by Melissa Love | Jun 17, 2020 | Blog |
DO YOU KNOW WHAT FILE TYPES YOU NEED TO ASK FOR WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR BRANDING DONE!
A recurring theme across clients and something I get asked about quite often about is minor changes to an existing logo or marketing collateral, for example, updating the colour scheme or creating a transparent background version of their logo.
The first question I always ask is: Do you have the original file, eps or editable pdf. Most of the time, the answer to this question is NO; I only have a jpg or a png.
When you are researching and looking at a variety of designers to create your brand or rebrand, before you start with them, ask them what file types you will receive after the branding process. Another question to ask is, will it cost you a little more to have the original or source files, as some designers may charge a bit more for this?
At a bare minimum, you should receive your logotypes in a transparent png version, jpg and editable pdf/eps. The other important thing to ask for if you don’t receive a brand guide as part of your package is your colour HEX codes and fonts.
A list of the Minimum file types and why:
EDITABLE PDF/EPS OR AI FILE
The reason you need these files is that you never know when you may want to make modifications to colour and style down the track. And if you no longer have contact with the original designer, it can become a bit tricky, meaning you may have to have your logo recreated instead.
PNG
You want to ask for your logo as a transparent background PNG. You also want to get variations of your logo in black, white and colour. These files are easily adaptable to any size and won’t pixelate when you enlarge them, hence the recommendation
JPEG
Jpeg files can be useful to have and use, although it does not tend to be a file type widely used.
As a recap, when you get your design work done, these are some of the file types to ask for from your designer at the completion of the project.
PDF PNG (transparent background and with a white background)
JPEG
EPS (editable source files)
by Melissa Love | Jun 5, 2020 | Blog |
I thought I would share a recent experience with you and how I handled it.
I had diligently set up my email sequence and form for people to download one of my Free Resources. 10 Top tips on building your Facebook Network.
I had noticed that I was getting a lot of downloads which I thought GREAT.
On closer inspection, I noticed that they were a whole lot of random emails and a lot of names on the list that the email DID NOT match the NAME of the contact = SPAM.
I wonder if you have had the same problems as well, surely I can’t be the only one?
MMM, I’ve never had this happen before, so I began to dig a little deeper. After some research, I discovered that there are people who use BOTS to enter details into forms randomly, IT’S A THING! It isn’t pleasant and takes up valuable contact space on your list for those who are genuine prospects and clients.
I then discovered that in ActiveCampaign, you could add a safeguard to your form, to help prevent this from happening, by adding a CAPTCHA. To do this, you can add the module from the fields section, where you choose what information you want your prospective clients to fill in.
In light of this discovery, I thought I would share my findings with you so that if you run into the same problem, you know that there is an easy solution.
If you would like any help with setting up your email sequences, forms or marketing, you can contact me below.
by Melissa Love | Feb 11, 2020 | Blog |
In today’s digital landscape and the world of social media, I see so many business owners and entrepreneurs become overwhelmed when creating graphics for their marketing collateral.
Entrepreneurs are spoiled for choice nowadays when they can choose the DIY option for creating their social media graphics, with so many programs and visual options available to them.
Entrepreneurs can then become blind-sighted by what I call Shiny Object Syndrome, with a variety of images, fonts and colours at their disposal. Which inevitably, in some cases, leads to their visual marketing collateral not being consistent or on brand. They become confused, overwhelmed, and the task of creating images gets put in the ‘too hard basket’ and left for another day rather than taking imperfect action.
A Mood Board can be beneficial if you are yet to have had your branding done or only have the basics done. Let me explain how a Mood Board can help you to avoid shiny object syndrome and stay consistent in the visual elements and marketing collateral that you use online.
A Mood Board in terms of branding and marketing collateral is essentially a digital collage that allows you, the entrepreneur a visual representation, feel and direction of your branding. It enables you and your team to stay consistent in your imagery when creating visual elements and marketing collateral for your business.
For example, When creating a mood board, think about; who is your audience, what is the tone and voice for your brand; who do I want to attract? Will it be dark or light? Is it professional, calming, nurturing or playful? The ideas above are just a way for you to begin exploring what feeling it is that you want to create within your soul clients.
Some of the things that you can include in the Mood Board are:
- Images that resonate with your brand
- Fonts that you use when creating your images
- Brand colours and accent colours
- image types (colour and feel of an image)
- patterns
- graphics
- layout
Mood boards usually a casual representation of your brand, pulling together a band of elements and represent the feel of your business. Their purpose is to give you inspiration and ideas.
So have a play today and create something that helps you to stay consistent and on-brand with your social media and marketing collateral.
by Melissa Love | Oct 3, 2017 | Blog |
My journey to becoming an entrepreneur came from a variety of reasons. I have always loved creating. Be that drawing, art scrapbooking, digital, making candles and notebooks and more over the years. It fed my soul and a way to connect to my inner self, to get out of my head and into my heart. So I decided to enrol in a graphic design course part time while working.
Working as a Kindergarten teacher at the time, I found myself in a conundrum of needing more flexibility and time to be able to attend IVF appoints, with a less than accommodating boss who just did not understand that specialist appointments scheduled, I had little choice over what time I was given. So one day I woke up and decided it was all too hard, after many sleepless nights, anxiety, teas and fears of the reaction from boss about another appointment I needed time off for, I bit the bullet and handed my resignation in. I CHOSE ME for a change rather than pleasing others.
So began my entrepreneur journey, and the many gifts to unfold upon this journey to date. I won’t lie, it has been a hard fought out slog to date, when you are trying to birth and create something special in multiple areas of your life and not being able to give either 100% priority. Building a business doing what you love helping and supporting people to create beautiful visual brands, as well as taking on the very lonely, emotional and physical toll that IVF brings, finding balance was hard.
The emotional and physical rollercoaster of infertility, led me to look into alternate methods of healing thyself, and with that, I entered into a whole new world of energy and intuition. I became fascinated and learned many skills, had many AHA moments and realisations that I am an Empath, Natural Healer and highly intuitive, I just had never truly understood before the syncronisities and knowing I had over the years. So I began to hone these skills, embrace them and trust.
I am still on my journey of infertility, spirituality and creative bliss, but I am now beginning to see how all my experiences and skills come together to help me best serve the gorgeous people around me.
Through my infertility journey, although not successful to date, I completely understand how much family is a precious gift to be cherished and that you want to have time and flexibility in your life to spend with those you love. You don’t want to be spending countless hours doing things that you don’t enjoy or waster your time. Through my spiritual journey and connection to the animal realm, I have learned that I am able to intuitively connect with my clients, to really help them pull out the key elements of their business and help them to create stunning visual elements to enhance their brand.
I am on an ongoing Journey as we all are, embracing who I am with my intuitive and healing abilities, my connection to the animal world so that I am able to serve the divine people around me, my tribe. To be able to give them more time, flexibility and space in their business to be the powerhouse creators they are in their zone of genius and do what they love, instead of spending countless hours on things that they don’t or time better spent on something else. I love supporting my tribe with their business, creating visual elements, helping with tech, being their cheer leader so that they can focus on bringing their message to their world.
by Melissa Love | Sep 13, 2017 | Blog |
Using specific colours in your branding to invoke a particular feeling in your clients can help you to connect with your tribe.
Colour plays such a crucial role in our everyday life and how certain colours make you feel as well as the colours we associate we certain products or feelings.
When you are looking at creating a brand or any marketing collateral for that matter, its important to look at the colours you want to use to create the desired feeling you want your clients/customers to feel when engaging with your content.
As you may know, many people associate the colour green with health and wellness, eco friendly, earth conscious, nature, natural, peaceful, quiet, serene.
I love working with colour and helping people to choose what colour or colours to use within their brand and branding collateral. This really is based upon a myriad of things. Firstly what are you drawn to, although this may not necessarily be the ideal colour to connect with your target market.
Do some research on your target market, who are they, what do they enjoy doing, what is their potential age brackets. Because also different target markets may be drawn to different colours as well, so keep that in mind when you are creating your colour palette.
What is your industry? Is it health, wellness, finance, children, masculine or feminine dominant, creative, healing, marketing, spiritual etc. You need to really feel into your industry and how you want yourself and your business to be portrayed within the world.
Want to know more about how colour attracts your tribe, Contact me today.
by Melissa Love | Aug 21, 2017 | Blog |
Hi Everyone,
So many people come to me looking for logo designs for their business. But did you realise that your logo, whilst being the most visual and engaging aspect of your brand/branding it is not the sole focus of what goes into your brand to create your branding.
I was speaking with a potential client the other day looking to have a logo done for her new business. However, she was really unsure about what she was wanting at all, except that she wanted black and white. She was struggling with what to come up with, she knew what her business is and what she will be selling, but unsure of the rest. So I gave her a few suggestions to help her get clarity around what she may be looking for. So I though if she is struggling with how to really understand how she wants her brand to feel, maybe some of you are too. So I thought I would share the couple of tips I gave her, so that she could have a better idea of what she is looking for before going to the designer. So therefore,
A couple of tips to consider before you go to get your logo done, so that you are super clear on what it is that you are looking for, it also gives your designer a much greater insight into the people you are ultimately wanting to engage and build a business relationship with.
Firstly, Get clear on your target market, who are they, where do they hang out, what type of people are they etc.
Secondly, make yourself a list of words that encompass what your brand is all about, how you want it to feel. Eg elegant, luxurious, fun, colourful, healing, upmarket, etc
Thirdly, make yourself a moodboard, research the internet, look for pictures that inspire you, or you are drawn to that you think and feel fit the brand that you want to create for people, look for colours that you are drawn to and create yourself a possible colour palette that represents the brand you want to create. You may want to look at fonts that you like etc, even look up inspirational logos.
Fourth, you can also look up brands that you admire and use these as examples to provide to your designer for the type of feel you are looking for.
These 4 things can help you get a feel for the type of branding you are going for and provide your designer with a much clearer direction when you are ready to have your logo designed. Most designers also provide this kind of service for additional costs, but if you are on a tight budget, this is something you can do yourself to help you get clear and save you some time and money.
If you would like to chat more about anything I have written here, feel free to contact me. I provide free 15 min chats and I also provide an hour clarity session where we can brainstorm your ideas and I can help you get clarity around what it is you aspire for your business.
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