Category Archives: How To

Logo Production

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2012-10-26 View Comments

It is relatively easy to talk about logos, to look at logos, to evaluate logos and to criticize. Creating logos is harder. It takes more time, skill, blood and sweat than any other logo-related activity. That’s why there is money in logo design once you decide to put your back into it.

Edit:
Re-reading this after posting, I realized that I’m not making my point clear. A designer asked me for a job the other day. I’m not hiring, so I directed her to places online where designers can sell logos and I advised her to upload 10 good logos a day for the next 6 months. Every day. That will take her to about 1,800 logos for sale. By then she will be making more money from logo sales than the best salary I could offer her. The only question is: Can you create and upload 10 good logos a day, every day, for 6 months?

Stop looking for work, logo designer. There is plenty for those willing to really work.

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Count on Change

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2012-09-07 View Comments

I was on the Google forum again. Many webmasters there complain about lost search engine rankings. Sometimes I’m one of them. But we need to remember that we are talking about Internet business here, with the emphasis on “Internet”. It changes. New competitors and new spam techniques pop up like daisies and search engine algorithms need to keep pace.

So do we.

Option 1:
Try to keep up with SEO “wisdom”. Good luck with that.

Option 2:
Focus on long-term. Build something of value that puts you head and shoulders above whoever is #2.

The key here is “head and shoulders”. If you are not the clear leader in your field, narrow your field. On the Internet you can do that. Pick a discipline within your field and specialize. Be the obvious #1 in that niche. Pick with your heart and the money will follow.

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Before You Build Your Logo Site

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2012-08-27 View Comments

I truly feel for the masses of logo designers who try to sell logos online. You can see the enormous amount of time that each (well, most) invested in building their logo design sites. Months of building and rebuilding and refining – for what? For a site that won’t work.

Before you build your logo design site, look through existing logo design sites. There are thousands. Look at their depressing Alexa rank too. My estimate, based on the Alexa numbers, is that most of those sites attract between 30 and 100 visitors per day (Alexa rank 1,000,000+), which probably translates to 2 or 3 sales per month.

If you are serious about selling logos online, you will need a plan. You need to get people on your site. If you don’t have a plan yet, sell your logos at LogoGround until you do. Put up a basic one-pager site in the meantime, but don’t spend months building an awesome web site that no-one will visit.

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TinEye

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-09-06 View Comments

A “reverse image search” engine contraption. You give it a picture, it finds it on the web. Might be useful for tracking down copycats.

http://www.tineye.com/

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Failure Guaranteed

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-05-23 View Comments

I was on a relatively new online banking site today, trying to pay someone. It took me 2 minutes to figure out how. I’ve paid him before, but this time clicking on “payments” and then on his name took me to a page that allowed me to edit his details.

Why?

I’m sure it makes sense to the developer though. Once she explained it to management they probably thought it made sense too. But she’s not here now. Who is going to explain it to the user?

This is a large, national bank. They can get away with it. It hurts them, but they are big enough to not really feel it. You and I can not get away with making clients struggle for 2 minutes to pay us. If we make it that hard for people to buy from us, they simply won’t. No matter how brilliant your product or service is, if no-one but you can find the order button your failure is guaranteed.

You have 10 seconds at most. Give her a big “Pay Now” button above the fold then get out of her way.

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Productive Meetings

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-05-09 View Comments

I personally like meetings. I like having structured, productive discussions with clients – or employees or my kids for that matter.

Whether you like meetings or not, make sure that you know why you are having a meeting. Not about what, but why.

We don’t always have the time to prepare for meetings, but take 1 minute before the meeting to identify what you want to achieve in that meeting. That will help you focus, which makes you appear considerably better prepared than you are. Chances are that you will start enjoying meetings when you see them as an opportunity to achieve a specific outcome. Even if it’s not your meeting – if you’re just invited to sit in – what can you achieve? What will happen if you takes sides with a colleague who does not expect support from you? Can you use a mundane meeting to gain an ally? Can you use it to diffuse tension? Can you use it to earn trust?

A word of caution though: If it’s not your meeting, don’t be so determined to achieve your outcome that you derail the organizer’s outcome in the process.

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It’s Not Supposed To Be Easy

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-05-08 View Comments

When I started selling logos online, it was a hard thing to do. We did not even know how much we should be charging for a “pre-designed” logo. Not a clue. There was a lot of exploratory work to be done. Through trial and error we eventually struck a formula that works for us.

All those who came after could just copy the formula. Or so they thought.

It’s the same in any industry. Any product or service. The real money is in innovation. If you do exactly what everyone else is doing you can make a living, but you will be scraping by.

That’s a given.

There’s already someone doing what you are doing, doing it longer and possibly better because they’ve ironed out some of the bumps you will soon run into. Why would anyone buy from you rather than from the leader? Would you buy from you? Honestly?

Making money online is supposed to be hard. There are many ways to make money online – and they all eventually become crowded as the path is beaten open. Eventually the money dries up. Well, actually no, the money just starts flowing to the innovator who found a better way.

Look at the design industry over the last ten years. Things that used to make money no longer does. The money is starting to flow elsewhere. Find the new money river and follow it until you run out of “beaten path”. Then start building. Make a new path. Be prepared to fail and start over.

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Creativity Spawns Creativity

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-05-02 View Comments

Designer’s block?

Make something. Invent something. Anything.

Your muse isn’t where you are at now. Clearly. So stop sitting around. She’s always where the action is.

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Selling In A Saturated Market

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-05-02 View Comments

The online logo design shopper has an immense pool of logo design web sites to choose from.

They are all pretty much the same. Small differences in the price maybe. This one might have a better guarantee and that one perhaps offers more revisions, but those are not the considerations that will make the logo design shopper choose one over the other.

When confronted with overwhelming choice, the shopper does one of two things:

1. She goes for the top. Whoever is #1 on Google for “logo design”.

2. She buys where she feels safe.

If you are going to compete for the #1 spot on Google for “logo design”, then good luck to you.

For the rest of us, making her feel safe is the only realistic option. It’s a different approach than selling to someone who desperately needs what you sell. She doesn’t. You need to win her trust. The best way to do that is to show her (not tell her) that others are buying from you and are happy with your work. On BizLogo I decided to do that right in the header. A big picture of a smiling lady and her testimonial. It’s a real testimonial (the only kind you should use!) and there is a link to countless more. In my own estimation, testimonials and referrals sell more logos for BizLogo than our low prices, guarantee or any other feature.

The catch is: You have to generate testimonials by over-delivering. If the client only receives what she expects to receive, then testimonials will be hard to come by.

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Graphic Design CV’s (How To)

Posted by Andre le Roux on 2011-05-01 View Comments

Your CV or resumé will be one of between 20 and 100 that the lady in human resources have to wade through today. And let’s be honest, it’s a terribly boring job, looking at CV after CV. You studied this, worked there, you live for graphic design, yada yada. They’re all the same.

The lady in human resources is tempted to open, scan for something interesting and drop your CV on the “no” pile.

In fact, that is exactly what she is doing. Half of the CV’s on the “no” pile were not read.

Is that unfair to the applicants?

Maybe it is, but maybe graphic design companies rightly expect more from applicants who claim that they have creativity wired into their DNA.

This probably applies to creatives applying for any job, but I’ll stick to graphic design.

Given your proficiency with graphic design software, why do you send your CV in Word format? You can design, right? You can use awesome graphics to sell stuff? Show the lady in human resources that you are not a CV sending drone intent on adding to her misery. Make her smile. Make her remember your CV. And, for the love of Pete, send it in PDF format!

A word of caution: Don’t go ape either. You’re a designer, but also a professional. Keep it light.

While we are on the topic…

I occasionally receive email applications like this one:

“hi andre. attachjed please find my cv and sum examples of my sum of my designs. thanks. julie.”

Dear Julie,

Did you fall on your head as a child?

Is this a temporary impairment or will the emails that you send to my clients also come out of your arse? I’m sure that you are a wonderful person, but the home for the criminally incompetent is further down the street, on the left. If you have any trouble finding it, just ask the bum with the crazy eyes. He also is a really wonderful person, once you get to know him.

Spend time crafting your intro email. It is at least as important as your CV. It’s my glimpse at the person behind the qualifications – behind the formal face of the CV. Julie wasted a perfect opportunity here. Instead, she illustrated a complete lack of pride in her work.

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