuum in a rental apartment at 1:00 am (unless you’re 207 down the hall from me, in which case you’re a jerk.) So mess piles up, and can feel overwhelming and stressful. My advice: try bribing a family member or friend with baked goods to get them to help out.

Your hobbies: Forget it. Pick them back up in a year or two.

I hope I haven’t talked you out of entrepreneurship. These sacrifices aren’t much different from ones I made to attend college, so I know I can do it… and if you went through college/university, you can do this too. University just has more beer involved.