There's the Rub

For Christmas this year I decided to bottle my BBQ rub for family and some friends. I had the logo already so I needed to come up with a label design. I really liked the look of the white flaming Q on a black background. It has a classy, high end feel to it. I thought a high end BBQ look would be cool. Yeah, I know high end, classy and BBQ don't usually go in the same sentence, but why not?

I did some research about labels to get ideas and figure out the look I wanted and settled on one that I thought worked well. It speaks of a high end product you might find at a specialty store. I also searched for just the right bottle to put it in. I found a great spice bottle at World Market that would work well for this small run of rub.


You will notice that the usage of it has changed a bit from my original post about the Q logo. I think the way I have chosen to use it now will lend itself to more applications and easier to change for sauce and other items.

A Business to Keep Your Business Safe

I was approached by a small start up company to create some business cards for them. After meeting and talking with the owner it was apparent that they also needed a logo to help brand their web site, business cards and other materials. The company helps other businesses recover from disasters, back up their files and make sure there is a plan in place so a company can keep working even in an emergency.

We talked about various images for logos and settled on an abstract safe tumbler.

We also talked about what colors to use to represent her company. We went with a deep, rich burgundy and a dark blue for the main colors. For secondary colors we went with lighter more pastel colors that contrast and play off the other colors. The burgundy represents strength, leadership and respect. All good things for a business continuity consultant. The blue plays a counterpoint to the red and represents harmony, trust and confidence.

After deciding on these things I came up with a design for the business cards. I had a couple designs. The one I preferred didn’t have any of the bullet points on it, but the client felt it important to keep those on the card so people would understand the business quickly.

Over all I was pleased with the final result and look forward to working on similar projects.

Business Cards

After redesigning my blog and website I needed new business cards. I designed a card I really liked and searched for a printer. The card used a die cut which made it rather cost prohibitive on my limited budget. I remembered a design friend of mine talking about Copy Craft. I contacted them and was surprised at the price they quoted, it was under half of what I could get locally.

I sent them my design and had them print the cards. In about two weeks my new cards arrived and I was disappointed, the blankets had not been cleaned properly and left a ghost image. I called them and they told me to return the cards so they could reprint them. I did and now I have my new, cool looking cards. Copy Craft is a great printer to work with and they did a great job.

Branding Yourself

I’m taking the plunge and starting to do some freelance on the side. Wow! Who knew there were so many little details you have to do. My plan is to blog about the experience of starting up so others out there can learn and hopefully some of the more experienced freelancers will share their knowledge.

The first step in starting out is to brand yourself. No, this does not involve fire and hot irons (though it might be easier). It is coming up with a name for your company. I had thrown around a couple names: Gibbs Grafix, SG Design, Gibbs Design, Grafix Gibbs. I have decided to go with Gibbs Design. The reason being is that it's simple and it says who I am and what I do.

The next step is to come up with a logo, a mark that represents your company. This is one of the hardest things to do for yourself. At times there are so many things you want to put in but at the same time you want to keep it simple. Here are some of the sketches I went through before landing on my final design.

This is the design I ended up choosing. It's simple and clean. Why the break in the box? As a designer I like to think outside the box, step out of the box for new perspectives but I also have to work within a framework.

In a previous post I talked about how branding is not just about a logo but about the whole company. It is about everything that's put into it and comes out of it. So a big part of branding yourself is how you promote yourself. View yourself as an expert in your field. Do your best in everything whether it is a blog or a forum. Present yourself with your best foot forward because you never know who your next client or co-worker may be. When you are out running errands or getting coffee be polite. You would be amazed how many people remember the rude guy. Remember how you like to be treated when you're a customer and treat others the same way. Your work may be the best but if you are rude, condescending and obnoxious no one is going to want to find out that your work is good.

So as I go through starting up I need to remember that my brand is not my logo but it is myself and how I present myself. People may not remember my logo but the will remember me. If I’m friendly and helpful I will stand a better chance of getting the jobs I want.