Creating a Personal Brand with Jacob Cass

Jacob Cass: Personal branding allows you to stand out in the market with a purpose and strategy in mind. I’m going to talk to you a bit about how I’ve done that for the past 10 years using my business, Just Creative, and we can go from there. About 10 years ago, I started my business called Just Creative Design, which I’ve just recently rebranded to Just Creative. This has been my personal blog, my business, where I’ve had my portfolio, and where I write about articles on design, creativity, branding, logo design, social media, so forth.

Really, the site has been, I guess, the home of my personal brand, but my brand is really everywhere on the web, from Twitter to Facebook and so forth. To put into the section of you creating your own brand, you need to keep in mind what your goals are. Is it to get a job at an agency, a startup? Is it to be able to freelance and travel the world? These are things to have in your mind when you’re establishing your own personal brand, because this can dictate the look and feel, how you communicate. Are you an illustrator, are you a designer, do you practice, are you a web designer, are you a developer?

These are all going to have different strategies, so always keep that in mind. My perspective when I’m talking about this, I’m a graphic designer, I specialise in branding, logo design and interactive design, so just keep that in mind. In terms of my blog, I created my blog for a way of recording my studies at university. Through that, it kind of opened a can of worms to this whole blogging world, and that’s how I started establishing my own brand. I learned about using things like a consistent profile image, language, the fonts, colours, and all of that. That’s really dictated everything moving forward.

Ian Paget: I totally agree with you that consistency is key. I know I frequently chat with quite a lot of people online, and when they change their profile image, it really confuses me, as I no longer recognise them. It’s almost like they’ve changed their face. I love how you’ve been consistent with your images for years, and I’ve been inspired by that. I’ve actually been doing the same, and it’s worked for me. To steer the discussion a little, I know one big thing that people struggle with when building a personal brand is coming up with a name. I know that you’ve been consistently using Just Creative rather than your own name, what’s the reason for doing that, and is there a story behind it?

Jacob Cass: Yeah, there is a story behind it. Actually, when I was studying in high school, I didn’t really know about graphic design, Photoshop was a hobby, and I started a side gig. The website was called Jack Cass Productions, like Jackass Productions, which we found out was a terrible name, but as a teenager, that was a good name. Then I started brainstorming names and using my initials, using my name, and I ended up coming down to Just Creative because it used my initials. It was actually Just Creative Design at the time, but then later I bought the domain Just Creative and went and shortened it.

It was just a bit of a play on my initials and it worked for me, and it was also a way to distance myself from just Jacob Cass, because it was just more than my portfolio, it was like a blog and a brand. I wanted to have some flexibility in the future to use this brand name for other things. That kind of paid off, because a few years ago I launched my travel blog with my wife, Just Globetrotting, and there’s plenty of other opportunities out there with this brand name. That was the strategy behind me.

In terms of everyone else, it may be a little bit different. Maybe you don’t have a blog that you want to keep consistent, maybe it is just you, so keep that in mind. There’s nothing wrong with that, you can own your name. Maybe if it’s a very regular name, John Smith or something, you can create something a little bit more unique, but if you have a unique name, own it. If your strategy is to have a studio, then explore other options, so just keep it open.

Ian Paget: I think what you said earlier is key to this. If you know what your goals are, that will heavily influence what you do, right from the point of creating a name. Now, I want to talk about creating a logo for your personal brand. Every designer that I’ve ever met has really struggled with this. Is there any advice that you can give for the people out there who are currently working on a logo for their business or personal brand?

Jacob Cass: Designing for yourself is very hard, everyone knows it. It comes back to that strategy before, like if you have that unique name, a lot of beginner designers, they’ll try to come up with a logo mark or a unique symbol, when their name may be unique enough. You don’t need to have a unique symbol all of the time, you could just have a logo made out of type. Often designers overthink it too much. Choose a typeface that suits your goals and your future brand, and maybe you can do a little bit of customisation, but don’t overthink it. It’s the full brand image you should be thinking about, so the style. If you’re an illustrator, like is it creative, are you a children’s book illustrator?

It’s going to be a different style to someone who’s working in corporate, which is a little bit where I’m a bit more focused. I’m not totally corporate. But anyway, that’s just what you should keep in mind. In terms of creating your own brand, differentiate yourself from others. What makes you unique, what’s your style, and how can you communicate that through your website, your logo, and on social media, what’s your tone of voice? These are all things to keep in mind when you’re talking about the personal branding.

Ian Paget: This is fantastic advice. I imagine that it’s really helped a lot of people who are currently working on their own logos and struggling with it, so thank you for that. Now I know that your website and blog has been fundamental to your business and personal brand, and I personally believe that any designer, whatever your personal goals are, I think that you should have a website of some kind. Based on your experience, what would you recommend a designer include on their website?

Jacob Cass: There’s definitely some key elements you need on a website. Obviously, information about yourself, what you do, your services, your work on your portfolio, just show it in context, maybe have a contact page or at least a contact section, that’s the most crucial thing. Then if you wanted to have a news section or a blog, this is a way for people to keep updated with your work. You can share your tutorials, tips, or advice to give you credibility and to show that you have the skills to help clients out, because clients are coming to you for advice.

Then if you’re a designer or developer or whatever, they’re coming to you for a reason, so show off what you can do. That may be through testimonials, it could be through different logos of clients you’ve worked with, it could just be your work, if it speaks for itself. These are all things to keep in mind, I also have other sections on my site, the services section and an FAQ, I also have a questionnaire to help clients think about their brand and their goals. Clients appreciate it, because they don’t often think about these sort of things when they’re asking for design or development work, and it really helps. Those are some things to include on your site.

Ian Paget: This is great. I think what I’ll do, to save listeners writing this down, I’ll make sure to include everything discussed here in the show notes for this episode. Now, you mentioned about having a questionnaire on your website which visitors need to complete before you contact them. Now, I’ve seen this done in so many different ways, and personally I’ve opted for just a really simple form. What’s the reason why you require potential customers to answer detailed questions right from the outset?

Jacob Cass: It’s funny you ask, because I listened to your podcast with Draplin, and he has a different strategy, he doesn’t use the questionnaire, he doesn’t want to give work to other people. The reason, he has a shop, and it works for him, he’s very personable, he has an outgoing personality and he can talk to clients in the shop and show off his shop. I have a different strategy because I live my life on the road, I’m always traveling, I’m in different timezones. I also have a lot of traffic come into my site because of my blog, so I have a lot of people that I … I don’t want to say low ballers, but they’re not my target market. They want to have a cheaper designer, where I’m looking for somewhere in the mid to high range.

This questionnaire is a good vetting form to weed out some of the low ballers, if you will, and the questionnaire helps that. Sure, I may lose some clients, but my goal is to work less, charge more, and have more time to work with clients, and the questionnaire is a way of doing that for me, and that’s why I include it.

Ian Paget: This makes total sense. You’ve been using it as a filter to make sure that only the best leads make it to your inbox. With your website, you have a fantastic blog that I’ve been following for years, right back to the start of my career. I noticed that you’ve been posting very consistently during that time, which is incredible. Now, I know from previous interviews that as designers, we need to be blogging and writing content to attract clients, and to help with our Google search results too. I’d love to know from you, how have you been able to write consistently? Do you have any advice for people like myself, who really struggle to make time for writing?

Jacob Cass: Yeah, it is difficult, and the time management thing is hard for a lot of people. It’s changed over the years. When I first started the blog, it was me writing a lot, and I had more time. It’s kind of pivoted now where I have less time to write, and I’m working more with client stuff. Because I’ve got more domain authority because of the posting regularly over the years, I have more guest authors wanting to post on my blog and get a link back to their site, which helps me because I got fresh content, and it saves me time. I still have to edit and add photos and do the SEO and all of that, but it does help a little bit.

In terms of the context of new blogging, maybe you have a writer or you hire a writer who could do some content marketing for you, and you do your own maybe once a fortnight, if that’s enough for you, or once a week. These days, longer form content is definitely going to get more search results, you get high rankings. Maybe it’s even less than that, if that’s all the time you have, but just make it a really high quality article, and do it on something that hasn’t been spoke about much, so you can rank higher for certain key words and it’s a resource that maybe other people haven’t written about yet.

That’s something to consider. In terms of time management, we all want more time, but I’m quick at design and ideation, so that helps me. I’m also quite productive, and that helps. There’s certain apps and keyboard shortcuts and all of that that helps, and there’s tons and tons of articles on productivity. Give that a research, I’m not here to rant about that, but there are ways to cut corners and speed up your workflow.

Ian Paget: I’m reasonably productive myself, but I’m definitely going to have a look to see what’s out there, because I’m keen to maximise my time. In terms of writing, I’m well aware that it’s not just a case of what you write, but how you write as well. I know from reading your blogs for years now that you’re very savvy when it comes to search marketing. Is there any advice that you can give to help us write better content that will help us reach higher positions on Google?

Jacob Cass: Good SEO, it’s difficult for the beginners, because you do need a lot of content and you need links back to your site before you’re even going to start to rank or even get on the first page. It’s kind of like the chicken or egg thing here, so it is important to network, get people to link to your site, talk to your friends, other blogs, or do guest articles on other sites first, just so you can get some domain authority, which means that your search on Google or search engines will think your website is authoritative and will therefore rank you higher in search engine rankings. That was a mouthful, sorry.

In terms of blogging consistently and writing, it really depends on what you’re after here, because if you just want to traffic to your site, that’s one thing, if you want exposure for your work or if you want clients, that’s another thing. If you’re wanting clients, you could talk about your process, because this is a good case study to show potential clients or clients that you may have in your pocket or half in your pocket, you can show them this case study or process of your work to show you behind the scenes. That’s really cool and interesting, and it communicates the value that you’re putting into your work.

That’s a good place to start, and then maybe you have some favourite resources that you use, and that could be useful for other people, designers or potential clients, depending on what their resources are. There’s always places to start, tips, tutorials, process, and go from there. Just start, that’s the biggest thing.

Ian Paget: I totally agree with that. I know when I started writing myself, some of my early blog posts were really bad, and I’ve since taken them down or I’ve rewrote that content again so it actually makes some sense. At school as a kid, I needed extra support to help my written English, but I’ve found that as I’ve got older, the more that you do something, the better that you get at it. By just doing, as you mentioned, now my articles are good enough to be featured on sites such as Creative Block, which I hope is a good example of by doing, you actually get better. I totally agree with you that just starting really matters.

Jacob Cass: Definitely. There’s definitely techniques online which are simple in theory when you talk about it, but first time bloggers may not know about it, just how you format a post with the head of tags large, and subsection bullet points. Because people scan these days, they don’t read, a lot of imagery and little snippets of information, so that’s a good way to think about it.

Ian Paget: Really great advice. I know that social networking has also been a big part of your personal brand. Once again, you’ve been consistently posting on a daily basis on lots of different social platforms. I know this probably falls into time management, as you’ve already mentioned, but is there any advice you can give to help listeners also post on a consistent basis as you have been? Like is there any useful tools or methods that you’ve been using?

Jacob Cass: I do post a few times a day, and I have some tools. I’m quite active on Twitter, and I have everything set up that goes to my Twitter to go to my Facebook, so I don’t have to do it twice. I also use a tool called Buffer which is a huge time saver, which connects all your social profiles into one post, and you can press it once and it does it, it sends it to all your profiles and actually puts everything into a queue for you. It does it at the time that is best for your follower, your audience.

For example, even though I’m Australian and I live here, most of my audience is in the states, so my Buffer, I guess, buffers my tweets, if you will, to put them into the right time slot that’s going to post in the states and maybe London, or the UK, sorry. That’s a huge thing to know when your audiences is live, and when you’re going to get the most retweets or shares. That’s the main tool I use.

How I get content is through Twitter lists, through email newsletters and websites. Another tool I use is Panda, which is like a Chrome extension. I’m sure it could work on other browsers, and it has access to many different, it’s kind of like an aggregator of different news and websites out there which you can get content. There’s no lack of content on the web these days, so if you’re looking for content, shame on you, it’s all out there. Just make sure you have a strategy behind what you’re sharing and give value to your audience. That’s really what’s being working for me.

Ian Paget: I’ve been using a similar strategy, and it’s worked for me too. Now, I notice with your reply that you seem to be very aware of where your audience are actually located. How do you know that? Is there some kind of a tool that you’re using to know that information?

Jacob Cass: Through my website, I can tell the countries just through analytics, and Buffer is also … I think it was Buffer, that can tell you the audience differences. I think, I can’t remember. I did it a while ago when I was figuring out the times, but there are certain analytics tools that I think can scan your followers, if they set a location in their Twitter. Facebook also, when you’re doing the ads, you can break down where your audience is from, or target where your audience is from. Really a bit of a vague answer, but there are, I believe, Twitter or Buffer.

Ian Paget: I think what I’ll do is if I find anything useful, I’ll add it into the show notes, because I like how you’ve been able to use that to your advantage so that you can actually make the most of your posts. I’ll see what I can find, and I’ll add it into the show notes for this episode. Over the past few years, you’ve been traveling the world whilst working freelance, and I think this is incredible. Anyone that doesn’t know your story, you have to go and check out Jacob’s website at justglobetrotting.com. Every time I look at your photos, I feel very envious, and I know I’m not alone in this. I’d love to know how you’ve been able to do this, as it sounds like a dream position to be in.

Jacob Cass: It’s hard to look at that as a beginner and you’re like, “How do they get there? What are they doing?” If you want to talk about the backstory of how I got there or how anyone else got to that position, it doesn’t come just overnight. The backstory for me was that I was studying at uni, I got offered a job through Twitter, I was studying in Sydney and then moved to New York. I worked there for five years at an agency, so I wasn’t traveling the world then. Through that time, I was freelancing, running my blog, getting clients, getting my name out there, establishing my self as a designer, really, learning the chops of agency life and also freelancing.

There was a lot of learning along that time, and it’s not like I just went straight out to go travel the world and freelance, but saying that, it’s also very possible to go out and do that. If you go to a very economically friendly place, such as Southeast Asia, which is very affordable, and you can actually live for quite cheap with the accommodation, rent, fast wifi and all of that. Some places that come to mind are like Chiang Mai in Thailand or Koh Lanta in Thailand as well. These are some of my favourite places that we visited that had that full-out accessibility. You can go out there, and you don’t have to travel the world, you can just go to that one place, explore that area, see what you like about living life on the road. Can you actually work? Are you getting clients? Is it possible to do it?

You’ll soon find out it’s easier than people think, and it’s actually more affordable to live on the road in these places and the big cities, especially London, New York, San Fran, all of that, the expenses are ridiculous. Yes, if you have a full time job there, it kind of balances out, but if you’re freelancing, it’s a little bit more tough. These are things to keep in mind. Also, when I got on the road, it was about two and a half years ago, I left the agency and we started traveling. We did Europe for the first about six months, and that just blew through our savings. We had saved money to do that, but it’s expensive there, and drinking is also expensive. Once you get out of these big, big, big cities and you go somewhere more affordable, it’s much easier to do. That’s something to keep in mind.

Ian Paget: Where is it you’re staying? Are you using hostels or BnBs, or are you renting some kind of accommodation for a length of time?

Jacob Cass: That changes depending on where we are. I’m always traveling with my wife, so depending on where we are, like Europe is very expensive, we’re doing hostels there, for example. Even that like, what, 30 to 40 Euros for a bed, so you’re paying upwards of like $100 US a night in a hostel. It’s quite ridiculous, but then for the same price in Asia, you could be living in a resort, so you have to keep that in mind, but it changes. In Asia, we’re going pretty smooth, we’re doing mid-range hotels and sometimes we’ll stay in there for weeks at a time. For example, we love Barcelona so we would stay there for the summer for good six to eight weeks, whereas other places, we wanted to just get in, get out, see the main things and move on, so it depends.

Ian Paget: Whilst you’re traveling and exploring places, how are you able to actually do the work that’s needed? Are you working from the place that you’re staying in?

Jacob Cass: Yeah. First off, I have a very organised wife, and she does a lot of the travel organisation, and we do research together on where to stay. Wifi is extremely important, so we always look up reviews on TripAdvisor booking, all of that, and do searches for wifi to ensure that it’s fast and that it’s reliable. Because we’re a couple, we stay in private rooms, we try not to do hostel mixed dorms or anything like that, because we’ve found that we enjoy our sleep much more than saving a few bucks listening to snorers. When you have a good night’s sleep, you’re much more productive, the money is just not worth it because the productivity is better when you have better sleep.

In terms of where we work, it often is just in our room, it’s better because we can have the air conditioning, you have a quiet space. Cafes are often, the wifi is chewed up by other people, so we’ve found working at home, and when say home, the hotel, with their wifi is more reliable. I also work on buses and on trains and everywhere, wherever you can get a spare moment. My wife laughs at me because we’re going over these bloody rocky roads and everything is jumping up and down, and so I’m still focused in my zone, and she just laughs. You have to do what you’ve got to do.

Ian Paget: This is amazing. It sounds like with everything we’ve spoken about, that it all boils down to time management. I know from everything you’re doing and have done, you’re incredibly good at this. It just sounds like if you can manage your time as well as you have, I think anything is possible. Now, as this podcast is about logos, I’d love to dive into your logo design process to learn more about how you work. It’s a topic that I’ve spoken about quite a lot on previous episodes, but I find it really valuable to learn from other designers, because I know that earlier you briefly mentioned Aaron Draplin’s process and how you work quite differently. Could you talk through your process for working on a logo design?

Jacob Cass: Absolutely. These days for clients who find me, that’s the first crucial step is getting people to hire you, I have a lot of my work online portfolio, I just show my best work. I’ve found what people resonate with is the ones that are creative, smart, clever, simple, and that’s what I strive for in my logo design work, and I just feature them. I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of logos, but to pick maybe like 30 logos to put in the portfolio is key, the ones that resonate with clients. After they’ve been interested in my work, I make it very easy for people to contact me on my site. I also have that questionnaire that I talked to you about, and that’s the first step.

If they contact me or we have a phone call conversation, but at the end of the day, I get them to this questionnaire or have a chat on the phone. That way, I have all the information about their business, their target market, everything that’s going to help me with the creative process, to design to a strategy and a goal based on their answers and our conversation.

That’s the most important thing, because otherwise you’re just designing willy-nilly, and it’s just a graphic, it’s not just strategy. After that’s all figured out, then the fun begins. I start the creative work, I do a lot of sketches. These days I’m doing less sketches, I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been working on the road and it’s just been very bumpy and hasn’t been as good, but these days I do less sketches and I’m much more productive working on the computer, but I go back and forth with that depending on the client and what’s needed. Usually, I just go crazy with the designs, and my art boards look like a crazy mess, and there’s hundreds of iterations of minute little details.

I end up dwindling it down to maybe five logos, five to eight that I think these might be the top picks. I’ll send, depending on the client, maybe three to five concepts. If they’re more abstract logos, maybe some different iterations of them, and I present them in a PDF either on a white blank page or in context or both, depending on how big the presentation is. Depending on where the client is, if we can have a conversation, I’ll talk to him on the phone, talk him through it, or do an email blast. Sometimes they’re not so accessible to talk to, so I’ll email them, talk about each work, and try to sell the design.

That’s the most important thing when it comes to logo design and branding, is talking through your decisions, and sell to the client why this design is working and why it’s right for their business and goals, based on their questionnaire and phone call conversation that you had. Then you go into the revision stage, and you can look at font colours, changing the logo, and you repeat that process until the final logo has been chosen or designed. From there, we start building out the rest of the brand, the fonts and colours, and then the branding of the rest of the collateral. Sometimes that’s done in the same time, and sometimes it’s after the fact. That’s really the process that I’ve come to work with, and it works well.

Ian Paget: You mentioned here about a revision phase, where you would be making requested amends. From experience, I know that this is one area where things can go horribly wrong, and where a client could potentially ruin the work that you’ve done. How are you going about handling bad feedback or amendments that could steer the design in the wrong direction?

Jacob Cass: I would never say there’s bad feedback, because I think there’s always some reason why a client wants something. They may not have the design background to say, “This is what I want,” exactly, but they’re trying to move you in a different position. I think that’s sometimes good for the creative process, because you’re going to explore something that you weren’t going to before. You may read it and be like, “That’s not going to work, that’s a terrible idea,” but maybe just give it a go and see what comes from it. You can show them what you did, and you can also show them what you recommend, and talk about why yours is better for the goals of the business versus their direction.

End of the day, they may like their version, but if they’re happy, I think Aaron Draplin was actually saying the same thing, if they’re happy, you can talk to them about it as much as you like, saying otherwise, but if it’s working for them, go for it, that’s okay. Yeah, the ego thing comes into it as well, but you have to brush that off. In terms of dealing with that feedback, that’s what I’ve found to do, is to show them what they’re suggesting as well as your own.

Ian Paget: I agree, this is good advice, and it’s how I deal with this too. In the past in this situation, I’ve made the requested changes, but I’ve also presented an alternative version that kind of addresses the issue that they had, but is a better solution than what they suggested. I’ve found in almost all situations, I’ve been able to steer the project in the right direction by taking this approach. I don’t know if that’s been the same for you.

Jacob Cass: Most often, yeah, definitely. There’s always discrepancies, but at end of the day, like I was saying before, if they’re happy, then that’s okay. Yeah, most of the time they do go the other direction, especially if you’re selling it right. Often that may need a little more work, like putting it in context or showing how it works with the rest of the brand and so forth. End of the day, it’s worth it, if you can do that.

Ian Paget: For sure. Now, we got a little bit more time than expected, so I’d love to discuss one other area, if you don’t mind. Now I know with your blog and social channels that you do a lot of affiliate marketing. For listeners who are not familiar with this, basically, affiliate marketing is where you share a link to a product, and anyone that follows that link and buys something, you basically take a percentage of that sale, I know, Jacob, this has allowed you to make a passive income from your blog and social channels. Could you talk through how you’ve been able to make a success of affiliate marketing?

Jacob Cass: Yeah, definitely, and it’s only been in the past probably two years that I’ve been doing more affiliate marketing and actually focusing in on that. The reason for that is because I wanted to supplement my travels and make money passively, if you will, by affiliate marketing. I had a newsletter subscriber base from having a blog for a few years, and I needed to stop actually paying for the hosting cost and the newsletter costs, which people don’t often think about, but it can add up quite a lot. The affiliate marketing, it helps subsidise that, and it’s also a win-win for everyone, really, because the people that are buying, like I recommend things like fonts and design packages and courses.

These are all things that are going to help other designers, and it doesn’t cut out of extra cost to them. They getting a good deal, and I get a little cut from it, so it is a win-win for everyone, and that’s why I’ve focused a little bit more on it. I think I’m going to explore different options this year, and maybe work on other methods of getting actual more subscribers, because it’s kind of plateauing now, I’ve noticed. That’s going to be a goal for this year. In terms of affiliate marketing, it’s been more successful than I thought.

Just reading other people, like Pat Flynn, for example, how much money he makes just from one certain area like selling Blue Host sites or recommending web hosting, or he’s got many other strategies and he’s making like $50,000 just from one area a month, so it’s pretty crazy, and it’s very inspiring. I’m nowhere near that level, but there’s definitely potential. I think the design industry appreciates the offers and the deals and the discounts, so yeah, it’s win-win.

Ian Paget: So I can understand, how is it you’re actually promoting the products? Are you just including links in blog posts, or are you writing about the product itself? Or are you doing something a little bit more strategic to maximise the income that you’re making?

Jacob Cass: There’s different ways. I have a resources page on my site where it just recommends different products, courses and themes and things like that, and that’s one Avenue. Another Avenue is through email marketing, which is the most successful way, because when people are subscribed to your email subscriber list, they trust you more. That’s a big thing with affiliate marketing, it’s all about trust. I don’t ever recommend a product that I wouldn’t use myself, it’s always something that I find valuable and I think other people are going to get great value from, so that’s kind of my mantra.

In terms of other intelligent ways, I’m not doing anything crazy, it’s really just recommending products through my email subscriber list. I have a couple of partners that I work with such as Design Carts, which offer incredible value bundle deals, and designers lap that up, and that’s one avenue. Online courses such as SkillShare or Udemy, these are all things that further improve a designer’s career. These have been successful for me. There’s also other avenues, which what Pat Flynn uses is recommending how to make a website or how to make a blog, and give a tutorial on how to do that. Then inside that, they have a link for Blue Host or some themes or whatever it might be. Blue Host and other web hosting platforms, they pay out big for these big companies, and every new sign up, they’re getting hundreds of dollars.

It’s very lucrative if you can get it, crack into that market, but there’s a lot of competition as well. What has worked for me has been the email list, and writing certain articles. I’ve been doing it quite regularly, actually, maybe once or twice a week, which may be a little too much, so I might drop that back a bit or explore other avenues. It’s always about trying new things.

Ian Paget: For sure, testing and trying things is definitely important, because I’ve learned from doing these interviews and talking with different people that there’s not just one way to do these things, so it’s definitely worth trying different things.

I have one last question for you. If you could give just one logo design tip, what would that be?

Jacob Cass: One logo design tip, simplify as much as you can, and that goes with a lot of design. A lot of designers, they’ll try to fit too many things in, too many concepts into one idea. Really draw it back to the simplest thing, and it’s important to remember that a logo is there simply to identify, it’s not there to communicate what a business does. That’s the biggest thing I see in amateur logo designers, is trying to communicate what the business does in a logo. Apple doesn’t show computers or iPhones and their logo, cars don’t show cars in their logo. Try to avoid that avenue, and avoid monograms, like if that’s a first idea, that’s another big mistake, like just creatively put a J and a C together, it’s like, yes, it’s one way to do it, but it’s not always right. That was kind of an extended, long one tip.

Ian Paget: It’s a brilliant tip though, so thank you. Jacob, thank you so much for being on the show, you’ve been an amazing guest. I appreciate you being so open with your responses, so thank you very much.

Jacob Cass: Thanks, Ian.