Happy Labor Day

Hi guys.  I just wanted to share this video with you as you celebrate Labor Day this year.

Stay awesome

I Sell Dresses But I Am Not In The Dress Business

I Sell Dresses 

But that is not my business

My part-time pizza delivering job gives me plenty of time to myself.  Sometimes I listen to music while I drive. Sometimes I listen to news radio or sports radio.  Sometimes I just stick my iPhone into the external jack of the car stereo and let Pandora do the rest.  

But every now and then I pop a book on CD or CD audio program into my stereo and listen as I drive delivering pizzas.  Last month a friend of mine, who knows of my entrepreneurial spirit, suggested a book to me.  It's called The E Myth Revisited.  BTW, it's a sequel to the original The E Myth. 

If you are interested in reading for yourself you can find the book by clicking right here.  Or learn more about the author and his program by clicking right here
By the way, that does not mean that I endorse the above-mentioned program and/or book.  I just wanted to share and I am making no money from sharing. It's just good old fashioned word of mouth advertising.

A tiny weeny bikini's best friend
Picture altered for affect
so don't worry most sundresses are not that transparent

So again I ask myself, "What business am I in?" I don't really have much background in women's fashions because, well, I'm not a woman.  And if you've read my earlier blog posts than you know that I didn't start out by selling dresses.  


Here is what I want to sell

What I really want to do is sell furniture and home decor products from Thailand.  

Rugs

Fabrics

Decorations

Light Fixtures

Leathers

      And a lot more...
But that's not what I want to be known for.  Everybody sells furniture and home decor.  Everybody claims that they have the best, or the most, or the cheapest, or something else that will get you inside their store to buy their goods.

I don't want to be in the home decor business.  I don't even want to promote my business as furniture and design...although my background, technically, is interior design.  Like my website says, We find the cure for boring dwelling spaces.  We find the cure for boring. Period.

What big businesses are so good at is converting the process of finding a place to rest your buns into something insignificant.  Furniture, home decor, case goods, and the like are all now mass produced with machines that manufacture to specific dimensions based on some type of algorithm appropriate to your own needs.  Materials are cheap plastics and vinyls upholstered over plywood or composite wood.  

And it's not just the manufacturer's fault.  Furniture stores are so huge now that they have stores within stores.  You walk through the bedroom department, to the kitchen department, to the living room department, to the game room or movie department passing arm chairs by the dozen.  It's not always bad to have so many options available to you.  After all, the concept of variety has worked out fairly well for Baskin Robbins.

But when you see item after item and the only difference between any of them is the dye lot when changing colors it gets a little boring.  Yawn.  How about something with style, substance, and a story to go with it?  

A picture of my adorable son at age 1

A picture of an oil on canvas painting of my son
that proudly displays in my own home

   

--  











  

             If you are the kind of person who walks into a room and falls in love with it because it says something then you are the person I am trying to talk to.  You are the person passionate about life, passionate about history or culture, passionate about passion without rhyme or reason.

My business is to find a better way...

My business is to cure boredom.  My business is to let the awesomeness that is uniquely you find a place to sit down and hang out.  My business is to give you a new way of seeing the place you call home...or office...or anywhere else.  And business is pretty damn good.

What I don't have is the money to launch it like a space rocket.  Those who have read my blog have already know.  If you are new to my blog let me answer your question.  I am selling sundresses as a way to raise capital so that everything we've just mentioned can actually happen.  And here's the good news.  I am offering an irresistible offer to all who feel the same way that I do.  I am introducing a loyalty program that will, literally, blow your socks off.  I am introducing the $5 sundress.  Here's how it works.

# is a symbol used by Twitter.  If you have already bought a sundress (or two) and if you have a Twitter account then send a tweet about your dress.  It could be as simple as "I bought a sundress from @importblue"  By the way, that's my Twitter handle.  Of course, it could be a little more creative.  I'll explain why in just a moment.  If you have yet to buy a dress then you could tweet something like "I want to buy a dress from @importblue"  Each tweet will qualify you for the $5 sundress.  That's 80% off the retail price.  And that's not just for one dress.  That's for all dresses you will ever buy from Blue Orchid Imports from now until the end of time.  Sound irresistible yet?

It gets even better.  There's a reward for the person who has the most creative tweet and/or the most creative hashtag.  You could hashtag something like #IfoundAbetterWay to buy sundresses from @importblue, or #MyDressIsNotBoring @importblue or anything else creative.  The hashtag rules are simply this.  It has to contain the words "boring," "cure," "business," or "better way" in it.  The reward is a year's worth of free dresses.  That's 100% off the retail price.  Irresistible? I think so...and I think you think so, too.

Creativity is key.  Include a photo in your tweet (yes, Instagrams that are linked to Twitter will count as long as they include the proper hashtags) to increase the activity.  You could tweet a picture of yourself in a sundress, a picture of a day at the beach or at the pool and how you use your dress as a swimsuit cover.  You could tweet a picture of how you accessorize with jewelry, boots, jackets, or whatever.  You could tweet a picture of a family photo showing all the women of the family in sundresses.  It's up to you.  The sky is the limit.  Just remember to keep everything tasteful.  The contest for free dresses starts from now until July 4 of this year.  

And if you don't have Twitter?  Click here

So let's recap.  Send me a tweet about sundresses and you are included into the $5 dress program.  For life.

Each tweet from now until July 4 qualifies you for a chance to win free sundresses for a year.

Tweets must have the proper hashtag.  The more creative the better your chances of winning.

You can send as many tweets as you want.  If you have more than one tweet you have much better chances of winning.

In order to win the free dresses you have to buy at least one dress.  

Thanks for reading.  If you have questions you can email me at andrew@importblue.com or you can send me a Twitter @importblue

I Don't Speak Thai But I Try

Just For Fun ฝรั่งร้องเพลงในภาษาไทย

I thought I would share a little something about one of the largest challenges in my business--the language barrier.



Here is a video that one of my friends posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago.  I have no idea who this singer is, but I thought it was kind of fun and rather creative.  

For anyone who has ever spent more than two weeks outside of one's own home country this video is for you.  I think the essence of both confusion and frustration is captured quite well in Maggie's video.

I have been able to speak Thai fairly well for over ten years, but I am a little rusty.  I learned that the hard way when I went to Thailand last year to help set up my business.  Nevertheless, after a week or so I felt more comfortable because my brain was overcoming the language equivalent of jet lag.  

Then earlier this year-- in the middle of the night-- I received a phone call from one of my contacts in Thailand.  My brain was in sleep mode.  If any of you have ever been awakened in the middle of the night you know what I mean.  Imagine that kind of torture on your mind plus having to listen, process, and then respond in a foreign tongue.  Such is the price of doing international business.  

But like I said, I liked Maggie's video so much because of its authenticity.  So I decided to make a little video of my own.  

It was kind of fun to sing the little jingle.  All music and lyrics are the intellectual property of Maggie Rosenberg.

That's why today's blog is a little bit late.  Enjoy!

Dresses For Sale

These are some of the dresses for sale. And this not even half of what I have in stock. If you want to know more details please leave a comment in the comment section below.

More photos to come later.

And, yes, I know that the blog could use a facelift.  All in good time.  It's coming soon.  Today is substance over style.

Thanks for reading and be awesome instead.

Big Changes Start Small

Why is there a picture of a dress?
I'll get to that in just a moment.

Here is what I want to say. 
 For the very few of you who are reading my blog, namely my wife and my wife's step father you probably already know what I 'm going to say.  Maybe the two of you can help spread the word about this post and my business.  Anyway if you are here then you may have already read something about my business.  Maybe you have read about my Kickstarter campaign.  Well, guess what?  It failed.  I do not want to say that it failed, but it did not raise enough of the money I  needed in order to complete the project.  

Let me start from the beginning.  

This is my not-so-long version of my story.

Just before Christmas of 2011 I got fired.  I can now admit to myself and to the rest of the world that it was my fault.  I got lazy. I got bored. I didn't really like the job I had in the first place, but it paid the bills.  In other words I was living a lifestyle that I didn't want in the first place and I was spending all of my time working for a life that I didn't like.  I knew it and my wife knew it and she couldn't see it at the time because it was so gradual but I had slowly moved away from the man she married.  

This is my lovely
 and awesome wife, Laci

The job just sucked  it sucked all of my creative powers from me and I was just looking for a way out of it.  What I should have done was listen to my gut instinct the fist day of the job when I realized that this was not the job for me.  In stead of listening to that inner voice I came up with the excuse that our new family needed the money and it was better than my painting job or my job in retail sales at Macy's.  The pay increase was nice at first.  I was actually relieved to have 30,000 dollars a year, and at the time it was the most money I had ever earned  It opened up a lot of new possibilities or so I thought.  That was the voice I kept listening to when I should have listened to the real voice within me that said, "You were not meant for this! You did not go to college for this!  This is not what you do! This is not who you are.  This is not your passion!"

Well, thanks to a cold in the middle of December, and a really bad work behavior that consisted of: showing up up late, and leaving early, and an overall resentment towards just about everybody in my department--when I came into work late on December 12, 2011-- I came into my cubicle I saw no keyboard where it should have been, and I saw a note that sad the manager needed to speak with me.  So when the manager had a free moment I walked into his office and he shut the door.  He said that I was terminated for lack of respect and that I was to gather my belongings and leave my key to the office on the desk.  

Wow! what a feeling that was.  
The only real feeling in my heart and in my mind was "How do I tell my wife that I just got fired?"  
The first days and weeks were quite uneasy since it was still Christmas time and I didn't want to make Christmas worse than it already was going to be.  I'm sure my wife wanted to kill me...or at the very least, go get another job because she was quite afraid that we would end up back in a lifestyle that she grew up with. 

 I guess she was very familiar with having lots of extra month at the end of the money.  But something within her told her to hold her tongue, trust me, and support me in my decision.  So Laci, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me do what i have done.

And I guess I should thank my former employer for doing the thing that I couldn't do...end the relationship at work and letting me be free to do want I was really meant to to.  One day I will have the sincerity to do that... so just hold on if my former employer or anyone else from that job is reading this.  I'm working on it.

During that awkward time when I was just newly fired one of the questions that came to mind was whether or not I should continue with my business trip scheduled for March 2012. In late summer 2011 I had enough drive to say that I was going to officially start my own business doing the very thing that I wanted to do--import home decor and furniture from Thailand.  

On August 12, 2011  (anyone in Thailand knows how significant that day is) I officially formed Blue Orchid Imports LLC after months of figuring what type of business I wanted, how to get it started, and how to name it.  In fact, it was my wife who came up with the name... again thanks to Laci for helping me out with that.  Then in September 2011, I actually booked a plane ticket to Thailand and put myself...and my family into credit card debt.

That was why in December when we had the bad news of my job termination we questioned whether we could actually stay the course with my business plans.  Laci has been so graceful   She said to me, "Go follow your dreams" and in March of 2012 I traveled to Thailand to find markets, vendors, people, anyone, and anything that would help me along the way.  

Well, it has now been one year since then and sometimes it seems that the only things we have from that trip are a lot of bills yet to be paid.  When I came home from my business trip I searched high and low for the resources that would help me get to where I wanted to  be.  I knew banks wouldn't give me the time of day, but I knew of a small enterprise fund called the Utah Micro Enterprise Loan Fund that loans out up to 25,000 dollars in business loans.  I worked for months trying to get a loan that would help me get things moving.  After all of that work they still said no.

I also tried to do some crowd funding, through this brand new innovation called Kickstarter.  I figured that If I couldn't get one institution to give me 10,000 dollars I could get 10,000 people to give me a dollar each.  As I mentioned earlier,that didn't work.

So what do we do? 
 Now that I have the ability to look back I think that it may have been serendipitous that I had the many experiences that I did within the past year.  When I first got off the plan in Bangkok the first thing I did after I placed my luggage in my hotel room was go to the Chatuchuk  Market just outside of the city  Keep in mind that after 24 hours of travel, jet lag, and instant heat and humidity increase, the last thing I wanted to do was hit the streets. But I knew that I didn't have much time and so I hit the markets.


Among all of the booths and markets that I ran into, one of the things that actually caught my eye was a vendor for sundresses. 



 I'm an interior designer, not a fashion designer so what the heck was I doing looking for fashions?

And not just any fashions, women's fashions?

I really don't know why I did, but I did.  I had some photos and I messaged the  photos to one of my colleagues who now lives in Florida and she loved them.

 By the way, I love how awesome technology is!  Even five years ago I could not have been able to communicate the way I was able to do last year.  Thanks to Facebook, and Twitter, and smartphones, and  the Internet, and photo sharing and so forth. Totally awesome.  Saved my butt. 

When my friend and colleague took a look at those dresses in the photo she wanted to know if I could get some for her.  I said sure.  They didn't cost very much and I could squeeze enough room in my luggage for a few dresses.  Well, one thing lead to another and I had about four or five orders for dresses from a couple of friends who wanted some.

I also ran into an Englishman living and working in Bangkok.  He works for supercheap freight.com  and he specializes in shipping.  As I went there one day to send some of my personal effects home we engaged in conversation. He mentioned that there were plenty of people who buy small flea market items such as sundresses and ship them home to sell on eBay.  He said that these people actually made a good living doing so.

I didn't think much of the conversation at the time, but but I am glad I remembered.  One of the reasons I remembered him so well because he was  the only vendor I could find in all of Thailand that would accept Pay Pal.  

I also happened to run into a friend of a friend who knew enough English and was an expert at bank transfers and fashion.  I didn't think much of the experience at the time, but it has proven to be quite valuable as I will explain later.

Anyway, fast forward to when the Utah Micro Enterprise Loan Fund failed and the Kickstarter project failed and I was left wondering how i was going to get any money at all to start this business.  I was fed up. I was mad. I was worried and I knew that our current plan was not going to work.  So I told my wife that we would do whatever it took to get us going.  We have already made some sacrifices along the way and we have some pretty big sacrifices yet to come.

Thanks again to my loving and supportive wife who has agreed to help me out.  I thought that if we couldn't get enough money to import the big home decor items then we would scale it back even more and start even smaller.  I was going to sell sundresses as a way to raise money   After all the Marriott company stated with a husband and wife who sold root beer.  Look at them now.  Pretty impressive.

So that's what we have decided to so.  But that's not all.  My wife, Laci, who I love, has a little blog of her own that she calls That Yarn Girl.  She loves to crochet.  She started doing it as a hobby and would make a few things for friends, but she had a small little idea to sell some things.  She just didn't know how.  I hinted a few times that she could join forces with me and sell her crochet items along with my imported sundresses and that's what we're going to do.

So this spring and summer we will be working together side by side.  During the winter I have saved up enough money by delivering pizzas to buy some dresses and ship them here so we could sell them in the spring.  I also used up a little bit of whatever credit I had available to buy some mannequins online to help with our display.  

You remember me mentioning that person I met in Thailand who worked at a bank and could speak English   Well, I asked her if she could be my purchasing agent.  She has been a lifesaver!  She has done all of the heavy lifting in buying the dresses and shipping them here.  Wow, you never know what's going to come your way!

So Laci and I will be selling items together for the spring and summer so we can get enough money to self fund our fist major purchase.  I figure we'll need at least 10,000 dollars to get our first shipment.  Maybe a little more than that now.  But that's what we're working for.

We're not just looking for money to take care of our needs, we're having a little fundraiser.  We're putting everything into getting that first purchase made.  And I guess that's how you can help.  If you see us along the way please take a look at what we have to offer.  

I'm also going to give my website a bit of a face lift so that people can order sundresses online through Pay Pal or eBay or something.  So stay tuned for that to come.

What I want for all of you reading this right now is to consider how much it helps a friend by supporting my little business.  Please take a look a the dresses and crochet items and ask yourself if you could buy one or two.  Maybe even if you don't need one

So now that you have already read this long post that I said was not going to be long 

If you have read all of this than thank you. Keep coming back to my blog. I am going to put more thoughts and feelings on my blog and share more of my secrets. Just come back to my blog.  If you have already read all of this blog post today than please follow me and  and if there a is anything insightful just let me know.  Make a comment.  You know how blogs get going-- they share with other blogs.  They spread like fire on Facebook or Twitter or heck even Google+  

So please follow me along this journey and see what great items are to come.  

And if you know anyone who would like a sundress please direct them to my site.

Thanks for reading and be awesome.

Kickstarter

Bake Sale!

How many of you have ever been to a bake sale?  Chances are that you have, and you had no problem opening up the wallet and spending a few bucks on yummy goodies.

It's for a good cause and you know it

Why would you pay $3 for two cookies or $5 for a piece of cake when you could buy a complete package of treats at the grocery store? Because the high school marching band needs new uniforms, and you want to support your neighbor's kid. And you can spare your spare change  for something meaningful.  

That's what Kick Starter is...
A bake sale for business.
And that is what I am doing online with my business.



Click the play button on video below for a quick video

Here is How Kick Starter Works

In a traditional bake sale you would go to the annual 4th of July event (or some type of city event) at the city park and see a booth with homemade signs that say something like

"Help the marching band play in style with new uniforms"

So you buy a couple of treats.  You feel good.  The marching band feels good.  Everyone wins.

Or...maybe you don't want to consume all of that sugar and you ask,

"I really don't need the treats.  Can I just make a donation instead?"

No problem.  You still feel good.  The marching band still feels good.  More treats for the next person to buy.  Everyone still wins.

And...then, every once in a while somebody comes along who feels like being rather generous.  Maybe it's an alumnus who marched in the same band 20 years ago, maybe it's your grandmother who just loves you like grandmas always do, or maybe it's the town mayor who wants bragging rights that the high school in his town has the chance to perform in the Rose Bowl Parade and wants to just rub it in the face of the other local mayors.  So, for whatever reason somebody strolls around and says,

"I see that you are close to your goal.  Can I give you more than what you're asking for?"

Sure.  Why not?  Anything leftover will simply go into our account for other useful items.

Kick Starter is very similar...and a little different

If the marching band was full of deep pockets they would just buy everything they need themselves.  The same is true for small business owners.  If they were independently wealthy there would be no need to ask for financial help.

But most small business owners--including me--are not independently wealthy, and so we need a little financial "kickstart"

With Kick Starter there is no 4th of July picnic.  Instead, you go to www.kickstarter.com  

Once you get to the website you will see all sorts of awesome projects on Kick Starter with cool videos describing their project. There are people all over the country who have these innovative ideas about new products or ways to make existing products better.  

Topics range from little-known musical artists who want to make their debut music album to big companies who want to make new and improved smartphone cases.  Most projects are just like mine...not necessarily the same products per se, but starving artists who would love to get their ideas into the hands of the masses, but don't have enough money to get things started.

When you see something that interests you you click on the button that looks like this

That's the digital version of giving your money to the bake sale booth.  

And if you have every made a purchase for anything on amazon.com then it should be smooth sailing from there.  You just decide the amount you want to give, click ok, and you immediately start to feel good about yourself for helping a starving artist.  And if you don't have an Amazon account you can quickly create one.

Do you have any spare change? 

Most projects--including mine--start as little as one dollar.  You don't have to give away your life savings to help.  The folks at Kick Starter say the the most common amount donated is $25.  And some projects--including mine--have great rewards for your contribution...or as Kick Starter says, for backing the project.  And these rewards can be more than a hug and a kiss.  You can get real, tangible items as if you were at a bake sale.  

It's not a charity

It's also not a cheap request to do all of the heavy lifting for me while I sit back in the easy chair.  Quite the contrary.  I still have all the work to do that any small business owner would have to do.  In fact, let me tell you a little bit of my story of why I have a Kick Starter project and what I want to do with the Kick Starter funding.

I came across the Bua Bhat Factory while I was in Thailand earlier this year.  I was in Thailand on a fact finding mission, a bit of an exploratory trip to find companies who produce great quality home decorations and home furnishings.  The Bua Bhat Factory produces 100% homemade cushions, rugs, seats, and a whole lot more.

Everything you see in the photo above is all handmade.  And, they all come from recycled materials.  They actually come from old garment remnants used in the fashion industry.  Isn't that cool?  It saves waste, it prevents dumps from getting larger, it is safe for people of all ages to use, and it just happens to have awesome colors and designs as an added bonus!

The picture above is a cushion measuring just about 5 feet by 5 feet (that's  150 cm by 150 cm. for my international friends) Who wouldn't love to cuddle up and take a nap or watch a movie on one of those pillows?  Again, it all comes from the same eco-friendly materials with the same awesome benefits.

And I want to market these items in the US

But the problem is that I can't shove a 5 foot cushion into my suitcase. And I can't buy just one item.  There has to be a minimum order. That's why I have started a Kick Starter project.  Once I secure the funding I will place the order, arrange for shipping, and make sure that the products get here safely and legally.  

Then comes the fun part.  That's when I get to meet with interested customers who want to buy.  I let them see it, touch it, maybe even play around with it for a minute or two, and make a sale.  

And here's the even more fun part for those who have already backed the project.  Your funding help has already allowed me to secure some of these items for you.  So you get your reward sooner than anybody else.  Instant Karma!

Where's the catch?

Yes, there is a catch.  Unlike traditional bake sales where the marching band keeps whatever they raise, the Kick Starter projects are all or nothing.  That means that after a certain amount of days--for my project it was scheduled for 30 days--if the amount has not been fully 100 percent funded to the requested amount--and for me that amount is $10,000--all of the money has to be refunded back to the people.  

Yup, that's right.  At the stroke of midnight it turns back into a pumpkin.

Sucks, but only if we fail.

So let's not fail!  

Please help a starving artist

There are 23 days left to go before this project ends.  Can you please go to kickstarter.com and take a look at my project?  I have included many of the details on the website about what it is I am offering to those who contribute, and I can answer any of your questions on the blog.  

Remember that every little bit helps so if all you can spare is an extra dollar that's okay!  Take that dollar that you were going to use at the dollar menu or at the video rental box and put it to good use.  And if you want to give more you can certainly do that, too.

And I understand that if right now you just can't spare any extra money.  That's okay, too.  You can help by spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, emails, blogs, or just good old word of mouth advertising.  You can share, tweet, link, and ask people who can help.

And, for those of you who have already funded something to my project you're not done yet.  Remember that this is all or nothing.  You won't get your reward unless the full amount is funded.  So share your good news to others and help them to  help you get your stuff.  

I want to give you a thousand thank yous for reading, for helping this project to succeed.

Andrew

The Story of the Blue Orchid Logo

Introducing the new logo to Blue Orchid Imports, LLC
And just in case you were wondering what LLC is, the letters stand for Limited Liability Company and it is required by law to have those letters next to the name of the business.  Yay!  Thank you American legal system.

But how did I come up with the idea to make this logo?

I think the greatest challenge any designer has is to take something that is rather complex and translate that into something much more simple.  I learned in school a long time ago that the key to a great icon or logo is the ability to shrink it down to size of your thumbnail and not lose any value of what it stands for.  In other words, if you have to explain what each little piece or element of what your logo is to others then you have failed.

A real orchid is a beautiful, lush flower.  But if I wanted to shrink that down and put that on my business card it would probably look like nothing more than a purple blob with specs on it.





So let me rewind back in time to when we started the business.  I have always wanted to have my own business buying decorative goods from Thailand and selling them here to the US market ever since my first visit to Thailand way back in 1999.  But naming my business "Andrew's Home Decorative Imports from Thailand Business" is just too plain and, to be honest, it's boring and it takes up too much space on a business card or website.

So when it came time to naming my business I wanted to create a name as unique as the products I offer.  I also wanted it to appeal to the largest group of people who were most likely to have any interest in my products...women...so I needed a name that was distinctly feminine and also professional and marketable.  

After asking for advice from some female friends and colleagues I was sitting in the living room chatting with my wife during a lazy Sunday afternoon throwing some ideas back and forth.  She came up with the name Blue Orchid Imports and I liked it.  Orchids are not naturally blue; rather, they are more naturally purple in color.  

That's one of the primary reasons why I liked the name.  Orchids are an essential representation of Thailand.  I like that part because it gives credit to the place of origin of all my goods.  The process of dying the orchid petal blue is unique.  I like that, too.  It makes sense that if my decorations and furnishings are of high quality, if they are rare, and if they are unique...then this name suits the business perfectly.

But now comes the hard part

How do I take everything that I have just described and put it into an image that everyone will understand?  

Logos are around us everywhere, and sometimes they just bombard us with so much meaning.  

Fortunately, for me,

the first step was already done when I named the business.  

Why not make your company logo look like a blue orchid?

That's exactly where I started, and thanks to google, I made a quick image search for blue orchids.  But, here's the problem.  There are,  I think quite literally, a million google images of a blue orchid, an arrangement of blue orchids, or something else blue orchid related. 

 Uh-oh.

So I outsourced it.  One of the troubles of being 100 percent involved in 100 percent of your own small business is that you develop a sense of tunnel vision.  You can quickly come up with an idea or concept and fall in love with it.  And everybody else around you hates it but won't tell you because they love you.  

Perhaps it's similar to when a teenage daughter brings home a boy from school who you can just tell is a complete loser, but you don't say anything at first because you're the mom.

Anyway, I had to take myself out of the project.



I hired a graphic designer who wasn't that far removed from design school.  We chatted around for quite a while while I described my back story for my business, and my designer took great notes and even came up with a few sketches.  

I think that was one of the best moves I have ever made
Why would a designer hire another designer to make a design?  It freed up so much of my time because I wasn't constantly thinking about it like designers do.  As a small business owner starving artist I could focus my attention on other essential parts of my business. 

 I paid my designer half of the agreed amount up front at our initial meeting.  It showed that I was serious about what I wanted and what I was willing to offer.  The second half of the agreed amount would come when the project was complete.

At first I would let her show me some sketches by using email and Dropbox, and I would give feedback as I saw fit.  But after a while  I could tell that my designer was just too busy with her day job and we just stopped communicating.  I also got a little impatient and started to dabble on my own with a few sketches.

This is a copy of a rug pattern project I did in school.  I was cleaning up in the basement when I came across this old project and it caught my eye.  I thought, "hey, here are some 'petals' I have already created it.  Maybe I could use that for my logo."

So I grabbed my trace paper and went to work.  My college professors would be so proud of me because that's what we used to do in class...for everything.

I started with the basic elements of the petal and singled it out.  I asked my facebook friends what they thought.  The best response I got...it looked like an kernel of popcorn exploded.  That's not what I was looking for. 

So I tried again.

I was convinced that I was on to something with my insight.  I was on to something, but this was not it.  

So I cut the idea of the "popcorn popping" idea and tried to implement something that combined more than one "piece of popcorn." 

I came up with these.  They were just as ugly, buy my mind started to explore with a circular sense of balance.  

I was getting closer.  Finally, I just went back to the idea of making a flower with the idea of making something round or circular.  I wanted to create a sense of wholeness or being complete...and I didn't want anyone to confuse my logo and accidentally turn it upside down.

 I came up with this.

And I started repeating it a bit until I drew one that I liked.  I tried some with a dot in the middle to tie them all together, and then I tried some with nothing holding them in the middle.  I liked the latter of the two concepts.  

Then I gout out my blue painters tape because that was all that I had with me.

I came up with this...


and after some actual cut and pasting...

Voila!

My new logo.

I asked around again on facebook, and nobody said that it was an ink blot test or anything else too vague so I kept the idea.

Then I hired another graphic designer to put on the finishing touches.  I don't mind having to pay two designers for the job that I ultimately did by myself.  The second designer lives very close by and is a friend of mine. When I showed her my logo image and asked if she could do the final computer work she agreed to finish it off for the remaining amount that I was going to give to the first designer.

And that's the story of how I got my logo.

Lessons learned:

1. I was so right to hire it out.  It saved me time.  I didn't have to re install Adobe Illustrator onto my computer, I didn't have to refresh my computer skills, and I didn't have get frustrated by making trial and error mistakes.

2. I had the right idea to hire a new designer and give her a chance, but I don't think either one of us realized what we were getting ourselves into.  She had a day job to take care of, and I was getting impatient.  

3. Ask questions and get lots of feedback, especially if it hurts your feelings.  I'm so glad that I didn't keep all of my ideas to myself and make a logo that looks like the devil with his zipper down.  

4. I was a little nervous to ask my friend to finish the job because I have a policy with working with friends.  It's difficult to tell your friend that she's fired, but I trusted my friend because I have seen her work and I know her personality.  It just worked out this time.

5. I stuck to my gut.  Whether you call it an instinct, a gut feeling, or anything else stick to that impression.  Be willing to try new things, but when all else fails stick to your gut.

Thank You
I give credit where credit is due.  Check out the following websites and blogs of people I have referenced:

My wife's blog

my friend's blog