How to Use Mood Boards in Logo Design

Mariah Althoff: A mood board is essentially just a group of images that are combined, that will evoke some sort of aesthetic or visual style or mood, that will serve as a basis of inspiration for the entire project or brand or whatever you’re working on. These images can really be anything. They can be photographs, or logos, or colour palettes, fonts, patterns, textures. Sometimes even I’ll use interior design, photographs, or fashion shoot images, et cetera. Just really anything that resonates with your overall vision, so that it’ll give you inspiration and evoke like a desired aesthetic that you can refer back to at any point.

Ian Paget: That’s a really great overview. Thank you. How would you go about creating a mood board? What tools are you using or would recommend?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so when I first start a big branding project or even just if I’m really stuck on a project and I want a mood board for it, I will always start in Pinterest actually. There’s tons of places you can get inspiration from. You could even make like a physical mood board with just like magazine tear outs and images like that. But I found using Pinterest to be really helpful. I will just start by … I go hog wild on Pinterest and just pin everything that I really like, or that resonates with me or has any … is in the direction of where I foresee the project going or that really sparks an interest in some ideas, things like that. I just pin everything that I like to one board.

I’ll usually make it like a secret board so that my followers don’t see that I’m pinning a bunch of images for a client, and I start there. Then once I’ve just exhausted all of my pins or I have a decent amount of things that I have in there. I will usually then go in and just see if I start to identify any trends. Sometimes, certain colours will show up more often than not or a lot of the images that I pin are super clean and modern, so I will identify that trend and whatever really resonates the most, I stick with that and then just get rid of all the outliers that don’t really fit into that aesthetic. The first step is to just pin everything.

But then the second step, I usually just start refining and picking one general style or aesthetic to really hone in on. Then what I normally do is I will refine it even further. I actually will narrow it down to around 10 images to actually use in my mood board, because if you have 40 sometimes that can get a little overwhelming. What I actually recommend to those that I actually teach this to, is I recommend using anywhere from two to five relevant photos, whether that’s images of other design projects or logos or these fashion images or whatever, even just photos that you really like, the colours of or you really think shows this mood or aesthetic, whatever, just any type of photos.

I usually try to do two to five of those, and then one to two examples of text or fonts that you like and want to stick to that theme with, and one to two patterns or textures. I like to narrow down to around 10. Then I will actually just put together a mood board in either Illustrator or Photoshop. Even for some of the people that I teach this to don’t use those programs and even if you just use Canva or whatever, you could do that with just these types of things. Just putting it all on one page, I think can be really helpful because you don’t have to go back and scroll through your Pinterest board every day. You can just have it right there to serve as inspiration anytime you need it.

Ian Paget: I know, a few years back, I didn’t actually use mood boards as part of my process in any way, and I found myself that it speeds up your thought generation process, because you can find that aesthetic that you’re trying to create and it becomes a really useful reference.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, I agree. I also, when I originally started in my design career that was not something that I had to do when I worked for a corporate office. But I also find that there are several times where in a project, I get really stuck and I just don’t know what I want to do anymore. They’re really helpful to just go back and look at and be like, “Oh, yeah, I remember. I really liked this, this and this,” and it sparks new ideas every time I look at it. I think in general, just having something you can go back to, to remind you of your original concept, I think it helps keep everything really cohesive and it keeps your ideas fresh, and gives you a point of reference anytime you get stuck.

Ian Paget: Okay, that’s a really good overview of how to actually create a mood board. What I’m curious now is, in terms of your physical process of working with a client, can you talk through how you actually kind of integrate that into your process, like at what steps you would use it? Would you show the client? If you can talk through that, that would be amazing.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah. I guess another reason that I’ve used mood boards is because it’s really helped in my client process. I am able to … after I talk to the client, we actually have them fill out a questionnaire, then we get on the phone, we talk through it a little bit more. But I found that with mood boards, it really helps me visualise or give my clients something that they can visualise before we move forward. I think that just because you and I are talking and we say like vintage, rustic, chic or something that might mean something very different to me than it would to you, and so having this mood board can be really helpful, and before I actually spend a ton of time on the computer designing something, what do you think of this overall concept?

This is what I’m envisioning. Is this on the right track? Is this what you’re thinking too? Do you like this style? Things like that, because it just saves a lot of time. Even though the mood board does take time, obviously, it can help just put another checkpoint in the road to working with a client, to make sure everyone’s on the same page, they like the direction you’re going before you actually spend a ton of time designing logos.

Ian Paget: I know … there was a project I worked on a few years back where I didn’t use any mood boards. I created a brief as I would normally and then it got to the presentation stage and I presented these logos to the client, and I followed the brief and I understood it the way that I did, but I realised they wanted a very much of a handmade look and feel and I’d taken in a very different direction and in that instance a mood board would have just clarified that from the outset, because like you said, sometimes words mean different things to different people and the mood board is just a really useful way of clarifying what certain things might mean.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, agreed. I found too, depending on who you’re working with, there are some people that if visual stuff, especially design is not something that they’re great at, or there’s a lot of people that aren’t good at talking about things, they’re not good at visualising things. It gives you a way to make sure everyone’s on the same page, and it helps your client feel more comfortable about moving forward, especially if they’re spending a lot of money with you that can be really scary, so having these in place before they even spend, any money with you just knowing that like, “Okay, there is a checkpoint before you actually give me your three logo options or whatever.”

That makes them feel a little more comfortable about investing in your services. I think it can just help in a lot of ways. I definitely, I’m glad that I’ve started using them. Once I went off and started my own business, I realised how effective they can be for things like that, and just client communication in general can just be so hit or miss.

Ian Paget: I’m just thinking, in terms of actually fitting that in into your process, I take it you are creating the client brief and then you first of all started with a mood board, is that right?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, that’s like the first thing that I do.

Ian Paget: Okay. I’m just curious. I take it you just put one together and then present that to the client. How are you actually presenting that to them? Are they understand that understanding how it’s intended to be used?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, usually. Before I actually start on it, during our phone call, I explain how it works. I also, especially for clients that I feel are a little newer to graphic design in general and might not have, not be great at visualising things, I will send them examples of like, “Okay, here’s the mood board and then here’s the final style guide that this took us to.” They have a little bit of a reference of like, “Oh, that’s what this means and that’s how this is used.” That way they can put it together and understand a little bit better. I think just examples, in general are just really helpful for making sure everyone understands what’s going on. I think, as designers, we have our own language.

We have our own things going on in our own brains that normal people might not fully understand. As much as you can just make it easier for your client and almost dumb it down so that anyone can understand what you’re doing and where you’re going and how you’re going to get there, I think is an important tool that you could implement in your process.

Ian Paget: Okay. When you do present that to the client, obviously, it’s fantastic if you got it on the ball first time, but in those instances where you’ve not taken it in quite the right direction, how are you dealing with that situation?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so that’s actually … That has happened a couple times, and normally that is actually a really good, it’s good feedback, because it makes sure that I didn’t create a logo that they hated, because we were off base on what we were each talking about. Even though it’s annoying that you have to make a new mood board or start over whatever, it is really helpful because it saves you work in the long run. But so what I normally have done is, I have them send me examples, or even have them make their own Pinterest board … of things that maybe feel more, they resonate with more, if it’s totally off base, if there’s just a few things here and there.

One person was like, “I actually just want this to feel a little more user friendly. This feels a little more high tech and I want it to be …” She’s like, “My target audience is older people and they get really freaked out about tech stuff. I just want it to feel a little more approachable and this feels a little more techie, tech savvy, modern.” Then I just tweaked a few images, tweak the colour palette a little bit, sent it back to her and she’s like, “This is great, perfect. Let’s roll with it.” I think it just depends on the extent of how off you are as to how much you need to edit it. It could just be as simple as like, “I really hate this concept that you have in this image.

Can we just swap it out for something that feels a little more inviting?” But it could also just be like, “Let’s just start over. You give me ideas and I’ll pull from those.”

Ian Paget: I really like that because in the instance where you don’t actually use a mood board, what would happen is, you present something that looks very finished, and that’s when the client starts meddling in it. But with this, you’re purely using reference images, so it means that when you do actually work on the final logos or branding or whatever, you are in control of that and you have a clear direction of what that aesthetic should be. I really like mood board, so thanks for explaining that.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah.

Ian Paget: I wanted to move in to my next phase of questions and I Just wanted to learn a little bit more about you. I know that you have your own business. Can you talk through the steps that you took to actually create your business? Where did you start out and how did you get to where you are now?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so my business fell into my lap a little bit. I had always thought about how great it would be to freelance and run my own business and be my own boss. I was really … Honestly; I only worked for somebody else for a year and a half, so I was super stir crazy and I was like, “I can’t do this for 30 more years, something’s got to change.” I had this limiting belief essentially, that I couldn’t start my own business until I had more experience. I never thought that this was something that I was going to do soon. I thought maybe when I’m 30 I’ll look into it more, but I thought that I just wouldn’t be taken seriously as a … I think I was 24 when I started. I was the lead designer at a print and design firm in the town I was living in at the time and loved it, learned a ton.

If I didn’t have that job, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am super thankful for that experience. There’s a ton of stuff, they just don’t teach you in school that you just have to learn in the real world. I learned a lot of that there. But by the end, I was just so exhausted. I was so drained. I was overworked and underpaid and I was tired of it. I actually had a job offer from a very corporate office and I was just going to be their in-house designer and I took it. I was going to make 10 grand more. I was like, “Done. Get me out of here.” I did that and within three months the company almost went under and they fired 30 people in a month.

As the in-house designer I was probably the least important but I actually made it through like three rounds of layoffs before they finally laid me off as well. But I actually felt it coming. I was like, “There’s no way I’m going to make it through this final round of layoffs. There’s no way.” I got laid off that day and it sucked for like 20 minutes and then I was so relieved. That job sucked the soul out of me. I hated it. I was so bored. I was miserable. By then I had already had a … I had one freelance client, one and it was actually the office that my mom worked for. I became really close with their marketing manager, I did a bunch of stuff for them.

Once I got laid off, I was like, “I’ll start looking for new jobs,” but they started giving me more business. Then I finally was like, “You know what? Screw it. I’m just going to see what I can do worst case scenario, I get a job at a restaurant part-time while I build this up.” It just all spiralled from there. I just didn’t really … This wasn’t the plan, but I’m so thankful that it’s where I am now. I’ve never been happier. I make more money than I did. It just all came to fruition and all thanks to getting laid off. There is good out of the bad.

Ian Paget: It sounds like you really put a lot of thought into it. What I like about that transition, even though it was accidental, you found something to keep you going so that that part-time job that you found to phase into that. Yeah, well done. It’s amazing what you’ve done. Okay, so in terms of actually, so at that point, you made your mind up, “Okay, I want to go on my own.” What was it you did next? What was it you worked on next to start attracting clients, to start bringing in money basically?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so I did a lot of like, let’s try this and see if it sticks kind of thing for the first year. I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I still most the time don’t know what I’m doing. I just try new things and see what happens. I just try to listen to my gut. But when I first started, actually the company that laid me off started hiring me for freelance stuff too. That was my second client, which was awesome because they still paid me, but I just didn’t have to deal with all of their crap. That was nice. I started slowly getting some, just referrals in the area, just based on …

My boss at the company that I got laid off from loved me and she was very connected, so she played a huge part in getting new clients in the beginning. I tried out the like, not like Fiverr and 99Designs, but Elance or whatever that’s called now, stuff like that and realised that that doesn’t work, at least for me. I know some people figure it out, but I didn’t figure it out. It wasn’t until, I don’t know, eight months to a year in that I started blogging, I decided that I was going to try that out. One of my best friends runs a really successful food blog, so I saw her take that route and I was like, “You know what, maybe I could do this too.”

I started to get more involved in this whole online marketing world that I didn’t really realise existed, and I grew my blog for the last year. I guess I’ve only been doing this for about two and a half years now. I’m not super far into it, but my blog’s really grown in the last year and a half or so. That’s been really exciting to see and that has been what’s brought me the most just random clients out of the blue that I didn’t already know or weren’t referred to me, which has been really helpful. I use Pinterest for my mood boards, but I also have used Pinterest a lot for my marketing efforts.

My blog posts will bring in people that are interested in branding, and then they can see my work and then they contact me and we hopefully work together. That’s the direction that I’ve found my business falling into the best.

Ian Paget: One thing that you said then has kind of fascinated me because I haven’t heard of many people that have actually got a client work from Pinterest. How is it that you’ve gone about doing that? What is it that you’re doing in order to attract clients through Pinterest?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah. I actually took a Pinterest course to figure out how to optimise my pins and things like that. My Pinterest following has just been growing. I think it’s like 23,000 followers or something nuts. Honestly, for a while, I was just producing blog content every week for, I don’t know, eight months or so. I have a ton of posts and it does take time to build up some traction with those and they’re still, I still have some posts that don’t bring in any traffic at all, but it’s another one of those things where you just have to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

You just put out as much content as you can and you see which ones actually bring in traffic. I have four posts that consistently bring in 1,000 page views each a week. Then the rest are like 10, 20, so it’s just finding that solid blog post that apparently everyone wants to read that is really helpful. I also have, I guess, this hasn’t actually really taken off because I haven’t really done much with these, but I recently rearranged all my portfolio so that they turn into long pins, so that I can just pin an entire project and it’s all right there and it takes up more space in the feed. Pinterest changed the long pin thing recently though, so that’s neither here nor there.

But essentially just making content that the people on Pinterest want to read about. People on Pinterest are mostly women, and in the space that I’m in which is the online entrepreneur space, I just write a lot of content that people who are looking to do it themselves and learn more about it can go to, and then either they realise that it’s a lot harder than it looks, and then they can hire me. Or I’ve started creating online courses and digital products for people that don’t have the budget to hire me right now. They’re going to do it themselves anyway, so I might as well teach them how to do it well.

That’s how Pinterest has played into my whole business model. Sort of a long answer. I don’t know if that’s a very good answer.

Ian Paget: Yeah, that was really good. Out of curiosity, you did mention that there was a couple of posts that have been really successful for you, is there anything particularly different about those? I’m also curious, how are you able to track that, because how do you know specifically that that one post has been most important for you?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, well, I guess two of my biggest ones that I actually need to create more of these because I make affiliate income from them. I have two different font post like, post about my favourite font pairing. It’s like my favourite brush fonts and what to pair with them. I have five to 10 font pairings with these super trendy brush fonts that link back to design cuts who I’m an affiliate with. I actually make, I don’t know two or 300 bucks in affiliate income every month just from those posts.

They’re always my top posts on my blog and I think that has a lot to do with, they have little infographic type things that I’ve pinned and those just went viral, like thousands of re-pins, and I actually have a couple different articles that aren’t even font post that have, that I made long infographics to go with it purely for Pinterest. That’s been really helpful in bringing in traffic that way. But then I also randomly my other really high traffic one is how to make an editable PDF in InDesign. People love that post and I don’t even really talk about InDesign on my blog, but it gets people in the door.

Sometimes it is random, but I can usually predict that the ones that have accompanying infographics will do better just because Pinterest is so visual. Then I know that Pinterest brings them in. I guess, I don’t 100% know it, but I know because on Pinterest, you can see your analytics. Then also, I don’t really even use Google Analytics that often because I just don’t really care about my analytics that much. I do, but I just, it’s either I have people coming in or I don’t, so I don’t necessarily crunch numbers every week. I’ll just like look at my website stats and my SquareSpace back end and see which posts are the highest.

I don’t get, I get some traffic from Google but not a ton. I just know that it’s more than likely from Pinterest based on my Pinterest stats too.

Ian Paget: It’s an assumption based on that and that. That makes sense.

Mariah Althoff: Exactly.

Ian Paget: Now, I noticed on your website that you got this visual branding quiz. For anyone listening, basically it’s a quiz, so that you can create a free style guide with fonts, colours, resources and so on, so that clients can basically DIY their own brand, which is a great idea. You briefly touched on this in your previous answer, but I’m just curious to know what’s the idea behind this and has it actually attracted clients doing something like that.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah. I will say the branding quiz is more for a bigger plan down the road to A: build my email list, which has been working. People love that quiz. I have a really big email list these days, which is really nice. I do get clients because they read my emails. Yes and no. But also the branding quiz is for a bigger plan that I’m actually launching next month, where I’m creating a branding course. For anybody that wants to DIY their own brand, they can take this course and learn all about mood boards and beyond.

We talked about these different ways you can make your logo and come up with ideas, and how to brainstorm and just how to do it all, because I know how overwhelming it all is and I know how people that aren’t designers don’t have any idea where to go or what to do next, or how to go about it at all. I put together this course that will stem from that branding quiz. It’s more of like, “Okay, so you have this really solid style guide. Now what?” Then it’s like, “Oh, well, this branding course, is a great way to learn how to do it all at a reasonable price.

Rather than spending thousands on a designer, you can just learn how to do it yourself for 100 bucks or whatever.” That’s how that plays into that as well. But I do definitely get clients that are like, “Oh, I took your quiz and I got this result.” That is actually really helpful when I do start designing for them, because I’m like, “Okay, I already have an idea of what style you’re looking for. But let’s talk more about your business and see how I can integrate that style into something that’s unique to you.”

Ian Paget: I think that’s a really clever way of doing it, because you’re not only capturing data for people that could potentially become clients, but also capturing data for people that might want to join your course. Now a curiosity, that training course is not going to be a paid course?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah. I’m launching it in a couple weeks, and it’s just going to be one that’s open anytime. It’s not going to be an open, closed one. I’m pretty excited about that, because the majority of the people that are on my email list are interested in branding. I think this will be really helpful for them, and it’s packed full of a ton of information, so I’m really excited to launch that.

Ian Paget: I think it’s really cool to hear this because a lot of younger people working out there, they are just trying to focus on one thing, but what you’re doing is you’re diversifying your income, so you’ve got clients, you’ve got affiliate income and you’ve also got this training course as well. In terms of email marketing, that was another thing that I wanted to ask you about, because I get your emails frequently. They’re always very good. They’re always consistent, and it was something that I wanted to go into a little bit more details if possible. You’ve been doing this consistently now.

I’m not sure for how long, but since I’ve been following you it’s been consistent. I’m just curious, since you’ve been doing this, can you talk through some of the things that you’ve learned by doing weekly emails?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah. I will say I don’t love doing the weekly emails, but I know that it’s important. It is something that will either give potential clients more of a reason to know, like and trust me because they see that I’m a real person and they also see that I’m giving a ton of value away for free and they’re like, “Well shoot, if she’s giving all this information away for free, I wonder how awesome it is to just work with her or take one of her courses or whatever.” Then it’s also just a good way to build up this authority figure, I guess appearance.

People think you’re super legit if they’re on an email list of thousands of people or whatever. I also make sure that anybody that replies to my newsletters, I always respond to so that they know that I’m a real human. I just want this to … I want people to know that it is me on the other side of all of these things, and I want them to get to know me, because I know that just looking at my website, you don’t necessarily know who I am, and whether or not I know what I’m talking about. Having an email list is a great way to be like, “Hey, there’s a new blog post up. It’s all about things if you’re looking to get help with that, go check it out.”

Then the more that they see, I know what I’m talking about, the more likely that they’re going to work with me, either now or in the future when they have a budget. Or when I come out with a new course, they’re more likely to enrol in it.

Ian Paget: Would you mind talking through some of the tools that you’re using and how you’re actually going about creating the content for those emails?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so I use ConvertKit. I had used MailChimp for a minute, but with ConvertKit, you can do a lot more and it’s not that much more expensive. You’re able to create these email opt ins that I have all over my blog for various different things. I actually have a free resource library that has a ton of different worksheets and cheat sheets and templates, and things like that that people can get into once they’ve signed up for my email list. They’ll sign up for my email list, I send them the password, they can get into it. But also from there I’m able to tag subscribers based on what they’ve clicked on. If they normally click on branding posts, I can tag them with branding interests.

That way when I come out with this branding course, I will send them a few more emails about it than I would somebody who only reads about Illustrator. For those people, I have an Illustrator course, so I’ll hit them more with my Illustrator course when that comes back out again. It’s also a great tool for making funnels and things like that, so once somebody opts in, you can say, “Okay, I want them to go into this email sequence,” and that email sequence is already all typed out so the next month and a half, they’re already getting emails from you and you didn’t have to do any extra work, because they’re already done.

ConvertKit’s really powerful in that way. There’s a ton of other ones that can do that same thing, but some of the more free ones make that a little more difficult to do so. That is why I switched from MailChimp to ConvertKit. I don’t remember what else you asked.

Ian Paget: Next, how are you coming up with content for each email on a weekly basis?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I have off weeks, depending on how crazy my life is, but in general, I will … It depends on what I have coming up and what I want to be promoting, or at least priming people for. When I had an … My first course came out last fall and it was an Illustrator course for aspiring designers and people that want to DIY their own graphics, to learn everything about Illustrator. For two or three months before then, all of my blog content had to do with Illustrator or why I used Illustrator or how Illustrator is more powerful than Canva or whatever.

Then usually each email would just correspond to what I was talking about that week, and would lead back to the post if they want to learn all about it. But then other times, if for a few months, I had more just random here and there stuff, so I would just email them here and there about whatever. Sometimes I have a really great big plan. Sometimes I have no plan at all, but it’s just … I just listen to my gut and go with what I want to write about and talk about, and then just try to do that consistently and have it feel relatable and just gain a community that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Ian Paget: Okay, so the next thing again, this is something that we briefly touched on already, but I’m curious to know, how are you actually collecting up emails?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, so multiple things. On each, well, not every post, but most posts, I’ll have some opt in. Well, I guess I have an opt in on every post, but some of them are more specific to the blog content than others. I actually on my post about mood boards, I have a link that’s like, “Hey, I have 10 different mood board templates that you can download and put in your email address.” Then anytime, I have a blog post about branding in general in the future, I can add that opt in to that post as well, so I don’t actually have to make more freebies, I can just reuse them.

I actually have all of the freebies in a free resource library, so I don’t even have to like, send them individualised emails. I just send everybody the same email that’s like, “Hey, here’s a link to the free resource library, your download is in there plus a bunch of other things.” Then it’s even cooler for them to say like, “Wow, I get free templates plus 20 worksheets.” I also use that branding quiz to bring in a ton of traffic. That’s even a good one that I’ve just had up in a announcement banner on the top of my website, because a lot of people that are coming to my website are looking to have some branding done for them or do it themselves.

That’s a good one that applies to a lot of my audience. But in general, I just have, I don’t know, maybe 15 different freebies that I will promote on different blog posts based on what the blog post is about and then they just sign up right in my blog post. I also have occasionally hosted some webinars, and I’ll put pop ups on my website about the webinars that they can sign up for, which I need their email for. I have run Facebook ads for those as well, which I get their email for through that too.

Again, just this idea of diversifying as much as you can, because you can’t necessarily rely on one thing, especially if that one thing stops working down the road for whatever reason, you have five other options to go with moving forward.

Ian Paget: I like what you said, it seems like every time you’re creating some piece of content, you’re attaching some lead generation in order to turn those readers into subscribers basically. I really like that because you’re giving value with the content and then for a little bit more value that’s associated to so this, you can just enter your email address to download it, so that’s fantastic advice.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, I will say to, one of my biggest pieces of advice with that is, make sure that whatever you’re giving away for free is super relevant to your offers in the post or whatever you’re promoting at the time, because I did have this free calendar, whatever. It was like a really pretty calendar and people loved it so much that it went super viral on Pinterest, and I just had all kind of random people signing up for my email list. Those people aren’t interested in my services; they were interested in the calendar.

If you do free things like the calendar, don’t promote it on your website, just send it to your email list that’s already there as like a, “Hey, here’s this. Thank you.” But if it’s not relevant to the content, they’re not going to be interested in what you’re actually talking about and therefore there’s not a reason for them to be on your list. Make sure it’s relevant content. Don’t learn it the hard way, where you just pay for 1,000 people on your email list that you don’t even need.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I can totally relate with that, because I’ve got quite a big email list and you send it out and you realise, “I’m paying more money to have a higher number of subscribers, but it turns out half of them aren’t actually interested in your services anyways.”

Mariah Althoff: Exactly. With that too, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not afraid to just delete people, like the cold subscribers from my list. I’m like, “Okay, you haven’t read an email in three months. I’m just going to delete you because I don’t want to pay for you anymore and you don’t care about what I’m writing.” I’m like, not really a numbers person because I would rather have a smaller list that’s highly engaged than a huge list and only 5% of the people read it.

Ian Paget: Yeah, that makes sense. That’s something that I still need to work on because I don’t do emails in the same way you do. I do them now and again and I feel like I’m really bad at it.

Mariah Althoff: It’s hard. I hate writing them to be honest. It’s not something that feels natural and good. But I know that I’m good at it and I know that my readers appreciate it so I do it, but it is hard to be consistent at it. But I will say, if you’re consistent at it, the more … I found, if you’re consistent, more people are going to open it because they remember who you are. Whereas if they signed up for something two months ago, and then you appeared in their inbox, and they’re like, “I don’t know who this is or how I got on their list,” because I have several people that I’m subscribed to I’m like, “I don’t even know what you do,” so I unsubscribe.

Obviously, you don’t want to blow up people’s inboxes but the more often that you can just appear regularly, even that if that’s just like two or three times a month, they start to recognise you and remember you and then they’re more likely to open them, so it’s less of a waste of money to have them on there in the first place. That’s one of my main motivators to keep writing them, because it’s hard.

Ian Paget: Well, I know even with me, obviously, I’m never going to be a client, but I get them in frequently. You come to mind when I’m thinking of doing things like this. I think it’s good to do just because someone might not be a client now, but because this email comes in their inbox every week, when they do need something who are they going to call?

Mariah Althoff: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I’m glad that they’re working. That makes everything worth it too when I hear people say that.

Ian Paget: Okay, so I’ve got one last question for you just to wrap this up. It’s the first logo design related question I’ve asked you this entire interview. Just to end this, I want to ask you, if you could give just one logo design tip, what would that be?

Mariah Althoff: Yeah. I would say, keep it simple. I think that a lot of either … I work with a lot of people that want to DIY their logo, or a lot of amateur designers, or a lot of people will just like feel like, you have to throw a bunch of crap on a logo in order for it to feel designed when that’s the opposite of the truth. I think the more simple and well thought out it is the less just like doodads that you throw here and there, the more effective it is. I think even though it can feel scary sending a logo to a client that you feel they might say, “Well, I could have done that,” first off, they wouldn’t have and second it’s so much nicer.

It can be replicated a lot easier. It can be recognised a lot easier, so simple and clean is better than over the top and over design type of thing.

Ian Paget: It’s really fascinating because you’re the ninth personnel that I’ve interviewed for this podcast, and most people give a very similar answer.

Mariah Althoff: Really?

Ian Paget: Yeah, it’s fascinating because I know I’ve been working on Logo Geek for maybe five years now. Most of that time has been on the side inside. When I first started out, I didn’t really know what I was doing. When I got to a point when I wanted to do really simple work, having the confidence to send that to the client was really hard but-

Mariah Althoff: It’s scary.

Ian Paget: Yeah, because I think probably the first really simple logo I did was just literally like a Helvetica Neue Bold letter V in purple with a registered trademark. It’s the type of thing that technically you could have done in five minutes, but it took a couple of days to get to that point. But from an identity point of view, that was the strongest route and it was the most relevant solution for that project. If you are confident in the brief that you’ve achieved those goals in the most simple way possible, then you’re always going to get it approved.

The more simple I’ve gone, I’ve just had more clients agree the work and happier with it. It’s been more versatile and I’ve got more clients because of that, because the work looks substantially better too you know that earlier work I did where I was adding in all those details.

Mariah Althoff: Yeah, I totally agree. I still struggle with, “Oh, if I send this, are they going to hate it because it’s just, it’s so simple?” But I just have to do it anyway. It’s something that I mentally have to work through almost every time. But I agree, it’s like they … it’s always for the best and you’re probably … The clients that want super intricate designs that are over the top and probably ugly in the end anyway, aren’t the people you want to work with. I think it also has to do with just making sure you’re charging your words, so that you only attract clients that understand and appreciate your skills anyway.

Ian Paget: Yeah, that’s great advice. Well, thank you so much for your time. It’s been really good to finally chat with you. Thank you very much for being a fantastic guest.

Mariah Althoff: Thank you. I really appreciate it. I’m so glad I got to hop on here with you.