I think one of the hardest parts about going out on your own and starting your own business is knowing where to start, and where to find new customers. Part of it is not being afraid of rejection and literally getting in touch with everyone you have ever wanted to work with. And part of it is just putting yourself out there, and hoping that the person you are looking for is also looking for you. My god, this could be the intro profile on a dating website. What they say really is true – the best opportunities come when you put yourself out there. And in very few instances has that statement been as true as in the work that I have done with Knokal recently. Knokal is the online version of a business directory, specifically designed for small businesses – if you’re looking for an accountant, a graphic designer and even a zoologist, Knokal is the place to go. If you’re working for a big corporation and you need a freelancer or small business person to help you out, Knokal is the place to go. And as a small business owner myself, I wanted to check out the competition, get a bit of work from other small business owners (some of my favourite kinds of client) and generally put get on the page. I created a profile on Knokal, thanks to a hot tip from other entrepreneurial ladies in the LMBDW Group on Facebook. If you aren’t involved, you really should get on there, it’s a hotbed of badass babes doing good things. Anyway, that aside, I created a profile. Put in some information and thought that at the very least having more information about me around on the interwebs would be good for my SEO, and besides it was totally fee – so I wasn’t loosing anything by putting myself out there. Then along came David. David is the founder of Knokal, and knew that he needed a homepage redesign to get better conversions and attract more sign ups. He is a big fan of the entrepreneurial theory that business owners should “eat your own dogfood” – that is, if you have a product, use that product when you find yourself in need of whatever it is that you offer. So David needed a graphic designer, and he went to Knokal. I don’t know if it…
Read MoreDOMAINE JULIO – Packaging Design for This Must Be The Place and World Class Cocktails
I like to think that I am pretty lucky in the people that I call my clients. I know a lot of people with an incredible amount of talent, and one of those is Charlie Ainsbury. Charlie with his business partner Luke run one of the best bars in Sydney, This Must Be The Place, named Timeouts Best New Bar of the Year in 2016. Being that they are both absolutely top-shelf bartenders, they have this tendency to win awards – and there isn’t a bigger cocktail award in Australia than the World Class Cocktail Competition, which Charlie won in 2014 and again in 2016. Pretty incredible huh. I was invited by BLANK Agency, the marketing gurus for This Must Be The Place, to help design the packaging for a product that was part of the submission for this years World Class Cocktail Competition – a ready-to-pour cocktail that could be sold off the shelf. Charlie created an amazing cocktail inspired by the passion of Don Julio Gonzalez, the maker of Don Julio Tequila, which extends the cocktail flavours and experience into the meal, blurring the boundaries between wine and cocktail. Infused with vanilla, cardamon, chardonnay and star anise, this cocktail is the perfect accompaniment to food and brings out the best in a range of flavours. For the bottle design, we utilised watercolours to abstractly show the range and levels in the cocktail, from strong and rich to light and fruity. The label was designed to compete with a range of wines in the category, particularly those which are biodynamic and boutique. Wine labels are typically beautiful, with a focus on art and design elements like illustration and watercolours, and so to appeal to a similar target market and belong as a part of the category, similar inspirations were used. To accompany the cocktail, we created a booklet that was designed to educate the customers, being that this product is a completely new concept and quite innovative. This would be hung on the bottle and is full of ingredient illustrations, tasting notes and serving instructions, to make sure that each bottle of Domaine Julio is served in the way it was intended, to best appreciate the flavours. I love working with anyone who loves what they do, and the team at This Must Be The Place are exactly that. Here’s hoping that this beautiful cocktail is available on shelf sometime in the near future…
Read MoreWHY I HATE THE NEW WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY LOGO
I have been thinking about writing this post for months. I wasn’t sure that I should do it, I really didn’t want to offend anyone. But here’s the thing – this is an opinion piece, and my feelings are so strong on the topic I can’t keep it in anymore. Let’s start with a preface – I love the University of Western Sydney, or Western Sydney University. I did my Masters there, my partner studies there and I think that their advertising as part of the rebrand has been some of the best I have seen in many years at creating a real vision of what Western Sydney is and can be. My problem lies with the logo. Flat out the whole thing is really unbalanced and it makes me so frustrated that I ball my fists up and growl at the signs when catching the bus past the campus (which was the catalyst for this piece). I understand what they are trying to achieve – directly tying the university to the rise of Western Sydney, the SEO benefits, the prominence of WESTERN SYDNEY over University implies that no matter who you are, there is a place for you here, I get it. But WHY is the crest at the bottom of the logo? that is the part that baffles me. Comments from the university are below – “The new brand elevates Western Sydney. Reordering the word mark and placing Western Sydney at the top of the logo is a symbol of the pride we have in our community and region. The shield is the platform for our typographic ‘W’, which is unique with the curved based referencing the landscape. Colour is one of the more emotive shifts in the brand, changing from blue to red. The deep red as the primary colour is bold, determined and confident. This is partnered with vibrant tones such as fluoro orange to deliver youthfulness and optimism to the brand.” – Sourced here. If WSU is aiming itself at the same kind of visuals as the Ivy League universities of the U.S., then the crest is the most important part of the visual. In all logos, the logo mark is just as important as the typography attached to that logo. And maybe that’s my issue, that the logo Mark is not placed in a position of importance, that it is placed as an after though.…
Read MoreWHY YOU SHOULD BE COMMENTING ON BLOGS
Commenting on blogs is both my most utilised tool as a social media manager, and the most underrated tool I see in other’s social media activities. If the end goal of being involved in social media is to create conversation and dialogue, then a comment is the response YOU make to the question or statement being posed by the writer – without it, you aren’t fulfilling your end of the conversation. As a content creator of any kind, your aim is to develop a community of like-minded people, who are essentially picking up what you are putting down – whether that’s knowledge, reviews, experiences or warnings. So it’s absolutely natural for comments to happen, as people respond to your content. Think about the blogs that YOU read. How many times have you sat at your computer during your lunch break and verbally gone “Ugh YES” when the content is great, or “Pfft” when it’s a bit off. THIS is when, how and why you should comment. Be part of their conversation.
Read MoreHow to brief in a Social Media Manager
Once you have decided to brig a social media manager(or consultant or contractor, whatever you want to call it) into your business, it can be a bit nerve wracking. This is someone who has access to all your customer facing information and who is going to go out there and represent your brand, without knowing the business inside and out like you do. How is that possibly going to work? In order for you to work together well with your new manager, it’s important to sit down together and discuss exactly what it is you are looking for out of that role.
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HOW AM I ACTUALLY GOING TO GET A JOB AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER
A few months ago, I wrote this blog on where to find a job as a graphic designer. And while the feedback has been fantastic (seriously guys, thanks heaps!), the question as been raised – ok, that’s all well and good, but I don’t know where to start before getting a good job. What about the fact that every application asks for a portfolio of work or experience? What do I do then? Every designer has been there. I personally found when I was at Uni studying graphic design, the tutors and lecturers didn’t cover portfolios or internships as a topic, let alone how to get one or work with one. I also found that so much of the work that I had done at design school, when it was finished, really didn’t look like much – sometimes they were great pictures on a page, but what actually is that? How do I make it look amazing, how do I give it real world potential? The first thing you have to do, is get your portfolio together. A lot of design schools use this process as a rite of passage out of school, but i would seriously recommend you getting an early start, maybe in about the second year of your course. Not only will this help you get internships or freelance gigs (which I think you should do while you are studying) but it will give you a head up when the portfolio is your major assessment for the term. In terms of the content of your folio, I’m not just talking about print outs of the work you have done (guilty of this). Design the document. Spend some time looking at the way you want to represent everything that you have learnt, and put it into a form that represents your style of design. This is an important note – as you get further along in your career, your personal style of design will become just as important as your ability to do the work at all, as companies want to hire someone that will be able to design in their style, or the style they want to achieve. But I didn’t say the folio was printed. I’m finding it more and more that design portfolios are digital – mine is on an iPad for instance – and then you bring along the actual pieces you have designed…
Read MoreLogo Design: Madmen Photographers
One of the best things about my job is being able to help other creatives realise their business potential.
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