#126: Understand How Great Branding Works

Norman Ferrar   0:01  

Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm, the rise of the micro brands.

Norman Ferrar   0:19  

Okay, so like I mentioned yesterday, we’ve got a really great episode today with Michael Kurtz and we’re gonna be talking about how you make your brand pop. Okay, he’s got some really great tips. So Michael has worked in television and video games marketing, and he’s just done a ton of stuff. We’re going to dive into this and just so you get to know a bit about Michael. It was so exciting to get him onto the show because he talks my language and that’s all about the brand. So anyways, before we do that, Kelsey, where the heck are you?

Kelsey

I’m here.

Norman Ferrar 

You didn’t abandon me. That’s good.

Kelsey1:01  

I’m always here. Alright. Welcome, everyone. Welcome Manny, welcome for Fathea and  Daniel. I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s been posting for our contests in our Facebook group, they are looking fantastic. So again, if you want to check it out, go to Facebook and type in # Lwandbeardnation. And you can see some of the entries coming in. And they’re great. So if you don’t know what I’m talking about, head over to our Facebook group. We’re running a contest only for the Facebook group. All the instructions, we have video text. It’s all there. So yeah, that’s our one contest. We also have our air pod contest happening. It’s been happening for two weeks now. I’ll throw in the link and everything and yeah, so if you guys can like those. Smash those buttons, subscribe to the video on Youtube, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, wherever you’re watching us from. That would be awesome. They welcome everyone. Hello, Dr. Caz, Daniel Andrews in China. 

Norman Ferrar   2:04  

Yeah, we got people on. We’re saying Manny Fatimah. Daniel, Dr. Koz. Andrew, Marsha Andrew, somewhere in China. He is very elusive to this guy.

Kelsey  2:18  

Yeah, let us know how you guys are doing. Do you have any plans for the weekends? Stevens joined us and I believe he’s in Australia. So we got a crowd from everywhere, all around the world today. So that’s awesome to see. 

Norman Ferrar   2:33  

Now it’s time. If you have any questions, throw them over into the comment section. And let’s sit back, relax. Grab that cup of coffee, and enjoy the episode. Where are you, sir? All right. Hello. How are you? Sir? I’m excited to be alive. How about you? I’m doing great. You know, what I forgot to mention is, is your company name, which is designed from scratch concepts. Yeah. So we met a while back. And you know, very impressed with with the company and just our discussion in general. So I’m, I’m so glad that you can join us today.

Michael Kurtz  3:12  

And then thank you so much for having me. I greatly appreciate it.

Norman Ferrar   3:15  

Oh, no problem at all. So we’re going to talk a little bit about you know, who you are and what you do. And then we’re going to talk about the giveaway, which is fantastic. Sure. We’ll go from there. Michael, who the heck are you?

Michael Kurtz    3:29  

Well, as you said, my name is Michael Kurtz. And your your intro is pretty, pretty clear. You know, I’ve, I’ve worked with in the design field for, gosh, almost 25 years now, even though it doesn’t look at I’ve been told I look young. But yeah, I’ve worked in the design field for almost 25 years in various aspects. And so about three years ago, I started this company. And I found that what a lot of people wanted was advice. And so I created the designs from scratch concepts, education portal, as a place to get that advice and to learn things because branding, especially for small business owners, witnesses, their first foray into running a business is it’s it’s elusive, right? It’s it’s hard to understand, you know, you might be the greatest plumber in the world. But branding and marketing is something new to you. And so I’ve come along to help people who, you know, they’re just starting out, maybe they started their business from an inheritance or, you know, they took out a loan and but like, this is the dream they’ve been chasing for five years, and now they finally are going to go for it. And so I want to show them how to do it so that it works, because their competition is everybody. It’s not just other small businesses, it’s these big corporations too. But that doesn’t mean they can’t play the game with them and and look as professional as they do and have the same tactics and the Same strategies that they do. Because most of these strategies are free, they don’t cost anything. It’s just understanding the mindset of your customer.

Norman Ferrar  5:10  

Okay, very good. All right. Now let’s get into the giveaway, right offering today,

Michael Kurtz    5:18  

I am offering a free one year subscription to my education portal, where you’ll find videos that will answer all your questions, and then a forum that will answer even more of your questions. Basically, the stuff that the videos, you know, the follow up questions you have after the videos,

Norman Ferrar   5:39  

and I’ve been lucky enough to take a look inside your portal. It’s fantastic. They any any small, medium sized company, you know, this is a great opportunity for you to understand it at least, you know, sometimes you don’t take you don’t create your own brand. But at least you have that knowledge, you know what to look for when a graphic artist presents it to you. So if you want it Kelsey, what did we come up? What unique hashtag have we come up with today?

Kelsey   6:10  

I was no, no, no. So no, we’re going to, we’re going to try and build up our hashtag. So we’re gonna stick with one hashtag for all the giveaways we’re doing now. So hashtag, we’ll have Kelsey. Put that in the comment section. And there we go. That’s right. So that’s going to be our official hashtag for prizes now. So yeah, hope you guys enjoy, please post that in the comment section. Also, if you share the video, if you comment to people, or tag them in the comment section, you’ll get an extra bonus entry as well. All right, fantastic.

Norman Ferrar  6:49  

Okay, so hashtag we’ll have Kelsey, and if anybody has any questions, I’m sure. Everybody that’s here. There’s tons of people on the call right now. And if you have questions about branding, if you’ve tried to do branding yourself, you know, just let us know. And we’ll try to answer these questions. While you’re, you’re here. You know, if, if we even get the opportunity, I’m not sure if we can do this or not kills. But to either bring somebody on live or to upload a logo, you know, we could even critique it. You know, we’re absolutely and so, you know, that’s up. We have never done that before. But because we’ve got you here, Michael. Yeah, people, if you want to upload, figure it out, send an email over to Kelsey, and we’ll get it uploaded, or I don’t know how to do it. Kelsey, maybe we can just share. We’ll figure this out. Okay. First question, Michael. Why is brands so important? We talked about this a lot. But why from Europe? In your opinion, why is it so important?

Michael Kurtz    7:50  

Well, it is because it’s it’s, that’s the that’s the connection, right? So everything we do for our business, everything, whether it’s we send out a brochure, we do a Facebook post, we have a website, we meet somebody at an event, right? All of those things are experiences. And the brand is what helps tie all of those experiences together. So you’re driving down the street, you see a billboard, and it has a logo on it. Three months later, you see that same logo somewhere else. Three months later, you see it on TV, and you go, Oh, you start to build these connections, that when you’re looking for that product that that logo is selling, now you’re connecting, like, Oh, I’m familiar with this. I’m familiar with this. And so it, it breeds this familiarity. So I often talk about it, like say you’re at a party, right? And you see people at a party, and you see this person over here and this person over there, and you start to associate I think I might want to go say hi to that person. They seem interesting, or that’s persons giving me a weird vibe. I don’t want to say hi to them. And and based on how many times you see them at the party makes you decide that Yeah, yeah, I definitely want to talk to that person there. Everyone around them is laughing all the time. So I’m going to go find out what’s so funny, or, you know, what’s so interesting, or even just, you know, oh, they keep bringing out food, I’m gonna go over to the food tape, like whatever you see at that party. That’s how your brand works. It’s the same way it’s, oh, I want to be involved in this. I keep seeing this. It looks interesting. Everything that’s tied to it makes me smile, or it makes me laugh or it makes me think. And I want to I want to know more. And so that’s, that’s how your brain works by building connections to all the little experiences that we create.

Norman Ferrar  9:46  

Very good. Alright, so we’ve got a brand or we’re trying to build out this brand. What are what are some things that people have to know what are the first things to tackle and then what are some of the mistakes

Michael Kurtz   10:00  

Ah, so I will say this. And we kind of talked about this when we met a while ago. We all sell the exact same thing, right? whether whether we think we sell plumbing, or we think we sell, you know, legal services, we all sell the same thing. And that’s an experience. And so by basing our brand around those experiences, we can better pull in our target market. And so tell me if this Tell me if this is answering your question, right? So I pull it by focusing on our target market and creating our brand to appeal to that target market. We’re creating these experiences. And so one of the mistakes that I see people make is they don’t go into it thinking of their target market. First. They go into it thinking, you know, again, I’m a plumber. So I fix stuff. But in that, you know, you have a wide variety of customers, you know, you have the family that’s living paycheck to paycheck, that needs you to be really cheap. And then you have the family, or the single person, let’s say, who has ton of disposable income, and doesn’t care how much it costs, they just want it done right the first time. Well, those are two different people. And you’re going to talk to them in a completely different way. The person, the single person who has a ton of disposable income, wants the nicely wrapped truck, they want you know, the professional coveralls, they want the you know, the the booties on the shoes, when you walk in, like they want all that stuff. The family that’s living paycheck to paycheck, just wants the pipe to stop leaking. And if you show up in, you know, a regular truck that’s, you know, just has the magnet on the side. And you you know, you’re in the the cheap coveralls like they don’t care, they just want the pipe fixed. And so that’s, that’s what you have to think about is if I’m going after that single person with disposable income, I need to do all the stuff that’s gonna make them say, hey, great. And you have to keep in mind that even if they don’t care, their neighbors might. So the neighbors that are looking at your truck going well, we got a leak too. Yeah, but we’re not going to call them. They make me kind of nervous, you know, versus Oh, look, their truck is so nicely wrapped. It’s so this is great, you know, but then again, you go back to the family living paycheck to paycheck. And they just say, Did they fix the pipe? Yeah, they fixed the pipe? Great. Could it could I have their number? You know, was it expensive? No, is really cheap, great. I want their number. And, and so that’s, that’s what you’re dealing with, you have to understand the slight dynamics of the target market. And I think when people are setting up their brands, that’s what they forget about.

Norman Ferrar 12:57  

Yeah, and there’s subtleties, you know, you could a person that doesn’t drink wine, can have the most expensive bottle of wine and the cheapest bottle of wine and think the cheapest is the best. Right? You know, they just don’t know. But once you start to understand, you know, the subtleties in a brand, and the consistencies and the and the psychology behind it. I think it’s important. So and I’ll give you a just a dumb example. Okay. Downton Abbey. Great show. Excuse me, gets me so excited. I’m choking. Yeah, okay. No nappy. So anyways, you’re getting a vape or whatever, whatever they’re called. But when they set up all the cutlery, you know, very specific, very, you know, so far in between, they’ve got measuring and, well, it’s very considered, I can go to a greasy diner. And the fork could be, you know, on the opposite side, it could be on the top of play, it could be wherever could be on the floor, where, who cares is the different clientele the demographic, you know, and it’s, it’s so important on the Downton Abbey type of yoke, they’re expecting at a greasy diner, you’re expecting this. And the difference is cost. Right? It’s understanding it and, you know, some of the things that I look at with brand, that that are some mistakes. People don’t understand the subtlety of space. So everything’s crunched together. Yeah. Or just a, what are they called? effects? Putting too many effects in you know, or too many colors. Yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. Some of these. I’ve got some examples that I have that you know, you just wouldn’t believe because you can’t read the logo, or they’ve got I know there’s one that comes to mind is Golf Doctor one where It’s just like an animation. But it looks so stupid. You wouldn’t take them serious right now or this thing called fire or something. And it’s got this Burning Man running into this piece of film. It doesn’t make any sense. So sometimes, like one of the things I like looking for is the simplest as simple. The simple, more simple, the better. Yeah, you know, keep your fonts down to a minimal, try to keep them the same. The sizing, you don’t have to have 10 different types of fonts. But one of the things that I love, you shouldn’t have 10 different types of fonts Exactly. Shouldn’t now 10 different types of fonts. You know, I try to stick to one or two. Yeah, and also a spec card that talks about your Pantone color, or, you know, just to be specific, because I can tell, okay, Michael, you know, what color is the green behind you? Well, is it a lime green, or a copper green or this green? I can never match it. I can’t describe but I do know, with a Pantone color. Yeah, I can give that to anybody. And they’ll match it. And that’s Yeah, that’s so important.

Michael Kurtz  16:10  

Yeah, I don’t I consistency. Yeah, let’s talk about consistency. I’m just gonna throw it out there. Alright, let’s talk. So first of all, let’s let, let’s talk about consistency in an interesting way. So when you hire somebody to make your logo, in order to achieve consistency, they should give you a bunch of different logos, which sounds counteractive to consistency. But I’m going to explain why. And this is kind of a sneak peek into one of the courses I offer. But you should get at minimum four logos. So the first one should be RGB. And that’s the visible spectrum. So that’s what you use for the screen. The second one should be CMI K, those are the colors in your printers. So that’s for when you want stuff printed, another one should be grayscale. And that’s essentially for when you have to have 1000 prints and you don’t want to pay for it. And the fourth is a single color. And that’s where it’s adapted to only be one color. And obviously, the RGB for the screen is obvious for websites and videos and Facebook posts. The CMI K is obvious, you know, because when you get something printed like a brochure or something like that, and the grayscale, as I said, when you don’t want to have 1000, the single colors for when you’re going to do something like pens, or if you want to have like your when you say you have an office and you want to have the window frosted, or you need anything that just you get one color. And the reason that you get these four different logos is the stay consistent. Because once you start transferring colors, I guarantee you a dark red and a dark blue, when they turn to gray is the same color. And that contrast that was set up in the full color version is gone. Right? In the single color, right, you might thick in the line weights, you might make, you know what was red, transparent, and what was blue, a solid color, maybe you just purely go to line art. But it’s a, you know, and it’s designed to be shrunken down, if you’re gonna say you’re gonna put it on a pen, I mean, you’re looking at, you know, three sixteenths of an inch high for your logo. So you’re going to minimize the details so that it’s clear at such a small size. Whereas, you know, if you put it on a billboard, it, you know, it doesn’t matter. And then I say, you want to make sure that you get a raster and vector. So the raster version, that’s your JPEGs and your PNGs. And those are the ones that you can’t scale. The vector version is your epss, your PDFs, and your Illustrator files. And those are the ones that you can blow up to the size of a building. And the reason you want to make sure you get all of that stuff is because if you only have the raster and then for some reason you like you said you want to get something bigger, it doesn’t scale. And now you’re stuck having to hire someone to recreate the thing you just paid for someone else to make. So just to get all of that stuff right at the beginning to know to ask for it, right? Because some designers will just say, oh, okay, I’ll give you this. Great. And if you say no, I want this version of this version of that version, please make sure I get these file types, then you don’t have to go back later and have somebody recreated and it saves you a lot of time frustration and money. And so that’s that’s my biggest tip for staying consistent.

Norman Ferrar   19:41  

Now, with you we’re talking about PNGs and JPEGs. Could you not just use a PDF for everything now?

Unknown Speaker  19:51  

You can absolutely but I mean obviously if you’re going to do you know if you want to do graphics for a website, I mean they only work as PNG is And JPEGs, and things like that. So, um, you know, you’re you’re going to upload it or give it to your web designer to upload, they’re either going to convert it for you. Or, you know, though, if you’re doing it yourself, which I advise, don’t ever build your own website. But if you are doing it yourself, then you’ll have to convert it. But yeah, obviously, you know, you can do all that stuff from a PDF. But again, I’ve I know a ton of people that bought logos that I’ve had to help, because the only thing they got was a JPEG.

Norman Ferrar  20:36  

Yeah. And it’s so, so simple. Like, this is a checklist. Yeah, just what you were talking about before, what you’re looking for, you know, with the gray scale and with a single or a solid color, with the CMI k with, with the pen with the Pantone, but everything that you just mentioned, could be on a checklist, and the different formats that are required. Now, the only other thing that I would round that up with is a solid spec card that a lot of the times, especially if you’re going to cheat, regardless, they’re just going to use a template or something very simple. send it over to you, you’re gonna think it’s fantastic. Your customers are going to think otherwise. Yeah. And then could possibly, but that spec card, wherever you’re sending it over to your, your supplier over in China, you’re getting boxes done over North America, you’ve got signage for your store, your website, everything is consistent your your templates, on your social media. And when we do our templates that orange that you see, it’s everywhere. It’s a specific color associated with the podcast.

Michael Kurtz   21:46  

Right? And that, and that ties back into that connection, right, that ties back into every time I see that color. I know. Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s the color from the show. Right? That’s right. And your logo solid, it’s real easy. And so GIZ, I’m going to get the number on gears 120256 says Victor, ah, Victor, okay, so in that in your in your comment. So he’s he said, it’s important to have a logo that fits nicely in a circle. So I actually say, that’s another version of the logo. Um, and it’s specifically for an avatar. So what you want to do is you can have whatever logo you want. But when it comes to doing your social media profile, and you do your avatar, I actually for the people I work with, and I always advise, make one custom for that that way, because you’re right, like, if you do it, purely, my logo has to fit into circle, you’re limiting yourself and it then it’ll fit weird on your paper, it’ll fit weird on your banner, whatever. But it by doing one specifically for that, again, because it’s you know, it’s it’s this big on the screen. By doing it that size, you can custom make it so like I’ve done stuff where it’s, you know, if it’s a longer name, obviously, you’re not gonna be able to read that, right. So it’ll be too small to read. So just do the initials right over top of the logo. And there’s, you can do something custom that still works with the logo, but doesn’t, doesn’t have to necessarily have to be the exact logo. It’s just a close enough avatar that Oh, yeah, I know who that is.

Norman Ferrar  23:30  

You know, you don’t want to bastardize the logo. So some of the things I’m trying to do the exact same thing is we have like over the chat agency, we’ve got a bubble like chat. And then below it, it says the chat agency looks good. Aesthetically, it looks nice. However, there’s times where it doesn’t fit in. It doesn’t fit in. And there’s different ways of not fitting in the actual word, the chat agency has to be black sometimes. But if it’s on a black background, you got to make it white. So that’s another version of the logo. Okay. And sometimes you have to make it horizontal. So if we want to do it, okay, how far away? It does the font start from the logo, right? trademark, where is a trademark positioned? Right? Because if you put it down below, or if you put it up above or you put it off to the side, it might not look good when you when you put this together. And the final thing with this in now just think of everything stacking up here, we’ve got that whole list, but you’ve got the whole list again, vertical, horizontal. And then you’ve got like another version of this with the tagline.

Michael Kurtz   24:47  

Yeah, yep. Yeah. And it’s, you know, and it’s all stuff that needs to be considered. As your as your, as it’s getting put together of, you know, where am I going to use this? What am I going to do? With it, and I’ve said it before. I’ve said it before, Norman, I will say it again, the logo is the most important part of your business. It trumps everything else. Yep. Because without that, yeah, without that logo, you have, you know, that’s how you get your customers. And I say, I say the logo serves several purposes. One, it’s the face of your business. Right? That’s the thing that everybody sees and recognizes, I mean, to the point where your logo is your face, right? You know, and intended. Yeah, but it is it’s, yeah, it’s the face of your business. And, but it also does another thing. And I think we’re all familiar with elevator pitches. So the logo is a visual elevator pitch. Because how many times have we walked into a store? said, Oh, that looks interesting. I want to see what they sell. And you walk in purely because of the logo.

Norman Ferrar   25:57  

Art? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And there are a lot of smaller sellers that are listening. And they’re probably wondering, do I have to spend all this money right now. And if you’re brand new, and if you’re testing out the market, I, I don’t know if I’d risk it because you don’t if you’re testing it out, and you’re just trying to to establish a brand, or even see if that brand is going to make it. I don’t know if I put unless you’re putting the logo on the product. So with me with the soap, I had to come up with a logo, that was pretty cool. Right away, because I was marketing that product. But I knew before I launched that this should be successful, or with some of the dog products that we do, you know, before we launched, we knew we were going to be successful. If you’re testing out products, you can’t spend the money on a good graphic artist to come up with something to test the product. You just you do that afterwards? Would you agree? Or how would you go about that?

Michael Kurtz  26:58  

I would say, here’s what I would do. If you’re an online seller, I would say that logo is still just as powerful. Because every time you buy something, right, if you buy something from seller a, and you have a great experience, it’s the same thing is the next time I see you, and I’ve because I’m having a ton of fun here. But the next time I see you and I go, Oh, it’s no harm. Oh my gosh, hey. And it’s the same exact reaction as I bought a widget from this company from Company A. And then two months later, I have to buy something else. And oh, Company A is selling this to Great. Now, I might not remember the name of Company A. But I promise you I’ll remember that logo. I’ll remember that logo immediately. The first because it’s locked in now. And so as soon as I see that the problem, the problem that I see is if you change that logo, right? It’d be the same as if you shave shaved your beard off. Right? Everything’s gone. And I don’t recognize you anymore. And it’s Wait a minute. dillo. But like, because now you have to do a new logo where there’s no beard and all this stuff. And I’m gonna go I think I know that guy. I think I’ve met him. Ah, it’s velcroed on there, just pull it up. But yeah, but I’d be like, I think I know that person. But I’m not sure it’s they seem familiar to me. Versus Oh, I know you like Yeah, yeah, we did the podcast, it was awesome. I had so much fun. And, and so I think establishing, establishing it right away. Is is important, because the sellers that have a good experience will come back going, gee, I have the choice between buying a widget from Company A or Company B, a company a did me so good the last time, even though it’s five cents more, I’m gonna go with Company A because I feel safer with them. And so you know, it is important to have that connection. I don’t know that I would say spend $10,000 on the logo for what you’re doing. But I also would, I’d say the same thing to to a plumber who’s just starting out, like don’t spend $10,000 on the logo. But if you understand the principles of what goes into the logo, you shouldn’t have to write you shouldn’t have to spend all this money to get the best of the best because you know what to ask for, you know what to say, this is what I need, this is what I’m trying to do, because you understand the science behind it. And so you can guide that designer who should also know the science behind it, make sure make sure you talk to them about that. But you know, because you understand the science behind it and there is a lot of psychology in how logos work a ton of it. And it’s important to know it because it’s actually stuff that I go into into my Course of, you know, drive down the street, and ask yourself why every fast food restaurant has a massive amount of red in their logo. There’s a reason for it. And if you understand, like I said, you understand that psychology, you can make your logo work. green and orange are the most visible colors on the spectrum, they are the first thing we’ll see. And it’s no surprise that normes logo is orange, because of that, you know, and so, you know, it’s knowing these things of, hey, if I really want this thing to pop, you know, say I’m selling on Amazon, well, Amazon has a lot of orange on their sight. So maybe I make it green. to contrast with that. Or maybe I make it blue, or, you know, say I’m selling a food service, right, so I’m gonna make it red. Because every other food services red, you know, just and knowing those things. It’s a huge help. And we’ll save you a ton of money.

Norman Ferrar  30:57  

Where that can help, Michael, if you’re selling on Amazon, and you’ve got your product listing, Brian Johnson was on and he was talking about how to differentiate yourself, right? So if you’ve got plastic shoe stretchers, and they’re black or red, those are the two main colors. I know this, I don’t know, don’t ask me why. But anyway, the plastic shoe stretches black, red, if you were to make something a green or an orange, that would stand out enough to drive your eye over. And you know, if they’re the exact same product, but the manufacturer can do that, then that’s just another way to get people to take a look at your product. And you can even if, if you do a little bit of packaging, you could even charge more, because it’s a different color. And another thing that I think is important, is what you’re trying to achieve with the personality of the brand. And coffee time. So it’s the personality of the brand, or do you want a high perceived value? Are you charging a premium? What’s the right look like? You know, so many people. We were talking about the Kelsey and I were talking about this the other day for lunch with norm. We came up with a font, and I just didn’t work on the blog. And so it was like, Ah, this cheapens the blog right now people are gonna get confused. So hopefully Kelsey did his job. And he changed it. But if not, you can see Kelsey,

Kelsey  32:21  

but it is changed by the way. It is. Yeah, everyone knows. This is a quick plug for our website lunch with Norton comm go over to the blog section, you’ll see all the different fonts there are all the old one font, sorry. And yeah, it’s all changed over. Oh, very good.

Norman Ferrar 32:37  

You did your job. Okay, so now, you know, setting heading into the second half. First of all, we have a great giveaway today. And it’s going to be a free one year subscription to Michael’s course on branding. I’ve been in the into the the course I’ve seen it I’ve taken a look at is fantastic. Anybody who wants to understand brand a bit more, you know, this is going to be a great giveaway. So all you need to do is hashtag will have Kelsey, that’s the new hashtag, tag two people and get two entries. The other thing is I know that we have questions, we’ll get to that in two seconds. But if you do have issues with your brand, you know, did you pay? I’m kind of curious. Did you do it yourself? Did you pay on Fiverr? Did you go to a real graphic artist? Let us know. You know how you came up with your brand. Now if you’re brand new, don’t worry about if I’m talking about existing sellers here be interesting to see how people came up with their logos.

Michael Kurtz   33:37  

Yeah, it’s also interesting. And I like that you you separated? Did you do it yourself? Did you do it through Fiverr? Or did you hire an actual design? Yeah.

Norman Ferrar 33:48  

Hmm. Nothing bad about Fiverr. But there are good artists on Fiverr. So yeah, he’s listening.

Michael Kurtz   33:55  

I have issues with Fiverr. If I’m allowed to discuss that. You go ahead. My issue is that you get what you pay for. I know, the problem is, and I’m looking at this from the designer’s point of view, too, in order to compete, because it is such a highly competitive area, because there’s so many people all vying for your dollars, that they have to undercut themselves and sell their product at an unfair price. And that’s by choice fiber doesn’t force them to do it. But they that’s, you know, it’s a doggy dog world. And that’s what they have to do. So to do that, they still have to pay rent. So that means they are not spending the tender, loving, caring time on your logo that they should be. Because if they’re doing logos for let’s say five bucks, right? They got to crank those things out as fast as possible. Otherwise, they’re making $2.50 an hour and you know, I know it’s It’s a worldwide thing. So in some countries, that’s more money than it is in others. But, you know, in, in North America, it’s not a lot of money to feed your family with. And so I just, I don’t think you’re gonna get a logo, that’s, I don’t think you’re going to get a logo that’s going to do its job, because you’re going to get a logo that they’ve slightly changed from the last logo, and they’ve slightly changed from the last. Exactly, and then they’re gonna look exactly the same. And part of part, one of the things I do in my courses, is I play this, I play this game where I put a whole bunch of logos up on the screen, and make you try to find a specific one. And, and to see, can you do it, and I have yet to have anyone find it. I mean, I only give you like, two seconds to do it. But I say that’s because that’s all you have to find it while driving down the street, right. And so if your logo looks like everybody else’s, or if you buy it off of one of these, you know, like Shutterstock, or something, your logo looks just like somebody else’s. And when we’re going through the Google image search, because the only thing we can remember is the logos. We type in, you know, logo of a shoe, and 500 shoe logos pop up. Can you find the one you were looking for? Because you couldn’t remember the company name? If you can’t, that company is lost your business. And so, you know, again, it goes back to using the colors using the fonts and using things to make it unique. Now, granted, there still might be 500 shoe logos out there. But yours is identifiable because of the colors because of the shape because of the uniqueness. And then oh yeah, there it is. It’s the fourth one down, right. And then it pops and they click on it, and then that provides the link to the website, then they get to the website, and now they’re able to buy your stuff. Or, you know, if you’re selling on Amazon, well, here’s a list of sellers you can choose from, and you’re going, huh, I think it’s that one, I think that’s the one I bought from before. But if all of those logos are similar, then which one did I buy from? I don’t I don’t remember. And so that’s really important. And so I always push again, I say the logo is the most important part of the business. Because it’s the only thing that’s going to connect you it’s it’s your face. And it’s what people are going to remember. And it’s what’s going to connect them from, I’d like to I’d like to get them to I’d like to buy from them again. But how do I find them? And the only way they’re going to do it is the logo.

Norman Ferrar   37:40  

Yeah. And if you’re going to go and build that micro brand from Amazon into an e commerce spread, you know, and create advertising and social media. You know, going back to that consistency, where does it start? And you have to build that, that culture, you have to figure out for yourself what you’re all about. And that starts Well, Jeff sass was talking to us about this in a prior episode. But building out that brand story. sounds crazy, but build out a story about your brand. I mean, absolutely point. The other thing that’s really important the difference between a graphic artist and somebody that creates corporate identity. Two different things. Yes. So you know, first of all, a graphic artist is going to say, oh, what color would you like? Oh, yeah. A corporate identity specialist, which is going to be a lot more is going to ask you have a ton of questions about your business, about your corporate culture about this, that the other thing, you’re going to end up with a ton of different questions that you’re not going to get from somebody on fiber saying, okay, you know, what color would you like? Yeah. Yeah. So and that leads me to another question. First of all, if they’re not getting asked questions run, but what type of questions would would you be looking for, you know, when somebody is developing not only their logo, but what’s what’s going to end up being their corporate culture, their corporate identity?

Michael Kurtz   39:12  

Right? Well, and so, before we even get into that, you should know your target market is your identity. In other words, you know, we’ve all been that person who’s walked into the restaurant after a day of yard work. And everyone’s dressed nicely, and you went, Oh, I don’t think I’m dressed for this place. Now, that doesn’t mean tomorrow, you wouldn’t have been that just means you were like, I’m tired. I just want to grab something and you miss underestimated how fancy the restaurant was. But you don’t want to be that person. Right? You don’t want to be the company that’s misrepresented. So again, if your target market is this group of people versus that group of people And again, it’s it’s, it can be whittled down so much that it’s hard to, it’s hard to give it in a metaphor to say, oh, a low income person or a high income person, they think differently, because they might not, you know, depending on what you’re selling, they might not. So we’ll just say Group A and Group B, if you’re not matching, Group A, which are the people that would be interested in your product, then you’re not going to get them. But Group B isn’t going to come either, because you’re not selling a product for them. So you really have to understand the target market and who you’re going after first. Because, you know, oh, our target market, everyone in our target market is gonna have a sense of humor. So you want silliness in your logo. Now, when I say silliness? I don’t mean, childish. I mean, it’s cute. It’s fun. It makes people smile, right? But if you’re going after corporate clients, you want a completely different experience, right? It’s for business first, and we’re this we take ourselves very seriously. So you’re not going to have something that makes people smile, you’re going to have something that makes people go, Okay, everybody. Like, this is, this is the big deal. This is we got to take this seriously, everybody knock it off. And so, right, but but that’s the thing is, if you’re not focused on that already, you’re gonna pick the wrong colors, you’re gonna pick the wrong fonts, you’re going to pick the wrong everything, like you said, we picked the font, and we felt that cheapened our brand. Now, too, there’s a there’s a group of people that that font would have been perfect for. But it’s not your group of people. And, and, and, and that’s what’s really important to know, is who your group of people is, before you even start your brand identity, because you can tell this amazing story, that they go. Yeah, I don’t I don’t relate to that at all, you know?

Norman Ferrar  41:59  

Yeah. Before we, we go on, I think we’ve got a ton of questions, and maybe we can get to it. But, but if you’re listening to this for the first time, or if you haven’t done this, you like the content that you’re hearing which Michael It’s fantastic. Give us a like or subscribe to our YouTube. I see we’ve got a bunch of YouTube viewers today, but you know, give us a like, subscribe to the channel, we produce tons of content every week. Okay, Kells, what are the questions today so far?

Kelsey  42:32  

Okay, so we have lots of questions. We also have five or six brands that have emailed me to show their logos you talk cool. Yep. So we can go over those two. So we, so we have lots of knots to go to. So let’s see, what do you what do you want to do first questions or logos?

Norman Ferrar  42:51  

Let’s do a couple questions. And then let’s get to a logo or two.

Kelsey    42:55  

Okay, great. So let me see, really back Michael into a corner. Good at I used 99 design, and I ran a contest for the logo, however, I want to make it better. Would you recommend any designers?

Michael Kurtz    43:10  

Um, again, here’s, here’s the problem by recommending designers is you guys have to have a connection, right? designers or artists? And everything they do. It’s part of their personality. The question is, do you click with their personality, so it’s not, it’s not the same thing as hiring, I don’t know, a plumber, right? Like, they’re gonna show up, they’re gonna fix the pipe. And then they’re gonna go home, and you’re gonna go great. And it either worked and you’re happy or it didn’t work and you’re not an artist is going to come in, and they’re going to say, this is this is my idea, right? This is, I like thicker lines. I like brighter colors. I like this. I like that. Um, you know, the way I draw faces has googly eyes versus realistic eyes, you know, it’s all of these things. And so it’s really important to look at their portfolio to really look at it and say, Do I like the stories they’ve told? Do I like it? You know, because again, there’s there’s designers that are great for corporate businesses, there are designers that are great for you know, the, the funner type stuff, and it’s really, what are you trying to do? And can this designer do it because peek behind the curtain is we’re not great at everything, right? We have our talents, we have our specialties and we pick those right? We will turn down jobs because we’re going that’s not my style. I don’t work with good with that. And so, that’s, that’s what you want to do is you want to really study their portfolio. really look at it and say do I like this, does this fit the story that I want to tell? And do I think that that designer will understand the story that I’m trying to tell? Before you pick them? And and, and have them explain the whole vision? Like, don’t just say, Oh, can you make this for me? Great, I’ll talk to you later. But have them talk out the vision, do not be afraid to say I don’t like that. Any designer worth their whatever is okay with you saying, This is crap start over. Now, there’s actually like it, it gives them better direction, right? 100% I love it. I mean, it’s frustrating at times, I’m not gonna lie, it is frustrating when you’ve worked really hard on something, and they go mad. Now, that’s just not what I want. And you go, Okay, alright, I’ll start over. Because we do we put, we put a little piece of our heart into that stuff. But you know, we also understand that our kids have to grow up and move away someday. But but just understand that that, you know, you really you want to evaluate their, their style and, and how they do things before you choose one.

Norman Ferrar  46:04  

I just saw something pop up there. I’m not sure who it was. But you know, they paid like 50 bucks, and then they paid 86 and didn’t like what they got. And these are things that you can go to Fiverr. And you can get sort of those random graphic artists. But like, just to give you an example from our end, if we’re working with corporations, you know, we were looking at starting at around 750. And he ended up going up to easily 1250 or something. Sure you get what you get what you pay for. I mean, that’s the that’s the difference between, you know, somebody that actually knows corporate identity and somebody on Fiverr. So, and I don’t know where that I mean, that could go anywhere. I know this one guy who did this fortune five is I won’t say the brand. But it was a cert, you can figure it out. Probably it’s a circular pattern that’s kind of stretches out like a peace sign. And I knew the great graphic artists that did it, and he got paid $72,000 to do it. And he said, Yeah, you know what I was on acid, I was looking at a piece I just kind of stretched out and he says that was my design. And he’s

Michael Kurtz   47:12  

Whoa. Yeah. But But inspiration comes from anyways. I mean, it’s, I mean, I don’t necessarily advocate hiring a designer on acid. But yeah. But but that’s the thing is, it’s, you know, we work weird hours, because I mean, there’s been times where I’ve woken up in the middle of the night going Eureka, and run, you know, run to the to the drawing board. It’s just you just get, you know, again, I would say, if you find a designer who’s starting out, you can get them much cheaper than $72,000. Because, you know, again, if their portfolio is smaller, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. And but they’re eager to build that portfolio. So, you know, and a designer that’s been around for five years might charge you 1500 bucks, a designer that’s been around for a year and a half, might charge you 400. You know, just because look, I need to get the portfolio up, I need the exposure, I need the word of mouth. And so I’m willing to commit to a cheaper price, but still give you the same quality because again, artists have two rules. They either do it for the money, or they do it for the portfolio. And every artist has taken a job. Because it’s not it’s not great pay. But man, is this going to be a great project? And I just can’t say no to it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, kills. Next question.

Kelsey   48:41  

And I want to throw this over to the beer nation, that our audience listening? How is your experience with your first designer? Do you have any stories of your graphic designers and your logos and however they’ve come to be? So yeah, let us know what your experience was? Did you start with Fiverr? Did you try making your own logo? Did you go big right off the bat? Let us know in the comment section. But our next question is from patea. What’s the best way to come up with a brand name?

Michael Kurtz  49:13  

Oh, that’s a great question. So it’s, it’s actually pretty simple. You take everything you can think of. And again, this is something I talk about in my courses. There’s, in fact, there’s a whole course just on coming up with a name. But because it’s no harm, I will I will peel back the curtain and let you know. It’s you take every word you can possibly think of gibberish, anything, any words you can think of, and you write it down as fast as it pops into your head. Just write it down, write it down, write it down, write it down, write it down. And when you can’t think of anything else, put it aside to go back to it and write it down. Write it down, write it down, write it down. Then look at all that stuff. And ask yourself what words here match My target market, what words here stand out to me like, right? Like, oh, I noticed this word this words, this word strap, and I don’t really notice it, but this word here, it sticks out. And then you take those words, and you put them together, right? So if you know, the word is dynamic industries, right? Oh, that dynamic industries, that’s great, it really stands out. So maybe you change it from dynamic to Dynamo, right? Oh, there’s already a dynamic industries. So you change it to Dynamo, things like that. Because then what you want to do least for the listeners in the US, the first thing you do is you go to the Patent and Trademark Office, and you look to see if there’s already a trademark on it. Because if there is, you can’t use it. Least you shouldn’t use it, then you want to check to see if the website.com is available. And the reason that you want it to be a.com is because that’s what we think of first. It’s just the easiest one. So if the name is available, if the if the whatever trademark that that’s used in your country is available, then you have a name. If not, you sit in a corner and you cry for about 20 minutes, and then you do it again, you know, you go back to the list of words, and you pick stuff out until you find something that’s not only awesome, and memorable, but available. And that’s, that’s again, that’s where I see a lot of businesses get hit is, in fact, there’s a business here in Phoenix that they came up with a name. And they got sued by a company that had kind of sort of a similar name. But they were a huge nationwide company. And this was just a mom and pop industry. And they got decimated, absolutely decimated. Because this big company had all the lawyers they could ask for and this little company, even though they probably would have won couldn’t afford to fight them. And And all because the name was similar. And and and I do believe that had they done their research, they would have said, Oh crap, hmm. Maybe Maybe we’re playing with fire here

Norman Ferrar  52:18  

kind of comes to another. It’s, this is a whole other comment. But why you don’t do your trademark yourself? You know, a, you’ve got your design, yeah, you’ve got you’ve checked it all out you there’s a domain sitting there. And you screw it up, because you make something, you know, so niche oriented, or get a trademark attorney involved? And yes, we talked to a few different trademark attorneys on these podcasts. But you know, you got to do it, you know, spend that money, it’s, it’s the best, whatever it’s going to cost 2500 bucks, whatever it is, get it done.

Michael Kurtz   53:03  

Yeah. And, you know, it’s, it’s so important. Again, just just a pile on what you were saying, it’s so important to do it. As soon as, as soon as you come up with the name, right? Like, even if you’re like, Ah, I’m never gonna be able to start this business, you know, because I got, you know, I’m waiting till my kids turn 18, right, and they move out or they go to college or whatever, once they’re done. Or once I reach this point in my life, then I’ll be able to do it. Great. But if this is a dream you’ve had for five years, we both know that you’re sitting on that name. So by the.com, get the name now, because you have it, then you have it for whenever you’re ready for it. And the worst thing that happens is you decide five years from now, and I don’t want to do it, well, maybe somebody else has come up with that idea. And you can at least sell them the name, right? Maybe the the couple 100 bucks that you spent to hold on to this name, you can make back because now the name has increased in value. You know, there’s a whole there’s a whole industry of, of, you know, people flip houses will there’s an industry of people who just flipped domain names, they buy the domain name, they drive a bunch of traffic to it to raise the cost of it, and then they sell it. And you know, it takes like two years but they make they make a good chunk of change off of it. It’s It’s so it’s worth getting it now, even if you never use it. Okay, next question.

Kelsey   54:36  

From Kurt, is it a must to put the trademark next to a trademark logo, the little tm for those listening?

Michael Kurtz  54:43  

I know the laws of this stuff change a lot and it varies from country to state everything. So I would actually defer that question to a trademark attorney because I don’t want to give the wrong answer.

Norman Ferrar   54:58  

Yeah, I can. Huge disclaimer. We’re not an attorney, but I do this all the time. And again, not an attorney. But the TM for us when we’re doing a design, is we’ll throw the TM up there to show that it is in use. Never put the R up there, unless it’s a registered trademark. But to show that it’s in use that you know, you’re doing business, you can put the circle with the TM. Just again, you want to confirm that with an attorney. Yes. You know, that’s, that’s what we’ve been doing forever. And anyways, it just shows that the logo is in use, the mark is in use.

Kelsey   55:39  

Okay, great. And if you guys are enjoying this episode, please smash those like buttons, let us know what you think, in the comment section. And our next question is from Dr. Cause, hey, Michael, what percentage of ad spend which you allocate, just for Brett brand recognition, slash awareness?

Michael Kurtz    55:57  

Um, depends on your budget depends on depends on how new you are. Obviously, if you’ve been around for five years, you know, you know what works, you know, what doesn’t, um, part of part of starting out is there is some trial and error. You know, there’s there’s still trial and error if you’ve been around for five years, because trends change. But there’s more. So if you’re just starting out. And so I would say, again, it depends on your budget and what your industry is. So if you’re, if you’re opening a restaurant, you have a lot of expenditures, you know, you have to buy equipment, there’s food, there’s supplies, there’s people you have to hire, so you have a lot less money to spend. But again, then you have to spend a lot of it because you want to advertise to the neighborhood’s you want to do this, you want to do that, versus, you know, if you’re an online store, you’re going through Facebook ads, you’re going through these types of things to draw attention back to a website, or shopping portal or something like that. So you’re not going to spend as much because you’re not you’re not doing any of the print ads that a restaurant would write because a restaurant is going to flyer the neighborhood, hey, they’re going to send out coupons and you know, do the things that they that you hang on your door and stuff like that. Whereas, you know, oh, I’m an online store, all of that money is saved, because you’re not printing anything. And printing is really where the money in advertising comes from. Because, you know, we’ve all done the Facebook stuff and go wow, that’s, that’s not very expensive, I sure did a lot for you know, 200 bucks, versus I spent 3000 to get, you know, all these door hangers printed, you know, because I had to hire a designer to make them and then I had to hire the printer to do them. And then I had to hire somebody to go pass them out. So it’s that that’s just a tough question to answer without knowing the industry.

Norman Ferrar 57:54  

Yeah, search volume. And, you know, competitiveness will definitely drive that. I know for one brand that comes to mind, and we do everything in PPC to protect the brand, we know that people are coming after it. So we’ll and it’s actually you know, it’s kind of expensive, but we protect it. So it’s Yeah, it’s a brand awareness play that if somebody comes in you know, we’ve got the the brand sponsored brands, display the the the products, target our competitors, but we are protecting the brand, get on the brand’s name. So XYZ brand, somebody types that in, you know, we’re protected.

Kelsey   58:36  

Okay, do you want to we have a couple more questions, but do you want to go over some brand designs to where? Let’s see, let’s Yeah, one o’clock. This is exciting. Okay, so thank you everyone that I kept sharing their brands, by the way, thank you so much.

Michael Kurtz   58:52  

Yeah, this is awesome. And can I just preface that this, this advice is coming? And if it’s, if it’s not what you wanted to hear? I apologize. But, you know, you’re asking so we’re gonna tell you.

Kelsey  59:08  

Alright, so here we go. Some of them they gave some information, some of them they didn’t so okay. I believe this is a slipper company.

Michael Kurtz    59:19  

Okay. Um, so I get I get the sun in the moon represent, you can wear it all day long. So that the story in the logos pretty well told. I the only thing I’m concerned about and not necessarily something that needs to be changed. I would consider thickening the lines of the actual image just a little bit. Just because at the size that I’m looking at, it’s a little hard to make out the details. But I mean, overall, like I said, I pick up the story. I like the name of Soul Mates like it stands out. And it’s it has that, you know, soul mates, but soul of your feet. So like I get, I think the story is really easy to follow and easy to understand and you know, it’s catchy. So yeah, like I said, that would be my only critique, if I was going to give one is just to thicken the lines a little bit. Just so it’s what I was gonna say. Yeah, yeah.

Kelsey 1:00:26  

Okay. So thank you for that. Are you with the color? Just sec. Are you okay with the color, Michael?

Michael Kurtz  1:00:35  

You know, I’d like to know why they picked it. But I’m not going to necessarily say no, I would be curious why they chose this over a dark blue to kind of indicates a more of a conflict. Like, this is an aggressive color.

Kelsey 1:00:56  

But I was listening. It’s a red darkish red color. Yeah, for audio listeners,

Norman Ferrar  1:01:03  

right. Just kind of curious. Like, if I if I were able to see the packaging put together in the product. You know, everything might be perfect. This this is a like a very nice design. But like he said, Michael, especially on the logo. It’s just very fine. Yeah. You know, to see, but yeah, it looks pretty good. Yeah.

Kelsey 1:01:28  

Okay, so our next one. So some of the resolution just because I’m stretching it and this in Canva. But yeah, this is the next logo.

Michael Kurtz   1:01:42  

So do we know? Do we know what it is? I’m assuming I’m assuming that there would normally be a name with it like either next to it or above it or something like that. So do we know anything about

Norman Ferrar 1:01:54  

I do I just want to make sure it’s okay to kind of say, Marsha, is it okay to to mention we don’t have to talk about the brand, but just what you’re doing? Oh, let’s see. Let’s see. Yes. Okay, so, oh, no, she hasn’t replied yet. Okay, so anyways, let’s just say this is a PP product. Okay. So it’s Oh, great. So this is a really cool product that you can put on your cell phone, or she’s got other products. But it’s um, it’s a anti anti anti anti bacterial anti virus, guys using natural product like copper. And it’s a great product. So it’s it’s got to reflect anti bacteria, anti anti anti, like a PP product. And or kind of a, the one product is on this on a cell phone. The others are, there’s a variety of other products. So it doesn’t really tie in, oh, I shouldn’t say doesn’t tie in. If I’m looking at this, I could almost say, Oh, I can see the cell phone use. But there are other products.

Michael Kurtz  1:03:11  

Yeah. So now that actually makes a lot of sense. Because now that you say that, I see that it’s a fingerprint. So what does the S stand for?

Michael Kurtz  1:03:21  

Oh, that’s her logo. That’s the name of her brand. Okay. Yeah. But But normally, would it also have the name? Yes, it would. Okay. Okay. So then yeah, then I would say the only thing I would say is make sure the name is always with it. Hmm. Because I feel like that would help tell the story. Because once you’ve explained it to me, then yeah, it’s the the fingerprint pops out. And that’s that’s where we connect with the phone is with our fingertips. Right. Yeah. So you know, we use our finger to stand in your to sorry to get the security in. You know, we’re touching it. We’re swiping so i i like the concept I do. I like to color green. Because it’s it’s calming and there’s there’s copper. Right. Right, which is what happens the copper? No, I think it’s pretty good. Yeah, yeah.

Norman Ferrar  1:04:19  

The only thing I’ve ever had, like, I’ve known this product for a while. It was it’s just it was hard for me to understand that the S i didn’t see it at first. And then when I got it, it was like, Oh, yeah.

Michael Kurtz  1:04:34  

Yeah, but that that kind of long form development in your brain is what makes it lock in and you will never forget that logo. Yeah, it’s a very, very well done. Yeah, no, it definitely is. Like I said, I just just make sure the name stays with it. Yeah, cuz I, you know, now that because now that I’ve seen the name, I’m like, Oh, yeah, it all clicks. So

Kelsey1:04:59  

yeah. Okay, great. So we also got news from the first logo. They do have different colors as well. Okay, so that’s just to add that and so so this low got two for two. Yeah, yeah is up. Yeah. So let me see what was gonna say. Okay, yeah and those listening at home the second logo it’s kind of like an oval shape with like a fingerprint design with an S on it’s dark green. Next This is a motor I think I believe it’s a children’s motorcycle company.

Michael Kurtz   1:05:40  

Yeah, good colors good font. Good tagline Yeah, you can see the kind of on the K there’s kind of an indication of speed same with the italicized font gives it that kind of motion of you know moving forward really stands out against the yellow now this is where the the child looking colors right yeah, absolutely no that’s that’s why I said they’re there they’re great color choices everything pops everything looks good. I might I might draw a little bit more attention to the to the adventure starts here you know because it’s with because the way that that has the white border around it and then you just have the adventure starts here. It kind of disappears a little bit like it’s just it I feel like it takes too long for my eyes to go there. And I don’t want to I don’t necessarily want to stay on the adventure starts here. I keep wanting to go back to the to the kiddie moto. But yeah, no, that’s Yeah, that one that one looks pretty good to me.

Norman Ferrar  1:06:57  

Yeah, the only I’m with you, they like the kiddie moto itself as well. You know, it draws your attention. One thing that you might want to look at, you could either make the adventure starts here, expand to the beginning and end of the logo, or, like it’s very fine the like, it’s very bold, and then it’s very fine. Yes. tagline. So you might want to change the font make it a little bit thicker or bigger, or make it run the length or keep it where it is but i don’t know i might make a black so it pops.

Michael Kurtz  1:07:36  

Yeah, I like so the the logo file names thing. I actually think that font would probably work really well with the adventure starts here. I can’t even read that. Yeah, there’s like a thing right below it that says logo file names and color palette. Okay, I’m not that color. Because that colors kind of drab obviously, since North can’t even see it. But that font I think would fit better. Because it’s it’s more fun. Like the adventure starts here is kind of a it’s a little fun. But it’s it’s average at the same time. But the logo and file names is more fun.

Norman Ferrar   1:08:18  

I see Marcia just nailed it. This logo looks playful and fun.

Michael Kurtz   1:08:22  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it’s it’s great. It looks really good.

Kelsey  1:08:27  

Okay, on to the next. These are just some different colors they have for the website, but Alright, next. There are two different designs here. I think one was an original and then the other was an example from another designer taking a crack at it. Okay, let’s go back. So that’s the original. I believe so. Okay, I might have got that mixed up though.

Michael Kurtz  1:09:00  

Yeah, like, I’m having a hard time seeing the other one just because the image is the one on the orange box. The image is small. So I’m having a tough time making up the details. But uh, yeah, no, I mean, it looks pretty good. It because it’s, you know, it’s a light up basketball. So that’s literally light black. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a good name. You know, the box on the left. I mean, oh, clearly, that’s the basketball because it you know, it has the moms of a basketball. The way they put the border around it, to keep the lines from interfering with the flowing text. Especially because this is it. I haven’t seen this font. So I’m guessing this is a custom font. You know, somebody, somebody took the time to actually, you know, create your hand draw each one of these letters. Which is pretty cool.

Kelsey  1:10:02  

They also have a second another box template here, which is a third design too

Michael Kurtz   1:10:10  

busy. Um, I find that one hard to read.

Norman Ferrar  1:10:12  

Yep, too busy. If you go back to the other one, I got a suggestion on the packaging. So yeah, you could do two things. embossed the the orange or spot color it. So you made glossy because yeah, Twilight, you want to bring it out. You can do like something very simple, which is just called spot. The rest of the box could either be gloss, and then that would be matte or matte. And that could be gloss and I would probably pick that matte and then the the lines peak loss. I think that would look really sharp

Michael Kurtz  1:10:55  

it yeah, definitely would. That’s my favorite out of the group. Yeah, that’s I agree. That’s, that’s the one. That box right there is the one that just out of all, all four of them. Yep, that’s the one that I go. I’m going to take that off the shelf. Yep. Just to look at the box,

Norman Ferrar  1:11:15  

all that stuff that you’ve got there with the check marks and all that, you know, put it on the front. You know, the the other one, keep it simple, just like we were talking about, and those could be on the side, you know, they could be on the back of the box. Unless there’s a reason for it. You know, I know that this is being primarily sold on Amazon. So yeah, I would just keep it nice and simple. Okay, this one, I don’t have much information on it. I just got this file, right, who went to Fiverr?

Kelsey 1:11:54  

Well, that’s, that’s the thing is you’d like, I’d like to know what the company is what they do. Because if it’s, you know, if it’s more of a high end company, then less is always more. So, you know, like, I could see this being, you know, $1,000 purses or something. And it’s got to register trademarks. I’m guessing it’s been in use for a while.

Norman Ferrar 1:12:21  

All right. I’m not crazy about the the again, you don’t know what the product is. But yeah, he’s he about the font is just

Kelsey1:12:28  

yeah. So if the person who sent me this, if they want to send any more information, just let me know. And then this is our last logo that we got in.

Michael Kurtz   1:12:38  

And then what’s the what’s the product and service for this? I don’t believe I got that information.

Norman Ferrar   1:12:51  

So can I say something about this? This would look real. I don’t I go out on a limb here. This would look really good. If you had, like right now, I think aesthetically, it’s off balance. It’s it well, you know, it’s kind of on a triangle, but maybe off to the side. to the to the left, that logo would look really would look really good as part of the the word design.

Kelsey 1:13:27  

It’s a home decor.

Michael Kurtz  1:13:29  

Oh home decor. So like are we talking lamps? Are we talking couches? home?

Kelsey  1:13:39  

From my research, it is like shelving rest. Okay, like wall baskets. Mug holders is

Michael Kurtz   1:13:53  

Yeah, that I think this logo fits with that. Um, I would I would Yeah, I’m with norm, I’d be curious to see what it looks like on the left. I’m not I’m not feeling as much off balance as you are norm. But I don’t. I’m not also not sitting here going. I don’t know what he’s talking about, you know? Because this is kind of this is kind of what you see in that style. of, of business, right? Like, I’ve seen a lot of logos that, you know, that look like this in that sell, you know, home furnishings, and I would think that that would be a little bit more of my issue is how unique is it? You know?

Norman Ferrar  1:14:48  

What about Okay, two things, getting rid of the logo, and just having the word mark and then the second part would be Taking the word mark, and centering it, where the logo where the logo is where you’ve got the circle, and then the other circle starts. I’m not sure. Yeah, I still think that it might be, you know, if you blow it up and it’s beside it, but I like I do like the font.

Michael Kurtz   1:15:22  

I do to clean. Yeah, it’s it’s clean. Like I said, my biggest issue is just, I’ve seen a lot that look like this in this industry. And I just my fear is that without knowing the name, it might be hard. It might be hard to find it, especially, you know, in those instances where you couldn’t fit the name. You know, I’m sure there’s, I’m sure there’s instances where you can’t get the actual text in. And then that’s where, like, how memorable is that icon? Yeah.

Kelsey 1:16:00  

Oh, and for this one, I believe it’s a kid’s a kid’s product. Okay, it’s a premium kids product, premium kids product.

Norman Ferrar  1:16:14  

Now, when we’re one thing, I just want to make sure everybody knows, between the three of us. It’s like, if you gave us a painting and we had to go and do this, you know, paint this right, we’re gonna come up with three different designs. So that’s just like different opinions. When I look at this, depending on what your kid’s product is, that’s not a kid’s font.

Michael Kurtz   1:16:39  

But here’s the thing though, here here’s what’s interesting about that is the target market for this isn’t the kids the target market is the parents because it’s a high end kids product do we know that? Yeah, it’s as soon as as soon as you say high end kids don’t care we play when we were kids we play with cardboard boxes. We didn’t care what it was how much it cost. We just we either wanted it or we didn’t and and this is this is for people who say I’m spending a lot of money on my kids clothes or my kids toys. This is this is all for the moms and dads to say look Look what I bought my kid. And so for that I actually think the logo the logo works because it is an adult logo but it’s the adults that are shelling out the money to pay for this stuff. Right? It’s not This isn’t like I said this isn’t something that the kid puts on his Christmas list. This is something that the parents say I want my kid to have this.

Norman Ferrar   1:17:47  

Yeah, okay. Do we know what type of product to accept? Still not

Michael Kurtz   1:17:53  

my guess is clothing. clothing. That’s my guess based based on what this logo is telling me My guess is clothing. Okay.

Kelsey  1:18:01  

Yeah, we don’t have a specific there’s also we got the two different colors from soulmates as well Okay,

Michael Kurtz   1:18:08  

did they say why they chose the oranges red

Norman Ferrar   1:18:10  

earthtones soulmate? I mean maybe that’s it? Yeah. No, they didn’t say you know, I do I like the other like, I know they’ve matched the tone by the way like if you take a look and you see the color matching their graphic artists has gone out and and you know, match the color palette. Yeah, no, they there Yeah, it’s definitely good. Yeah. Now that comes out a bit a bit better. I can see that

Michael Kurtz  1:18:45  

Yeah, I was just thinking I was thinking the same thing like that pops more it doesn’t get it doesn’t get as lost. Let’s take a look at my favorite color. Next. The orange

Kelsey  1:18:57  

it is 122 so

Norman Ferrar   1:18:59  

yeah, we really we’re having fun we’re having fun we’re having a ball Yeah,

Michael Kurtz   1:19:07  

yeah see that kind of has the thin line feel again for me I feel like that the darker background for anything on the darker background you’ll want to add maybe even just like one point to the line

Kelsey  1:19:20  

Yeah, I know personally with orange I’ve run into problems like when I’m trying to create a logo I Lynch’s norm something with the orange just the thin lines just bleeds right out like he does Yeah.

Norman Ferrar  1:19:32  

Can I wonder with something like this and I maybe you know because we do it with lunch with one norm all the time. But I think what would pop is blinds just black. Yeah, late last night if we go up Yeah, I think that would look traumatic Really? What’s,

Michael Kurtz  1:19:53  

what’s looking, what’s it what’s interesting about what you’re saying is black for night. And then when you reverse it You’d have white fur day. or orange for day, sunlight or lesson neither of us have a problem with orange. Yeah, there we go. I got my orange shirt. You’ve got your orange beard.

Norman Ferrar   1:20:12  

Orange beard. Well,

Kelsey 1:20:15  

I got that personally for me, I think like a really dark blue. Yeah, almost blackish would look nice. Yeah.

Norman Ferrar  1:20:21  

But it’s color palettes if you match that and get a really nice blue that will go with that. Yeah, that could that could look good too.

Michael Kurtz  1:20:33  

Yeah. You could probably get away with you know. Oh, Sky Blue too. Is this Kurt’s? Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah, they have black too. They said so

Norman Ferrar  1:20:45  

yeah, nice. Yes, job, Kurt. I like I like what I’m seeing. Except when it’s it’s white on a dark color. It’s very hard. Yeah. For the old guy to to see the colors. Okay, what do we got next? Kells?

Kelsey  1:21:03  

That’s it for the designs that are alright came in. All right, let’s

Norman Ferrar  1:21:07  

have a couple more questions. And we can call it a day. And we’ll get to the lecture norm. But again, because we might have a bunch of people we’re going this is extra long. Yeah. So if you are listening, he just joined us. Michael is going to be giving away a really great one year subscription to his course. And if you’re listening to the information that he’s providing, I mean, he knows his stuff. So it’s a it’s a great subscription hashtag. We’ll have Kelsey, if you take two people, you get an extra entry. And if you like what you’re hearing, give us a like,

Kelsey  1:21:41  

Oh, actually, if you want I think we just got another one. Okay. Sure. And I know Yeah, Miko has to get going. Oh, yeah. You gotta cut off don’t Yeah. Listen, we’re having to keep you if you want. Yeah.

Michael Kurtz  1:22:01  

No, unfortunately, I have another appointment at at a, what would be 130 your time, so. Okay, so I think once we do this, this will be the last one. Just make it nice and big. Okay.

Michael Kurtz   1:22:24  

I’m trying to imagine what the what the scratched out word would do. I’m guessing it’s all balanced. It’s a it starts with two T’s or starts with a T the other No, I mean, what the what the word is necessarily, but just kind of like, you know, I mean, I get that I get that it has to be censored and, you know, but like that, as we all know, that kind of watermark stuff. It’s like throws off the balance of things. I’m not sure what it is. Like, I’m, I’m thinking I like it. If it’s if it’s something with a tee and something tracks, those look like Geez. They look like geez to me.

Norman Ferrar  1:23:12  

And again, it’s perception. Right? I was kind of thinking it was almost like a person with their hands over their head. Yeah, depends what the product is. You know if it is something to do with a fitness product or not sure. Yeah, I’m not sure you like earphones or headphones. It’s whose was that? I’m not sure if they want it. Okay, so it just what type of product? Is it just so we can get an idea?

Kelsey 1:23:43  

Yeah, so if you sent this in, just let me know or in the comment section.

Michael Kurtz   1:23:48  

I’m gonna guess it’s a it’s a train construction company because of the tracks. The tracks. Oh, tracks. Okay. All right. So let’s do a question. While we wait.

Kelsey  1:24:05  

Do you want to do the will of Kelsey. I think I don’t know. Oh, yeah. We

Norman Ferrar  1:24:07  

got to get going. It’s 125. We Yeah. All right. So let’s, let’s get into the wheel of Kelsey. All right, here we go. And now Kelsey is mute.

Kelsey1:24:32  

Oh, there we go. Okay. So I believe we got everyone we got tons of people. So I’ll shuffle these names. Here we go. Put me in there too. I want to three to one. I can’t see. All right. This is from our YouTube viewers. substan thick. All right, welcome the new regulations subsequent substant defeatable. So let us know email me at ke at lunch with norm calm, and I’ll connect you with the prize. Got Michael gave it the code already. So I’ve got that for you. Yeah. Oh, do you want to mention the discount code for everyone or? You want? Yeah.

Michael Kurtz  1:25:25  

So for anyone who’s listening today I’m offering a a 15% discount on a year subscription. Just because honestly, you guys are you guys are awesome. I love the questions. I love the I love the logos, like just awesome. So it’s a live with norm. All one word all lowercase, or sorry, lunch with norm. Forgive me lunch with norm, all lowercase, all one word. And you get you put that in when you sign up, and you get a 15% discount for the year. Okay, fantastic.

Kelsey  1:26:00  

Awesome. So I’ll be putting that into the Facebook group too. And yeah, so

Norman Ferrar   1:26:07  

last thing, Michael? Yes, your website, just if you could, you know, contact information.

Michael Kurtz  1:26:12  

Sure. It is designed from scratch concepts.com. And if you want to reach out it’s info at design from scratch concepts calm. And you can, you know, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram and all that stuff.

Norman Ferrar   1:26:31  

Alright, fans, fantastic. So we’ll let you go. And thank you again for being on we’ll get you back on to answer some more questions. Maybe I’d love it. This was so much fun. You guys. Right? This was great. glad you enjoyed it. We enjoyed having you on. Yeah, thank you. All right, everybody. So hopefully you enjoy this extra long hour and a half podcast about branding. We will, we will get Michael back on. It looks like there’s tons of information, tons of questions. We’re going to post those questions in the group and hopefully Michael can come back and just answer those in the group for you. Okay, now I backed him in a corner that he’s gone. Okay, so Kelsey, what’s happening? what’s what’s happening next Monday.

Kelsey 1:27:18  

All right, Monday, we have Steven Pope. He’s coming on. Amazon market forces, aggregators, Chinese suppliers all bunch of good stuff.

Norman Ferrar   1:27:30  

Yeah, he’s got a really incredible information last time about this is the one thing that I took away from it about the launch. So listing and creating your titles, and how to optimize your titles for launch, but then removing them and putting up a different title three months into it, it was pretty cool. So I’m sure he’s gonna drop us a bit more knowledge here on that. Also, just a reminder, just wanted to thank our guests from yesterday, our special podcast that we had Josh Marsden, and just to remember that he’s got his event coming up on the 19th to the 21st. That I think is going to be fantastic. So check that out. All right, that’s about it. Yes, you

Kelsey 1:28:18  

got our air pods. Air pod pro contest happening now the links are I just added all the links, click on that it’s open for everyone. So follow that and easy to enter. No problem. And we have our special lunch with norm contest happening only in the group. If you search hashtag Lw n beer nation, you’ll see a bunch of the entries there. Great. I love it. I want them to keep coming. And yeah, thank you, everyone. This is a fun episode. I think we got to do this again.

Norman Ferrar   1:28:50  

Alright. Okay, everybody. So join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Eastern Standard Time, noon Eastern Standard Time. Thank you for watching. Thank you for all the engagement that we had today. That was fantastic. Thanks for being part of our community and enjoy your weekend.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai