I just hatched...

... my new logo.

Comparatively speaking, renaming the business was easy.

The interesting thing about being a logo designer and trying to do your own is that there isn't a client ever saying it's finished. So I've been doodling and noodling around with this for about a month, never coming to a conclusion, always coming up with another idea.

"Jane! Stop this crazy thing!"*

I finally wised up and sent out my two best candidates to a small representative sample of colleagues, clients and referral sources (3-4 each). I knew that I wouldn't get total consensus amongst a diverse group but I wanted to get second opinions and fresh eyes on it. So, I asked them to look without knowing what I wanted to "say" and register a first reaction, and only then scroll down to get details of the already established reputation and brand I was trying to represent, and tell me if I was doing that.

Essentially, those elements were:

* I was targeting small businesses that wanted to make a big impression with professional design. My clients want to stand out, be seen as bigger than they are, and be successful doing what they love. I help them build the image that empowers them to do that (the winning logo was intended to represent a person with arms upraised in an expression of empowerment, celebration and enthusiasm and I put the symbol on a pedestal or in a spotlight to further highlight their success)
* My bio has always said "Eileen can always be found at the intersection of creativity, information and technology" (the losing logo tried to reflect that but it's okay because the collage on my web site still reflects those concepts)
* I've often been referred to as a "business midwife" that helps to incubate and hatch businesses (hence an egg shape for the background)
* Obviously the turtle has been part of my brand for 10 years but I was trying to get away from the cartoonish one I had (the most popular logo in my test reminded people of a turtle despite it not even being apparent to me, and they felt that was something I should pursue. So the turtle gets yet another stay. I'm secretly pleased.)
* My colors, teal green representing growth and success, and purple, reflecting the creativity, passion and spiritual principles that thread through my business, weren't going anywhere.

My test people were absolutely fantastic and helped me see things I hadn't seen and gave me terrific feedback on how the logos came across to them, often in ways that were not good but that I hadn't seen. My other logo attempt, for example, "looked like the fish that people stick on their cars" wrote one client. I hadn't seen it that way and was glad someone pointed it out so I could change it.

The first round had no clear winner - nearly a 50/50 split in fact, but after some adjustments to both, a direction became clear. The winner just got added to my web site.

Now I can go worship at the altar of chocolate bunny gods without thinking about this any longer.
Phew.

* If this doesn't ring any bells, its a reference to one of my favorite childhood cartoons, The Jetsons, and a regular scene where George is walking Rastro on the conveyor belt and can't get off...

posted by Eileen @ 12:57 AM 0 comments
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Renaming the Business, Keeping the Brand

You might have noticed, I'm in the process of changing the name of my business. This change was a long, long time coming and well over due.

When I started SOHO It Goes! in early 2003, it was amidst tremendous economic and industry changes (in a post 9/11, dot com imploded world). I (unwillingly) thought that web and graphic design might be "behind me" and I had a notion of being something more like a virtal assistant with great design skills. Looking back, I sometimes wonder WHAT I was thinking during those strange times!

Anyway, at the time, SOHO (or "small office/home office") businesses were my main target audience and I wanted to show those business how to go places... hence the name, SOHO It Goes. It was also, obviously, a play on the phrase "and so it goes" which probably unconsciously reflected the state of mind I was in, come to think of it! Talk about lessons in how NOT to brand a business.

As the business grew and evolved, I found myself doing exactly what I had done with Turtle's Web Art & Design from 1995 til 2000 - custom web and graphic design. And more and more, the business and marketing plan behind the business name, changed. I grew to better understand my target audience, and idea clients. I also learned a TON about the pyschographic of SOHO businesses, and who really connected with my solutions. And I began to realize that I wasn't really marketing to SOHO businesses... that in actuality, only a small fragment of SOHO businesses were my target audience.

The name, SOHO It Goes, was cute and catchy and a lot of people liked it. One lesson I learned was that although "SOHO" was a well enough recognized acronym in the virtual world, more people than not didn't know what it meant. Some folks thought it meant a neighborhood in NYC - so I was trendy that way - but that wasn't accurate either. What really concerned me, most of all, is that it said absolutely nothing about what my business was. I rationalized that neither did "Amazon" or "Google" but in my gut I knew that as a micro business in a phenomenally competitive industry, I'd better be both recognizable AND understood in all of my marketing efforts.

The Turtle was another story. Turtle was my alter-ego and mascot since my early web design days, going back to 1995, and I hated to give him up. He, too, evolved, but I really worried that if I ditched my Turtle, no one would know who I was! Over time, I realized that despite assurances from clients who jokingly called me the "fastest turtle on the web," the turtle, whether by it's cartoonishness or slow connotation, was hurting more than helping. This was never more true when I was going head to head with three other local firms to try to land a big corporate account and I suddenly felt like going inside my own shell when I realized what my branding must look like to them.

Deep down, I knew my brand, so carefully and even successfully built, had to change to meet my big future plans for the survival of this business.

For nearly a year, I applied what I taught other business owners about branding, behind the scenes, and explored various new names. In the end, after having to eliminate literally hundreds of great names which were already taken, I settled on something simple and absolutely unmistakable in nature: Business Design Studio. To my astonishment, the domain name was available! Even better, it's high in the alphabet for indexing and listing purposes, and has good search engine reach (for example, the phrase "web design studio" had 1,952 searches, "graphic design studio" had 1,440 searches and "business web design" had 3,337 searches last month. "Business design" itself had 444 searches).

Once I snagged the domain, I sat on it. For months and months. Why? Well, quite frankly, FEAR! I had put so much energy and time into branding SOHO It Goes that I was utterly terrified I'd be losing those three years of effort and I'd be back to square one. I asked other branding experts for an opinion and got so many different answers that I chased my tail for months more. But gradually, as I shyly mentioned the name to clients and colleagues and got fantastic feedback on it, I realized that I could do this. Branding is a combination of so many elements - the name, certainly and the logo, perhaps. But more important was the reputation I'd built over those three years, and the expectations my customers have of me. I knew that wouldn't change. And going forward, that energy I spend on branding will better find it's target because I finally have a name that makes some sense. See, I'm living proof that even designers and people who write about, study and implement branding strategies can still always learn a thing or two! Humble pie doesn't taste that bad.

I'm still working out the kinks on a new logo... that is going to take longer than the grueling effort of actually changing a business name as deeply rooted and linked to as mine. But the changes are well underway. The old domains and email address will remain although I'd appreciate any effort to point and refer people to the new domain, BusinessDesignStudio.com. Thanks for listening, all the support and patience and for being my wonderful invisible audience.