This week we’re sharing an interview Brandi did on another podcast with one of her design college alumni. They chat about how Brandi got her business going, choosing motivation, and process (of course).
Takeaways from today’s episode:
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TRANSCRIPTION
Intro: 00:03 Welcome to design speaks. This lovely podcast is brought to you by a graphic design geek and a regular human being, AKA a non-designer. We’re here to chat about music, pop culture, cool places and basically whatever we feel is relevant.
Brandi Sea: 00:37 Hey guys, I’m Brandi Sea and you’re listening to episode one oh three of design speaks. This week it’s just me again here because I was sick all week after returning from our two week road trip and Michelle and I weren’t able to get together to record so her and I will be chatting more next week about all the craziness of my road trip and all the fun places we went and all the amazing and inspiring things that I saw. So, um, hope you’re excited for that. For today, I am going to be sharing an interview that I did on another friend’s podcast. His name is Shannendoah Gallagher and he’s from sociallinus.com. That’s his design business. And he asked me if I would be one of his first interviews. Um, he’s gearing up to launch his own podcast. So I recorded with him last summer and while his podcast is not ready to launch, he said very graciously that I could share this one early. Um, and so I wanted to do that. So today’s episode is with Shannendoah Gallagher from sociallinus.com. We talk about my process, how I think, um, creativity and choosing motivation, all the things that you guys hear me talking about here, but kind of from a little bit of a different angle as I am the one being interviewed. So I hope you enjoy it and we can’t wait to share more with you guys next week.
Shannendoah: 02:04 Welcome to the Social Linus podcast. This is Shannendoah Gallagher. I am sitting down, stay with Brandi Sea Heft-Kniffin
Brandi Sea: 02:14 Kniffin
Shannendoah: 02:14 I’m sorry. Of brandisea.com Brandi is a graphic designer and independent creative director. And you know, we both actually graduated from the same school Arts center of design college now Southwest University of Visual Arts. And Brandi has really taken life by the horns and started her own website. You can see her at Brandisea.com. So welcome, Brandi. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and, uh, how you started taking this, taking this whole life thing on.
Brandi Sea: 02:52 Oh, man. Okay. So, uh, yeah, so just so you know where to find me, Brandi Sea is spelled B. R. A. N. D. I. S. E. A. So it’s not like ABC, it’s like the ocean body of water sea. Um, other than that, uh, gosh, I decided to leave the formal world of, uh, art directing and kind of do my own thing due to life circumstances. But, um, as I was staying home, I was getting, I realized I was getting kind of like bitter at designers around me because they were all doing such terrible work. And I was just getting really like complain-y about it. And then, uh, one day I decided like, what if I stop complaining and instead of just hoarding all this knowledge I have, why don’t I share it and actually try to maybe make these designers that I’m cranky about a little bit better? So, um, I decided to start writing a blog. Um, this was like three years ago, and that was like really long form. And then, uh, I’m kind of a ambitious and it wasn’t enough try to blog. So the next year I decided to start doing, um, short design tips on Youtube. Um, so you could still find those that are just Brandi Sea design tips. They’re like, uh, two to four, maybe five minutes, um, tips on a design, on creative thinking on lots of different things, um, every Tuesday. So that’s what I did the next year. And after that, um, it was kind of like, alright, well this is just me like talking at people. Um, I feel like there’s probably questions that people have and I would like to have something that’s more conversational. Uh, what if I did a podcast? Um, so I talked with, uh, my co my, my sister because my sister, I call her my sister who is now my cohost. Um, Michelle who is a creative, but she’s not a designer by any sense. And I thought, what a cool format would it be to have questions from a non design standpoint on design, on creativity, on things like that, that maybe, you know, quote normal people might have. Um, and so we started that this past February. So we’re, we’re going to be recording episode 33, I believe this week. And uh, yeah, it’s been a, it’s been a fun journey. Um, I also do freelance clients still. Um, I really love focusing on like editorial book design type stuff, posters and music related design. Um, oh gosh. I also teach a design concepts to senior level junior and senior level students at the school where we graduated our alma mater and I parttime homeschool my children. So I have a lot going on. But I think if I didn’t I’d be bored. I just need to have a lot on my plate or I’ll just like binge Netflix day.
Shannendoah: 05:59 It’s a struggle for all of us.
Brandi Sea: 06:01 Yeah.
Shannendoah: 06:04 As, as a mom, as a working mom, how do you balance all of this? Like how do you manage your time effectively?
Brandi Sea: 06:13 Okay. Um, my husband says I’m motivated, self motivated enough for both of us, so he has to procrastinate for the both of us. But, um, I think it’s, I hate to say this cause it just sounds like super cliche, but like one thing is like every morning, I guess it starts before the morning, every night before I go to bed. Like I have to decide I, whether I will or will not wake up early in the morning. Like that’s step one. If I managed to wake up early in the morning, which for me is about 5:15 so I can write around 5:30 to 6. Um, that is like having the mindset of being ready to be motivated is like the biggest thing. Um, the other thing as far as like my time management is like, I just use all of my spare minutes. Like when the kids breakfast is on the stove, you know, making eggs or something and it happens to be a Thursday morning, which is when I upload the podcast. Um, I’m listening to the podcast on my laptop for quality control while I’m making eggs, you know, and then a drop off the kids at school come home. First thing I get on the computer and make my graphic upload the show notes. Like it’s just a matter of figuring out like, okay, I have a few minutes right now. Can I post something to social media? I have some time right now while I’m waiting for my kids PTO meeting to start. Um, can I write a couple paragraphs? Um, so essentially it’s like just having, having the mindset in my, in my own experience for me is to know that I need to take those moments when I have them instead of, you know, scrolling through Facebook actually do something useful with know just the minutes that I have. Otherwise, you know, I don’t think I would get anything done.
Shannendoah: 08:09 Wow. That’s a lot of discipline.
Brandi Sea: 08:12 Is that a lot?
Shannendoah: 08:16 Yeah, it is. No, I’m glad you said that because I think a lot of us struggle with finding that time with prioritizing things and somehow staying productive while still handling all the other aspects of our life.
Brandi Sea: 08:30 Yeah. The other thing too that I’ve found works for me. I keep my, I keep my phone on do not disturb. Um, after 10:00 PM and before 8:00 AM. So, I don’t check. I don’t check any social media. I don’t look at, you know, anything like that after 10:00 AM before 8:00. Cause it, it literally like just kills my productivity. Um, even if it’s stuff that’s like maybe potentially work related, I don’t even check email. Um, I don’t do anything before, you know, before 8 and after 10. And it honestly helps me sleep better because I’m not just like browsing through stuff before bed. And it helps me focus like on my husband more because the kids are asleep and then it’s usually like our time. Um, and in the morning it helps me focus on the kids more because my husband’s gone to work and I’m trying to get, you know, get the kids off to school now I do like podcast stuff, a businessy type stuff in that way. But as far as like social media and the things that just wastes your time altogether, I try to keep that off my plate for a few hours a day.
Shannendoah: 09:37 And how did you come about setting those boundaries? Like, what, what was it that made you finally say, you know, I’m, I’m getting more pain out of this than I am pleasure and I need to make a change.
Brandi Sea: 09:50 Yeah. Um, I would say I realized that, you know, um, so my husband and I decided a long time ago, we’re not going to have a TV in our bedroom. Um, because you know, lots of studies show like you’re happier, you talk more, all this kind of stuff. But, um, we were still like, we would just get into bed and then we’d pull out our phones and then just like scroll for an hour and then say good night. And it was like, wait a second, what’s the difference? Like we may as well have a TV in here. Um, and you know, he’s looking at his work emails and I’m looking at my work emails and looking at social media and stuff. And it was like, this isn’t like quality time. And so, um, he doesn’t do that. He kind of needs, I’m a little bit of wind down, mindless wind down and for him, you know, social media is that, but for, for me it’s like my brain wants to get engaged in all these conversations. So, um, sometimes he still will, but I just decided like I need to set some boundaries for me because I was seeing a pattern in my productivity, um, just really frankly sucking, um, in the literal sense of the word. Like it was just being sucked away by me doing that. And it’s remarkable how much you can get done when you don’t feel like you need to check those notifications.
Shannendoah: 11:09 Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that mental fitness and that’s self awareness of knowing, you know, what’s most important right now and what’s going to be most important in the future.
Brandi Sea: 11:25 Right.
Shannendoah: 11:25 Hugely beneficial too. Entrepreneurs to independent designers to designers as a whole. Uh
Brandi Sea: 11:34 Yeah, absolutely
Shannendoah: 11:34 And the people, I mean, I think that’s one of the things that a lot of us miss is that we’re never trained to prioritize our thoughts.
Brandi Sea: 11:49 Yeah, especially in this world of
Shannendoah: 11:49 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 11:51 Everyone wants our, our, our spare. It’s like, I mean, it’s not going to be too bad if I just get on Facebook just for you know, 15 minutes and then realize it’s been an hour and you’re like, what in the world did I just do for the last hour?
Shannendoah: 12:05 Exactly. That brings me into something that I had saw on your website. You know, I went through a couple of your design tips, uh, Number 102, choosing your motivation. I thought that was a very great, that was a very valuable insight because a lot of us have a hard time being motivated and then being motivated by the right things and selectively, uh, knowing what motivates us and, and gravitating towards that thing. So can, can you just illustrate really quickly how you came up with that idea for design tip number 102?
Brandi Sea: 12:47 Yeah, I think it was just one of those things where I realize that through, you know, through my process, which is something we’ll talk about later. But over the years I’ve just developed a lot of ideas about creativity and stuff. And it, it occurred to me at some point that, um, creativity is actually work. Um, that, you know, as a creative, as, as a creative entrepreneur, especially like sometimes you sit, you sit down and I realized it’s probably when I started writing the blog, I guess you realize that like, I don’t feel, I don’t feel motivated. Like I don’t feel creative, but then it’s like, okay, well I sort of, um, and I think I talked about this in the video. I’m not sure I’ve talked about it a lot. Um, to me it kind of equated to the idea of like, when you’re married or when you’re like in a serious relationship, um, you don’t, you sometimes you don’t feel like in love with that person. Like sometimes you don’t feel like being nice to them. For whatever reason. But it’s like, okay, but the fact is that you do love them whether you feel love or not, you should still act in a loving way. And I kind of started thinking about that in relation to creativity and like, okay, I don’t feel creative right now, but frankly my client and my deadline could care less about how I feel at the moment. Like I need two choose to be motivated, choose to be creative right now. And the only way that I managed to get over that hump is to follow my process because the process doesn’t care how you feel. It just works. And eventually you get to a point where you get over the hump of not feeling creative and through the process you go, oh, I know what I’m doing. And your brain’s like, okay, it’s time to be creative as opposed to like, oh, I’m just going to sit back and maybe you know, sketch or maybe go for a walk until I just like feel some magic inspiration. It doesn’t usually happen like that. And you know, you can’t, you know, you don’t have the luxury if you are a visual communicator being paid for work. Um, even if you’re a fine artist, you know, you might have a patron who’s expecting something from you and you can’t tell them, yeah, I’m sorry I don’t have that thing right now. I just, I wasn’t feeling motivated and I wasn’t feeling creative today. And it’s like, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that in the real world. So I had to come up with, you know, this idea of you have a choice, you know, in life for everything. Why not, why not have like take the power back and say like, I’m choosing to be motivated today so that I can choose to create something awesome.
Shannendoah: 15:47 So you said just something right there that really got my brain going is you choose to do something, you choose how you want to present something. You choose how you want to present yourself. And you know, I think that really speaks on how people brand themselves and how branding works is that choice on how to very deliberately create this feeling, this experience, this mental association. So can you talk a little bit about your perspective on branding?
Brandi Sea: 16:25 Yeah. So I think that people often don’t realize the difference between say a logo and a brand. Um, I have to explain this to more more clients than I have to explain most things. And it’s, it’s because they don’t realize, you know, they, they, um, part of my process is this is a design brief and I ask them, you know, are there any logos, whether they’re competitors or not, that you, that you like and why? Um, just cause I like to see their perspective on their, you know, what they are, what’s visually pleasing to them. And you know, 95% of the time it’s like Apple and it’s like, okay, but you understand that your draw to Apple is not the Apple logo. That is, that is not why you’re like so gung ho about apple, you know, now, yes, we put the Apple stickers that they give us for free with our phones on our cars and our laptops and all this stuff. But that is actually the brand we are owning the persona of Apple, not the logo. And I think that, um, my perspective on branding I think is just understanding that a brand is what people think about you and how they feel you and how you want to be perceived. Not, you know, here’s, here’s a picture of a building with you know, a circle on it or something and this is our brand and know that’s your logo and it’s a representation of your brand. And if you do it as successfully, people will feel about that logo, the way they feel about your company and they’ll be very loyal to it, et cetera. But, um, yeah, branding is something that I take very seriously when I do it for our client. Um, I made sure to look at the, uh, the symbology of the shapes that are being used. Um, make sure that the type faces are appropriate and give off the right vibe, the colors, especially like I’m a huge, huge, huge advocate for color theory and color psychology and making sure that, um, the colors chosen for any design but especially for branding are appropriate in meaning for that company. Because if you choose, if you say choose, you know, yellow and black, which are super powerful colors for like a preschool that’s giving the wrong impression. Um, you know, and you can’t, a designer should never just be choosing colors because they, you know, they speak in a feelings, feel like it works and it’s, um, it should never be about feelings for us. It should be objective choosing of things, especially for brands because they are so important.
Shannendoah: 19:17 How valuable would you consider branding?
Brandi Sea: 19:21 Oh Man. Um, I think that one of the first things, and this isn’t just because I want people to like call me and hire me, like if you haven’t, if you are thinking about like starting a company or a startup or a restaurant or any kind of thing and you haven’t immediately thought of hiring a designer to put together your brand for you, your branding package, your logo, your business cards, all the things, the website, um, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. Um, a few weeks back, I posted an article from, I, I believe it was fast company, but it was, I don’t remember exactly, but it was basically like, um, the d the businesses and the startups that are design led, um, are the most successful. And it’s, it’s for a reason, you know, um, I know a guy, his name is Hugh Weber, he actually just spoke at our AIGA design conference and he basically believes that designers can save the world because it’s our job to solve problems. And I 100% agree with that. If you lead your business with design, um, and partner with a designer that knows what they’re doing, your business will reap those benefits. That is why Apple is such a huge leader. Not only do they have, you know, an iconic logo, um, but Steve Jobs in the beginning, you know, took design classes and understood the importance of design and that has carried through know, and now even after his death, like that is a huge part of the company.
Shannendoah: 20:52 I have to agree. I mean, as a fan of Apple products, the way that they’re designed, the way that I experienced them, uh, the way that other people experience them, you know, whether it’s the phone or the airpods where the earpods or the laptops, the desktops, you know, everything you, you can tell that you’re using an apple product right away.
Brandi Sea: 21:18 Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Johnny Ive is like my hero. Like it’s his job to make sure everything is designed well and man, what a big job.
Shannendoah: 21:32 Absolutely. I would say that he definitely enjoys his job.
Brandi Sea: 21:36 Oh Man. Who wouldn’t? I bet he doesn’t sleep a lot though.
Shannendoah: 21:41 Probably not. Probably not
Brandi Sea: 21:43 I don’t envy that. I don’t envy that of him.
Shannendoah: 21:45 No, but I imagine that he has a massive inspiration file.
Brandi Sea: 21:52 Oh yeah. I’m sure. Are you kidding?
Shannendoah: 21:55 You know, and that, that brings me to another topic that I saw. I thought this really resonated with me because I collect things as well. And you, you put up a blog post, it says collect and don’t design and don’t trust a designer who doesn’t. What does that mean? Can you break that down for the people listening?
Brandi Sea: 22:15 Yeah, I was just thinking one day, like I collect a lot of things. I can maybe call myself like a borderline pack rat But um, I mean I, just looking around my office right now, like I have tons of books. I mean books are one of my big, big things across my life. But I also have, um, I collect old cameras. Um, I collect, uh, gosh, markers and you know, various types of art supplies. I collect, um, old magazines. Uh, goodness. I can’t even think of all the things I collect. Um, albums like vinyl albums. I collect, uh, you know, souvenirs. I like to collect souvenirs from places that I’ve been and, you know, display them. I collect old toys that maybe are nostalgic to me. I have um Pokey and Gumby up on my, Oh, my bookshelf here in my office. Um, so just, I was just thinking like, is it, is it weird that I collect things? Like why do I collect things? And it’s like, I believe that people that collect things are much more interesting, especially if they collect lots of different things because that means that you’re learning about lots of different things. And that means that you’re, you’re gonna understand more people in more ways, you know? Um, I, I, am sort of like a, I feel like I’m sort of a strange person and I’m good with that, but it’s like, I like comics, but I also really love Shakespeare and classic literature. Um, I like, you know, I’m not a girl that really likes chick flicks, but I really love Die Hard, you know, and stuff like that. And, um, I collect and I have such this weird eclectic tastes for different things. And I think that that has been part of the thing that’s made, uh, my design and my process more interesting because when it comes to researching and stuff, I don’t just use one avenue ever, like ever, ever. And I think it’s because I want, I’m constantly wanting to learn about new things and, and figuring out new things. And I think, but, um, the thing that I was trying to say about like don’t trust a designer who does it collect things is basically like if, if you are hiring a designer that isn’t interested in anything, they’re probably not very creative. They’re probably not going to give you um, very interesting results when you, uh, give them a job to do. It’s like, okay, I could have done that with someone on Fiverr or downloaded some free temple. Let you know if this person doesn’t have any like soul in my opinion. Like if you don’t collect stuff, like, are you not passionate about anything? Because if you’re not passionate about anything, how can you be passionate about your work? And I guess that’s kind of a, that was kind of the point that I was trying to get at with that. That was a long answer. Sorry.
Shannendoah: 25:29 No, that was perfect. That was absolutely perfect. And you know, you were talking a lot about how those, that collection, it really informs a person’s creativity because um. Internally, mentally we, you have to take those things that we love, those, those little chotchkies or the books, the ideas behind those things and cross associate them with other things that we’ve learned in our lifetimes or other things that we’re interested in. And that’s really what gives birth to these, these great creative concepts. These big ideas, you know, and it really helps with the whole problem solving part of these, these creative problems taking, taking what a client needs and transforming it into this solution, this visual graphics solution or this, this graphic solution that encompasses a feeling. Right?
Brandi Sea: 26:32 Right
Shannendoah: 26:32 So let’s, let’s dive into that. Let’s talk about your process.
Brandi Sea: 26:38 Okay. Yeah. So I mean, I a, I have like a couple of variations as my process. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll basically talk about like the process that I have that I go through with clients. Um, the one that I teach to other designers and, uh, students is a little bit more nuanced to things that maybe wouldn’t translate over a, over a podcast. But, um, essentially it’s, it’s essentially like seven really basic steps. Um, and just for a little background people always ask me like, um, my process is so specific and it’s, it’s, uh, you know, parts of it are almost like trademarkable if that’s the word. But, um, I really only decided to figure out this process, um, because I had so many clients, um, when I would give them my, my pricing on quotes and stuff, they would, they would kind of like bock at it and be like, you know, I, I don’t understand why this costs so like, why does this cost so much? And it just got really old as it probably does for most designers. And I, I again, instead of just pouting about it, decided, okay, well what can I do to help them understand what they’re paying me for? Um, so I had to do a lot of like creative soul searching of myself and figure out, okay, I know what I do. I know I’m worth this money, but how can I simplify this for them? And so I basically came up with like a, a one page sheet with boiling down my, my process to about like seven steps so that they could understand. And, um, I’ll list them off first and then I’ll kind of explain them a little bit. So um, the first one is the initial meeting and that’s, that’s either, you know, an email conversation, um, or phone call, something like that. Um, and the reason that I don’t meet them in person on the first, the first is because of my second step in my process. I like to fill up, have them fill out a design brief questionnaire, um, before we ever like have that long conversation. Um, and I did that for two reasons. One is because it, it’s a two page form. Basically it has lots of questions about their company, their background, their strengths and weaknesses, like all that kind of stuff. It’s kind of a mix of design questions and marketing questions and it kind of weeds out the people that aren’t serious that are just like, oh, I just want to check and see how much this chick would charge for a logo, you know, and um, so weeds those people out. Then it also gives me an idea about them before I can, before I sit down and talk to them. And so when we do sit down and have that, that chat, I can then converse with them about their needs as opposed to like, okay, well let me get back to you. Um, so the design brief questionnaires, the second one, um, kind of built into that as then sending them the quote. Um, so if they decide they want to go with me, I then get into a research and brainstorming mode, which is step three. And this is the step where there’s lots of like nuancey things. Um, you know, for designers like mind maps and, um, using a lot of English class based type of stuff. Um, I research lots of different things here too and that’s where, you know, collecting things comes in handy. All my books and all kinds of stuff. Um, I have a couple of podcasts episodes on research if you’d like to listen to more on that. But um, the next one is sketching and that is a really key part of my process that I wish more people would do. It’s actually physically sketching with a pencil and a sketch book or a paper. Um, I feel like there’s something that happens. Uh, not as soon as I’m like, I feel like it’s actually been proven by scientists that writing things down and using a physical writing implements actually helps you, um, be more creative and come up with more ideas and better ideas. And so I always want to be the best and if there’s something I can do to do that, then that’s what I want to do. And it really does work. Um, so I sketch, uh, then I, I don’t usually send the client more than three options on any given a project, whether it’s a logo or a poster or tee shirts. Anything I do, I like threes, my absolute max. Um, once they choose, I render them out on the computer, uh, present them and you know, the finishing touches are applied and we kind of have the conversations black back and forth, the client and I on what, if anything needs to be changed and stuff. And, uh, that’s it. It sounds pretty simple, but there’s, like I said, a lot of nuances in those things, but I really wanted to just make it as simple as possible for the, the person outside of the design realm to understand what they’re getting.
Shannendoah: 31:49 Let me, let me touch on a couple of those points. How long do you sketch for? Like do you have a set number of sketch that you do mentally or is it more about just getting as many ideas on the page as possible?
Brandi Sea: 32:05 Yeah, no, I mean it’s kind of a mix of all of those. I generally have, I don’t even know what size this, I have it sitting in front of me. I don’t have my ruler. I don’t know what size this is it’s like a, it’s like a five by seven, slightly larger than a five by seven sketchbook. I don’t know what this is like a six by nine maybe. Um, I usually do about four pages on average of a very small thumbnail sketches. Like they’re called thumbnail for a reason. They’re like one inch by one inch or one inch by two inch, like really small, um, sketches. Um, I, I either give myself like a page limit or I just say, okay, I’m going to sit down and I’m going to sketch for you know, an hour or something. Um, I generally, you know, give myself time limits on most things and that’s another one of like my tricks. You know, you asked about my time management. It’s like, um, I don’t believe that spending two days sketching is going to yield any better results than if you spent like a solid focused hour or two. You know, same with research. Like you could be scrolling through research online for days if you let yourself, but you know, potentially, and ideally you’ve probably already got, you know, the inspiration you need within an, you know, a 16th of that time. And so setting time limits also does something in your brain. It’s kind of like when you have a paper due the next day, you know, as opposed to giving yourself two weeks. Some of us are like, Oh man, I have two weeks, you know, I’m just going to kind of ride a little here write a little there as opposed to, oh my gosh, it’s due in the morning and you get on there and you like knock that thing out and it’s awesome. So you know, we have an amazing capacity for processing and working, um, in short amounts of time and if your brain knows that that’s all the time that you have to work on it.
Shannendoah: 34:12 Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s, I really important aspect of this is you can’t just let it go on forever, right.
Brandi Sea: 34:21 Right
Shannendoah: 34:21 There has to be a very definitive, uh, set of parameters for certain aspects of your process. Otherwise, you’re right, you will spend days, even weeks doing research and still come back to something that you achieved in the first hour or two.
Brandi Sea: 34:42 Right. Cuz you forget. Your brain can’t even hold all of that. Like, you know, it would be awesome if we, you know, had the capacity to just soak it all in and then regurgitate every single possible thing we researched. But it’s just, it’s just not the case.
Shannendoah: 34:55 Right. I’m definitely one of those people that does not have a very large mind palace. I have one
New Speaker: 35:05 I do, it just gets lost. I’m like it’s lost in like the 15th floor in the corner closet or something. And I’m never going to find that.
Shannendoah: 35:13 Exactly.
Brandi Sea: 35:15 It’ll come up with, I don’t need it. And I’ll be like, oh, there was that thing. Where was that when I needed it
Shannendoah: 35:21 And why three? Why just three ideas?
Brandi Sea: 35:25 Oh Man, I would give only one if I could. Um, that’s a little too controversial for most people, but honestly because of a few things like, uh, you people too many options and they start to want to mix them up to make more. Um, in my experience I used to give, um, I used to give like, I dunno, some arbitrary number, like seven or something. And um, it was, it was always the case that not only would they choose the one that I hated the most, but then they would also want to like pull things from some of the other options and like try to make this mystery cake of logo design that I would never have intended. Um, so that’s one, you know, just experiences like they don’t need to see more. Another thing that I realized over the years, and honestly listening to a guy named Sean Wes, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Sean Wes. Um, and he’s, he only does one concept um, presenting to a client, But the idea is that you are being paid by the client for your expertise. They are trusting that what you bring them can and will work. And um, in my, in my opinion, the, the perception of me giving them five to 10, you know, logo ideas gives the impression that I don’t really know what you want, but here’s some things. What do you think? Like, and it just, it’s not a very confident approach. Whereas if I am saying, here’s my, you know, in my case, my, my top three, these are the things that match your mission, your brand, the best. These colors, these shapes. Um, all of them work with the concept that we have chosen. There’s three different executions. Any of these could work. It’s basically your preference right now. And so the amount of times I’ve gotten major changes on any three or any one are almost zero. Because at that point I have, if we’re doing our jobs right, if we’re doing our due diligence on research, um, on making sure that everything we do, um, can answer the question, why, you know, why this font, why this shape, why these colors, they should have like almost no reason to question or change anything that you’ve done. So honestly, the only reason I give three instead of one is to give them the illusion of choice when honestly almost every time they choose the one that I would have chosen if I only gave them one, which is kind of fun. Does that make sense?
Shannendoah: 38:19 Yeah. That absolutely does. You know, and I’ve encountered the mystery cake logo a couple of times in the past as well as then the mystery cake website.
Brandi Sea: 38:29 Oh yeah. That’s even worse. That’s another whole bag of worms.
Shannendoah: 38:36 It really is.
Brandi Sea: 38:37 You have a lot more than mess with on a website design then on the logo.
Shannendoah: 38:42 Yeah, they’re really, really is. Uh, so you mentioned Sean Wes is somebody that you are tracking, uh, that you, I guess he’s kind of like a mentor in a lot of ways in your design world. Uh, who else are you influenced by?
Brandi Sea: 39:01 Oh man, that’s a hard question. Um, we’ll just go with my gut. Okay. So Sean Wes has been really influential on me and this whole entrepreneurial creative thing. um. Uh, James Victore. Um, he, he’s, he’s a, he’s a really amazing motivator. No nonsense, no bs, um, do what you love or don’t do anything at all kind of guy. Um, and Sean Wes is kind of on the other end of like, um, he’s a little more businessy, you know, he’s like only give the client one choice and he’s, uh, there’s only one right way to do things. And so I like that they’re on such opposite ends of the spectrum and I think I follow some, follow somewhere in the middle. Um, so I can like, you know, grab a few from Sean Wes and grab a few things from James Victore, kind of be bold but, but cautious at the same time as a business owner. And then, um, uh, there’s another guy, his name is Jon Acuff um. He’s written a few books on, um, entrepreneurial stuff. He’s had some 30 day challenges and he’s honestly the reason that I started writing a blog, um, I had been meaning to do it for probably five years, then he did a 30 day, you know, challenged to basically do whatever you want, like choose one thing and for the next 30 days, like pursue that thing. And if you still want to do it after 30 days, like now you’ve, you’ve already got it going and um. That kind of started this whole ball rolling. um. I would say probably those three guys and a Gary Vaynerchuk has been a huge one too. um. He’s a good kick in the pants if you don’t mind. Uh, some vulgarity, a lot of vulgarity, but he’s such a brilliant businessman and it’s, you know, he doesn’t do it just for shock value. That’s just who the guy is. And it’s like, you know, I don’t, I don’t cuss, I don’t say those words in my personal life or any other life, but because I know he has such valuable things to say, it’s just kind of like whatever. Um, he has so much content to consume. It’s, it’s just like an avalanche. And I don’t even touch getting all of it in my brain, but mmm. His stuff’s really good. He’s great to follow on Instagram because when I do have those moments where I’m like, I’m just going to sit on Instagram instead of do something, I should, I see a post that’s like, get off your button work. And I’m like, okay, okay, I’m up I’m up. You know. So, uh, I think those, those four guys, um, are really, are really instrumental in, in what I do. And the funny part about it is, uh, two of them are designers and the other two are not at all designers. Um, it’s just, I love their mindset. I love their motivation and I liked the way that they live their, their entrepreneurial lives.
Shannendoah: 42:03 I have to agree. For me, I think the people that you follow the influencers, right?
Brandi Sea: 42:14 Yup.
Shannendoah: 42:16 Those are the people that have already been there. They’ve been where you want to be and the fact that they’re turning around and then releasing this information on how to get there themselves. That’s definitely something that inspired me to start doing podcasts. And uh, well the other part of it was that we were producing podcasts for some of our clients already. And you know, it’s not something that I learned in school. Um, it’s not something that was able to, or even raised in school. I don’t know if,
Brandi Sea: 42:48 Right. Yeah, I don’t even think they were a thing.
Shannendoah: 42:50 Yeah, I don’t think they were
Brandi Sea: 42:53 Don’t tell anyone we’re old
Shannendoah: 42:56 You know, I think they figured that out already just by the way that we talk
Brandi Sea: 43:00 Secrets out
Shannendoah: 43:00 And the fact that we started out in design school just talking about print design and dabbling slightly in web design and here we are.
Brandi Sea: 43:11 It was like a flash
Shannendoah: 43:11 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there was no social media. There was, I think, Friendster at the time. That was the big thing. And then, uh, maybe halfway through school Myspace and then
Brandi Sea: 43:27 I think like AIM
Shannendoah: 43:27 Yeah, exactly. You know, that, that’s, that’s where we started, you know, and now we’re coming into this whole Internet online information everywhere revolution and we’re, we’re talking about guys who, you know, they started even before us, like Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, he was running wine library and doing the first e-commerce over dial-up.
Brandi Sea: 43:56 Right. It’s so crazy
Shannendoah: 43:59 Exactly. And you know, so the value in his content and is authenticity. I think that’s really what it comes down to in branding is that authenticity.
Brandi Sea: 44:10 Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And people, people have an innate sense for smelling out a fake. Um, you know, if, if I sat here on this podcast or mine or my videos or anything else and tried to be less of a Weirdo, it be really awkward because I say dumb stuff and I say weird things. And if it would be really obvious if I was trying to be maybe even trying to be Gary Vaynerchuk, like I sound goofy saying like curse words because it’s just not something I do and it’s really obvious.
Shannendoah: 44:53 Whereas for me, I’m 100% comfortable and at home swearing,
Brandi Sea: 45:00 Most people are.
Shannendoah: 45:01 Yeah, you know, it’s just how I grew up. My Dad was in the navy, my uncles were in the navy, some of my other uncles were, uh, in motorcycle gangs.
Brandi Sea: 45:10 Wow. Look at you. You’re like black sheep over here
Shannendoah: 45:13 I have a, I have quite the tapestry of a background, but you know, it’s, it’s all of those things that come together that, uh, no, really I would sound fake it by just tried to keep it 100% conservative all the time. And I feel, you know, because that’s just not me. And that’s not how I can present myself a which does, you know, it causes a little bit of conflict in me sometimes because when I’m talking to a mixed room, I try and veer a little bit more towards the conservative side just so I can make sure that my words are getting through. But then I also understand the value of just hitting them with me being me 100% because it, it, it captures that attention again.
Brandi Sea: 46:04 Right. Well, and in relation to, you know, like my own personal brand at this point in my career. Like I’m at the point where I can um, basically decline clients if I don’t feel like our ideologies or our personalities mesh. And if you aren’t presenting yourself as an entrepreneur, as a designer who is, you know, you know, client based, if you’re not presenting yourself fully as your own brand to a client or to accompany that you could potentially do work for, um, there will eventually be like a clash because um if you are putting forth this other persona that they think they’re hiring and then over over time and a working relationship, they realize that that’s not really who you are. That’s gonna to be um really bad for you as your own brand.
Shannendoah: 47:00 Absolutely. I heard something that a mentor taught to me. Well, I didn’t hear it. I listened to him and I absorbed it. Words matter. Words do matter. Ah, he told me once time will either promote you or expose you.
Brandi Sea: 47:23 Agreed.
Shannendoah: 47:24 And you know, I see it over and over again being lived out and it’s, it’s 100% true. Absolutely. 100% true. So what you just said,
Brandi Sea: 47:37 Especially in business
Shannendoah: 47:37 I totally agree with. Yeah. Especially in business, especially in business. So I don’t want to hold you up any longer. I know that you have a million things on your plate as you. Uh
Brandi Sea: 47:48 I do, but it’s okay because I love this. I’ve actually only ever been interviewed once before this and so it’s fun to be on the other end instead of always being the interviewer.
Shannendoah: 48:00 Well, I’ll tell you what, let’s have you back on. Um, we can talk about some more design related stuff. We could talk a little bit about more branding stuff. Um, but uh, you know, I don’t want to interfere too much with
Brandi Sea: 48:14 Yeah, talk about whatever
Shannendoah: 48:14 Yeah, excellent. So Brandi, brandisea.com. You can hear her podcast at brandisea.com Forward slash type forward slash help me out with the rest of it. Brandy.
Brandi Sea: 48:30 Oh Man, I don’t even know. You can just find it on iTunes,
Shannendoah: 48:34 Design Speaks and on iTunes
Brandi Sea: 48:36 Yeah, it’s on iTunes and the Google play store. And, uh, select episodes are on a Sound Cloud. But yeah, we’re, you can find us just search Design Speaks Podcast if you forget all of that and it’ll show up in Google or wherever you search things.
Shannendoah: 48:53 Awesome. Um, what social media platforms are you on, Brandi?
Brandi Sea: 49:00 I’m everywhere um @brandisea at Symbol B r a n d I. S as in Sam, e a , not mebrandisea that’s my personal. So unless you want to see lots and lots of pictures of my children, you probably just want to follow brandisea.
Shannendoah: 49:21 Awesome. Thank you so much Brandi and I can’t wait to have you back on the podcast.
Brandi Sea: 49:26 Hey, thanks. Shannendoah so nice of you to invite me here. It’s been a pleasure.
Shannendoah: 49:30 Absolutely. And if you want to hear anymore of our podcasts, go to sociallinus.com/blog we’ll be posting episodes there soon to be on iTunes and we will talk to you another time. Thank you so much Brandi. Have a great day.
Brandi Sea: 49:48 So there it was, I hope you guys enjoyed it despite the, a few hiccups that we had for audio. I’m not sure what was going on with my phone or that connection, but I hope that you guys still really got some good info out of it. It was kind of fun to talk to somebody else. Um, being on the, you know, more formal interview side was sort of a change. Even though Michelle asks me questions all the time, I just feel like I’m just talking to her. It was kind of a cool experience to be the, uh, the interviewee instead of the interviewer. So hope you guys enjoyed it and as always, we will be back next week and a shout out to Vesperteen for the song to Joelle for the show notes and a for this episode in particular thanks to my husband for helping me master the audio just a little bit because you know, issues and I’m not an audio expert, so shout out to him for his help and we will see you guys next week.