Uncategorized

design with consistency

“Consistency is next to godliness.”

-Roland Nord, 2010 (and probably a million times before & since then)

Roland was one of my professors in grad school – my favorite, if I’m being honest. If there is one statement that stuck with me since being in his courses, it’s that one. I quote it often and in almost every aspect of my life, but here I’m talking about your marketing and a simple change you can make to increase your brand’s consistency.

Consistency in your marketing creates recognition. Using the same colors, the same fonts, and the same feeling in your advertising, social media, and documents helps your customers become familiar with your brand. Familiarity is comforting, and humans gravitate toward what is comfortable.

Consistency in your marketing creates recognition.

The visual look of your communications is as much a part of your brand as your logo. If you’re using whatever font you feel like that particular day when creating a new document or advertisement, that underlying branding message from your organization becomes choppy. If you consistently choose the same font(s) and colors, your separate pieces flow together as though they were all created at the same time.

Of course, a graphic designer can help you define a direction and create a style sheet (such as the one pictured below) with a color palette and paired fonts as a part of a brand design. That can be important as you grow, expand your reach, and create more advertising for your business, but it’s not always necessary as you’re just starting out.

design standards help with (say it with me…) CONSISTENCY

The visual look of your communications is as much a part of your brand as your logo.

If you’re just starting out or if you’re just trying to create some consistency in your day-to-day business communications, start by using the same font for your communications. Here are some tips:

Choose a single font for now. One that came in your word processing software is just fine; choose one that has a variety of weights (regular, bold, italic) so you can create headings, subheadings, and body text.
If you are looking for a resource for free fonts, Google Fonts, DaFont, and FontSquirrel are great options. Just be sure to use a font that is licensed for commercial use and you read the fine print before you put it to use.
Make sure the font you choose is clean and easy to read. There are a lot of fun fonts out there, and you might like a lot of them, but keep your focus on what you would want to read if you were given the document you’re creating. Stay away from cutesy or decorative fonts. They have their purpose, but it isn’t here. Here you want to stick with the basics.
Consider your audience – do you need to be more formal, or is more casual ok? If more formal, maybe you will want to choose a serif font (these are the fonts with the small lines at the tops and bottoms of the characters such as Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond). If you can be more casual, or if the communication will mostly be read on a screen, a sans serif font would be a good choice (these are the fonts with no small lines, such as Arial or Verdana).
Be consistent. Use it in all email communications, new documents (both internal and for your customers), and wherever else you can. Make sure your employees know to use it in their communications as well.

Bottom line: don’t stress too much about choosing a font for your organization’s communications. As you grow, you can hire a designer to really dial it in and find a font family or pairing of fonts that speak to your customers and represents your brand’s personality. For now, just make sure what you choose is easy to read and you use it consistently.

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What do you think? Will you be applying any of these tips in your business?
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cover photo credit: pixabay.com user free-photos

Uncategorized

designed to be unique

I saw a friend out and about a while back, and he mentioned he needed new business cards. He owns a painting business in town, and he said he got his current cards from his accounting software for super cheap and he’s almost out of them. But he also said, with a tone of annoyance in his voice, “Another painter in town has the exact same cards as me, so I need new ones.”

You guys, I live in a town of around 50,000 people. I don’t know how many painting companies we have, but I can’t imagine we have a ton. And the fact that two of them ended up with the exact same business cards just screams the old adage:

You get what you pay for.

I’ve seen it before too. My hairstylist used to have the same logo and business cards as a bridal shop in town. When you get your designs created by a one-size-fits-all shop online, you run the risk of sharing your branding with someone else in town, or even your competition. The internet is big, but not THAT big.

A small design company will take the time to listen to you and learn about your business, your customer, and the message you’re trying to convey. They will create something that is unique to you and YOUR company… something that stands out from your competition’s marketing instead of matching it.

Plus, if you give that designer your repeat business, they will become an extension of your team. They will grow to understand the nuances of your business, and you won’t have to explain who you are or how your business works to them each time you have a new project. It’s like having a designer on-staff, but without having to budget for it.

Sure, you will likely have to pay more for the service of custom design. But, you didn’t design your business to fit into a template; why design your marketing around a template?

photo credit: user RawPixel on Pixabay.com

motivated

motivation in a calendar

I have a friend who keeps track of how many days in a row he runs over a mile. If he has an exceptionally busy day ahead, he plans a run around midnight so that he would have at least one mile on each side of the start of the new day. He kept his first run streak alive for well over a year, then when he missed a day, he started over again. I’m not sure where he’s at right now, but in November he posted on Facebook that he had run 574 days in a row. That is so impressive! I marvel at his commitment, and it has inspired me.

I live in Minnesota, and in the winter, I put my road bike on a stationary trainer and “ride it to nowhere”. I hate it. It’s boring and miserable. As a mom of two busy kids who also works full time, I knew that I’d be setting myself up for failure if I tried to shoot for a ride streak. Instead of trying to keep a streak going, I decided to set my own goal and my own way of tracking it. I thought I’d share it here for you, in case it helps you set a new routine and achieve a goal you’ve set for yourself.

I decided that my goal would be to ride my bike to nowhere on most days. That’s kind of a vague goal, I know, but I was shooting for 4/7 days per week. (I’m a realist, so I decided I’d forgive myself if I didn’t make the 4/7 during a week as long as I made up for it in following weeks and hit the bike most days of the month.)

I am a visual person so I needed a visual way to track my progress. I went online and found a free printable calendar that had the whole year on one page, similar to this one I designed for 2019:

Then I got an ultra-fine tip marker in a super fun color and put a small X through the dates that I rode to nowhere. It was so satisfying to see the weeks and months fill with X’s, and it helped keep me motivated. Days without X’s stood out, and served as an in-my-face way to remind me I had missed a day or two… or three, and it was time to get back on the bike.

So, as we get ready to start a new year, rather than referring to our aspirations for change as “resolutions”, which have a reputation of failing after few weeks, let’s refer to them as “goals”. Then let’s measure and track our progress!

If my simple system fits for your goals, please feel free to download, print, use, and share the calendar I created to keep you on task. It’s yours! (If you have any trouble downloading it, just comment below with your email address and I’ll send it your way.)

2019 Printable Calendar

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If my system helps you, I would love to hear about it! Or share the goal-tracking idea that has worked for you! If you have a system and want me to create a handy-dandy tool for you, let’s talk about it!
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cover photo credit: pixabay.com

motivated

create a clean slate

I love fall.

I love the gorgeous leaves, the crisp air, the crunch under my feet as I take a long hike… I love all of it. Not so much the pumpkin spice… you can keep that. I realize it’s an unpopular stance to take, but I MUCH prefer apple cider. Anyway…

I have a new reason to love it, and I’m taking a new perspective on it. After hearing of Rachel Hollis’ #Last90Days Challenge, I started thinking of fall as wiping the slate clean. The world is shedding the skin of summer, preparing for the quiet repair of winter, before moving into the rebirth and renewal of spring. What if we did that with our lives too?

Let go of the idea that because we have space to grow, there must be something wrong with us right now. -Rachel Hollis

Basically, the idea of #Last90Days is to be intentional in our lives during the last three months of the year, instead of just riding it out to get to the new year before we decide to make changes. It’s easy to just coast, or even to just “survive”, as we navigate the holiday season (which seems to start earlier and earlier each year). This challenge is designed to change that and set new habits BEFORE New Year’s Resolution season. Then maybe in place of resolutions that fail after the first few weeks of the year, you’re setting goals… and the behaviors that set you up for success are already in place, so you’re more likely to achieve those goals.

So, instead of just keepin’ on keepin’ on this fall: I am motivated to use these last 90 days intentionally. I’m going to wipe my slate clean and focus on the areas of my life that need quiet repair, so I can head into 2019 better equipped to reach my goals. I have personal goals that include changing my mindset, increasing water and decreasing sugar intake, and being more present. I have professional goals within my business that could sure use that mindset change to boost the probability of success. I’ve already seen some wins as a result of my mental shift… and I’ve already dropped the ball once (or twice) and had to remind myself that it’s ok to fail as long as you pick up and keep going.

Will you join me?

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I would love to hear if you’re going to spend the #last90days making intentional growth as well! What are your focus areas? Comment your intentions and SHARE the idea with your friends – we’re more likely to keep promises we make to ourselves if we are accountable to someone else too.

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photo cred: Pixabay.com

motivated

creating a little motivation

So. You’re low on motivation.

We’ve all been there. When those moments strike, it’s sure easy to come up with why we don’t *have* to do whatever it is:

“I’ll have time tomorrow.”
“I need to think about it more and really get some ideas flowing.”
“I should probably talk to [insert name of anyone even remotely associated with the project] before I get started.”
“The floor isn’t THAT dirty.”

Sound familiar?

There are a ton of tips and tricks out there to get you moving toward your goal again, but it’s always good to have another tool in the ole’ brain box, so I thought I’d share mine.

There might be a million reasons, but I only need three good ones.

Try to think of at least three reasons for getting going on the project/task: one that will impact you immediately, one that will have a short-term effect, and one that will affect you in the long-term.

Let’s take working out as an example. As much as I love riding my bike or going for a hike, I am NOT one of those people who is naturally predisposed to working up a sweat. Sometimes sitting with my feet up, sipping a cuppa coffee, and reading a good book sounds way better. (And sometimes you need to do that too.) But when my brain is throwing out flashcards of excuses why I can’t do it right now (it’s too windy, it might rain, I have to be somewhere in 6 hours and that just isn’t enough time…) I think of my three reasons and usually they’re enough to outweigh my inclination to stay put. So I might think of things like this:

Immediate reason – I always feel better when I get exercise. Or, I’m going out for dinner and I’m certain the Super Fries from Tav on the Ave will wipe out the caloric benefit of this workout so I better bank some sweat now.
Short term reason – it’s a lot easier to stay in shape than it is to get back in shape. Or, I like it when my pants fit.
Long term reason – when I get old, I want to be active and fit, not sedentary and unable to do the things I want to do. Putting the effort in now makes that more likely.

It’s all in your mind.

Most of the time, forcing my mind to think about the benefits rather than the excuses gets me moving in the right direction. Those pesky excuses might still be floating around up there, so I can’t always say I’m raring to go, but at least I can usually get enough motivation to get started. In my experience, that’s the hardest part; once I get started I can usually keep it going. I just need three reasons.

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What trick(s) do you use to get yourself going when your momentum has shifted the wrong way and you’re having trouble getting motivated?

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