James Barnard on Going Viral, Creating Content and Designing Logos

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.

Ian Paget: Today I'm really excited to be joined by someone who is long overdue on this podcast, the wonderful James Barnard. If you don't already know him, James is a logo design expert with millions of followers who creates amazing content on a daily basis. He speaks at Adobe MAX and is, frankly, at the peak of his career. I'm honoured to have you here, James. I want to talk through your journey, get some tips and advice from you, and see where the conversation goes.

James Barnard: Thank you for having me. I can't believe we've never met in person, considering how many mutual friends we have. Looking through your list of past guests, I know half of them. I'm glad we finally got to do this.

Ian: Social media is strange like that. It feels like I know you really well because I've watched so many of your videos.

James: That's actually really helpful with clients, too. When they browse your content, they feel like they already know you. It then comes down to whether you're a good fit for the project. I usually don't have to do much selling, because my content does the selling and the personality check beforehand. It's well worth doing if you're considering starting an account.

Ian: The only caveat is that if you're an introvert and not comfortable on video, it's very difficult. We'll come back to that later. First, I want to start with your journey. It's easy to look at you and think, "He's got millions of followers, slick content, he's speaking at Adobe MAX. I could never do that." So I like to dig into people's origin stories.

How James Barnard Went From Music Production to Graphic Design

Ian: How did you originally start out as a graphic designer?

James: I actually wasn't a graphic designer to begin with. I studied music, multimedia and electronics at university because I wanted to be a record producer. The plan was to move to London and work in a studio. I got to London and couldn't find work for love nor money, so I started a basic data entry office job.

I did that for about four years. During that time I discovered Photoshop and started tackling little WordPress websites. I built my company intranet just by tinkering, and I realised it was good fun. So I tried to get a few graphic design clients. I built a free website for a local chiropractor and another for a local interior designer, and I used those two or three rough websites to land my first job in publishing.

I became a junior designer on Runner's World and Men's Health magazines in London. After a couple of years I sidestepped my way up through several magazine houses and eventually ended up at the Daily Telegraph, on a senior design team working at a very fast pace on print advertising for a daily national newspaper. That made me very quick in the software.

My last full-time job was head of digital design for The Times and The Sun, managing an in-house team. I absolutely hated it. I quit after six weeks and went freelance to pay the bills while I figured out a new career. That was more than ten years ago, and I liked the freelance lifestyle so much that I never went back.

Eventually I niched down into logo design when I worked out which part of the industry I enjoyed most, and that's when things really took off. It took me ten to fifteen years as a graphic designer to figure that out. It sounds quick when I reel it off in three minutes, but that was ten years of struggling and working it out.

Ian: You tell that story really well. What I think is important is that once you create something and have something to show, you can get other work. That's how your career started, with a couple of little projects that were enough to show someone you could do the job. That gets you the junior position.

James: It was also a happy accident. At the time I was training for my first London Marathon, and I think one of the reasons Runner's World hired me was that I was a keen runner. I learned a lot on the job. I say this all the time: if you can get a job where you learn and get paid to learn at the same time, that's a no-brainer for a graphic designer. But I probably wouldn't have got it without my jogging hobby, so there was a lot of luck involved.

Why James Specialised in Logo Design

Ian: I took a similar journey from graphic design to logo design. It's worth saying that the job of "logo designer" doesn't really exist unless you create that opportunity yourself. What made you move from newspapers and websites to logos?

James: Ultimately it was a way to find clients more easily, but that was secondary. The passion came from the layout work I'd done. I was always working with other people's assets: photographs a client had supplied, or brand guidelines I had to pull together into a composition. When I picked up one or two branding jobs, I realised I had a blank screen and could put whatever I wanted into it. It's pure creation, making something from scratch that I could call my own. That's a bit selfish, because great graphic designers work best in collaboration, but when I was starting out it felt good to say, "I did all of this, and I'm proud of it."

Looking back, my first logo was terrible. But I kept doing more and slowly realised it was the part of the industry I enjoyed most. I've done almost everything: website design, email newsletters, Flash advertising, animation, a bit of video editing. The only thing I haven't tackled is 3D. Logo design is the ultimate for me. You create a single symbol that represents a business at a glance, you take the company's ethos and background and roll it into one mark, and ideally it hasn't been done before by anyone on the planet. That's not easy, but when you pull it off it's a chef's kiss.

Ian: From the outside it looks easy because it's such a tiny mark. I've joked that I'm paid a hundred pounds per pixel, per Bézier point.

James: Per path point, yes.

Ian: But you're condensing so much into one mark that has to match the look and feel of the brand. With layout or web design you can often take something that already exists, swap the images, and it looks new. With logo design that's far more challenging.

Going Freelance: Recruiters, Agencies and SEO

Ian: Let's talk about the gap between working for someone else and working for yourself. What did you do to get early clients and enough work to pay the bills?

James: When I worked in publishing, I was at Bauer Media, which owned a lot of titles like FHM, Empire and Grazia. I'd occasionally do freelance work for those titles, such as banner ads in Flash, and get paid through my paycheque, which was a nice bit of extra beer money. I worked after hours and at weekends. That was my first taste of freelancing.

When I left my job, I dipped into those contacts, but there wasn't enough work to live on. So I booked an interview with every recruiter in London. They told me there weren't many full-time roles but there were freelance positions at agencies, so I gave it a go. I ended up working for some really big London agencies on a day rate as a gun for hire. I'd turn up with my laptop, get set up at a spare desk, work on a campaign for a few weeks, then move on.

I got to try lots of different client work and different styles of agency, both B2B and consumer. I was successful because I was very fast in the software. You could drop me on a desk and within fifteen minutes I'd be up and running, so I just kept getting hired. Some recruitment companies had multiple agencies underneath them, so when one agency said "can we have him back, he's reliable," they started recommending me to others. The lesson was simply to show up professionally: be on time, work hard, work quickly and be able to slot into a team.

At that point my wife and I were a double-income, no-kids household in London, and I was earning a fortune. Then my wife got pregnant. She had an unbelievably good job and earned more than me, so I became a stay-at-home dad for about eleven months until my daughter was ready for childcare.

During that "daddy limbo" I worked on my business whenever my daughter slept. I watched all of Chris Do's content on The Futur to learn how to sell myself better, and I decided logo design was what I wanted to focus on. That meant changing my outward persona and removing everything from my website that wasn't about logo design.

SEO played a massive part. I targeted the phrase "freelance logo designer London," and within two or three months I was number one on Google for it. I was getting five or six leads a week from SEO, which wasn't amazing but kept me ticking over. This was all before social media. I just worked a bit harder on my website and made sure I showed up on Google.

Ian: To clarify, those initial agency opportunities came through recruitment companies?

James: Yes. When I left The Times and The Sun I'd reached a point where I wasn't doing any design. I was basically an HR person dealing with management issues, and I hated it. I had a couple of months of rent in savings and booked an interview at every recruiter I could find. I didn't plan the agency work, I just fell into it, and it worked. I even went back to the Daily Telegraph as a freelance consultant in a different department. When you're paid a day rate and can move from company to company, it's unbelievable.

I also did a lot of pitch work for agencies: pitch decks, foam boards and assets for big presentations. It was fascinating to see how agencies win business. I couldn't believe how much money they put behind RFPs, requests for proposals, to potentially win work from huge companies. I later read The Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns, which highlights how ridiculous that is. In every other industry you're paid upfront or on agreed terms, but here you do free work for the chance of winning business. It was interesting to see it first-hand from the agency side.

Why Learning on the Job Is So Valuable for Designers

Ian: I think this is worth stressing for designers starting out. Many people look up to you or me and want to do what we do, without realising what we learned along the way. Your ten years were almost ten years of education. You saw how agencies hire and fire people, win work and handle problems. Because you freelanced at so many studios, you saw lots of different ways of doing things. When you built your own website and the work started coming in, you already knew how to handle many situations. If you start from scratch without that background, I think you'd really struggle.

James: You've summed that up really well. Crucially, I was being paid while I learned. I hear stories of people coming out of university and diving straight into freelancing when they don't know anything yet and have no one to learn from. If you land a junior position, you get paid as you learn the craft. I learned so much sitting next to a senior designer, watching how they work and sitting in meetings while ideas were generated. You can't get that from YouTube tutorials.

I was lucky to have some good mentors. I had a really great boss at Bauer Media who put time into me and taught me how to sell in and rationalise my design decisions, which made me bulletproof when I later sold to clients on my own. That's one reason I like paying it forward through social media. To be completely transparent, it's self-serving because it serves my business, but I love the feeling of passing on knowledge.

Ian: When my team hired two interns who had been at university for about two years, they both said they'd learned more in a week than in two years. They were used to six weeks for a project, and I was asking for ideas by the end of the day. It was a culture shock, but they learned how to manage their time. Another colleague, Ben, was constructing something the long way, and I showed him a way that was a hundred times easier. He didn't believe me until I showed him.

James: You don't know what you don't know. That's one reason my content does well. A lot of people watching didn't know there was an easier way to do something. In an agency I once exported assets from Photoshop by typing ".png" after each layer name and running the Generate script, which exported every layer as a separate file into a folder. Three designers crowded round my desk. They'd been slicing files and exporting each one manually, taking an hour to do what I did in ten seconds. Many people have worked in the industry so long they never look at the "What's New" wizard when software updates.

Hidden Illustrator Tricks and Vector Clean-Up Tools

Ian: I could happily use a ten-year-old version of Illustrator and do my job without any worry, but I know new tools speed things up. I've watched your videos and thought, "I didn't know you could do that." For example, removing extra anchor points from a logo while keeping the same curve.

James: That's the Delete Anchor Point tool. Hold Shift while you delete a point and, if the shape can be described with fewer points, Illustrator keeps the line exactly where it should be. People in the comments ask why you'd simplify a logo. Fewer path points means a smaller file size and helps with things like CNC machines.

You can make great content about tiny niches within graphic design. My most successful video ever is about turning off Snap to Pixel in Illustrator so objects align properly. It has around 20 million views, which is ridiculous.

Ian: I still think Vector First Aid from Astute Graphics is better for this, because it maintains the exact shape. Some people don't care about that, but it matters, especially for CNC and embroidery. You can't see it, but it matters.

Why Small Details Matter in Logo Design

Ian: It reminds me of the story about Steve Jobs, where his dad taught him to paint the back of the shed as well, because that protects the wood even though no one sees it. As I remember it, Jobs wanted the inside of the Macintosh to look beautiful, and I think the first team even signed the inside. As a designer, if you claim to be the expert, those little things should be the best they can be.

James: These are the things that separate good from great. And if a client grows and uses your logo in more places over the years, they may find mistakes you made a decade ago, and you're less likely to be referred. I posted a video about the HBO logo, where the SVG had a slight mistake and the H didn't line up with the B. Plenty of commenters said no one would notice. But when you print at high resolution, those mistakes show up. Either nobody cares, or you have to be a perfectionist to stand the test of time. It's nuanced.

Ian: If you're a graphic designer and you say "who cares?", you're in the wrong job. A logo is the face of the company and should be flawless. Mistakes make the company look unprofessional.

James: It's tricky, because you need someone to be the protector of the brand. I got caught out recently by a long-standing client who came back for an extension to their brand guidelines. We changed their logo three times, adding the trademark symbol and then the registered trademark symbol. Because I was working with copies of copies, a tiny error crept in: a kink on a rounded corner, where one path wasn't connected properly. The client spotted it when they opened the SVG, and I was mortified. I made a piece of content about it, including a quick fix in Illustrator. Luckily they're one of my oldest clients and big fans, so I got away with it. But it shows how easily these things creep in, and it's our job to be perfectionists.

Ian: I admire that you owned up to it. Sometimes you do things quickly because this is a job and we have lives. I've put the wrong hex code on things after misreading my own notes. Now I always double-check hex codes and export the file again to make sure there are no errors.

The Viral TikTok That Changed James's Business

Ian: You had a video in 2022 with three million views that changed your career almost overnight. What was it like before and after?

James: It was a TikTok that went viral. Before that I'd been making screen-recorded "sketch to vector" content where I wasn't on camera, designing little badges and slogans. They did really well on Reddit but bombed on TikTok and Instagram.

Eventually I got on camera. I'd had three logos accepted into LogoLounge Book 13 by Bill Gardner, my first published work, and I wanted to sing it from the rooftops. TikTok had a Stitch feature that lets you answer someone else's video. A woman called Penny asked for an example of a niche flex that means nothing to the general public but is massive in your industry. I answered with getting into the book.

It exploded overnight, reaching about 3 million views, and I got 70 leads from that one video. I counted them afterwards. That was more than I'd had in the previous six months combined. I thought, "What have I been doing with my life? I need to do more of this." That was the start of my journey as a content creator, purely to bring leads into my business.

Ian: It's wild, because you wouldn't think anyone apart from a handful of graphic designers would care.

James: I've dissected it, and I don't think it would go viral if I posted it today. It was a coincidence of events. My one-year-old son was crying in the background because I was home looking after him, so there was a cute baby factor. I also said "logo" in a British accent, and to the American audience it sounded like "Lego." People hung around expecting Lego designs that never appeared, and the comments said "where are the Legos?" Others wanted to see the logos I hadn't shown, so I made a second video about the three accepted logos, which got half a million views. I thought I was the king of social media. Then nothing landed for months.

Ian: I have that problem all the time. I say I'm a logo designer and people say, "You work with Lego!"

James: Later another video went viral on Instagram. It was a reaction to a video by Abi Connick, who showed a feature in the Pencil tool in Illustrator. My reaction hit 15 million views and I gained 100,000 followers in two weeks. By then I had a bank of content for new people to binge, which is why so many followed. Since then I've just tried to stay steadily consistent to keep bringing leads in.

Ian: It's fascinating that you can't predict what will go viral, and that you can go back to nothing again.

James: That's happening right now. I feel like I've figured out the format, then the algorithm changes, or people get bored of a format, so you have to mix the content up. I have pillars of content now, and I vary them enough to keep people coming back.

How to Start Creating Video Content as a Designer

Ian: As an outsider it feels like you're creating quality video all the time. From my perspective, video is hard and scary. I've gone from audio to video, and you start worrying about how you dress, whether you've shaved, how you look, the environment.

James: It's always the videos where you look awful that go viral. It's scary to get on camera. The one piece of advice I always give is to write a script. If you've never done video, talking off the cuff to a lens is impossible. You'll stutter, lose your train of thought, and your content won't be structured. I write a script for every video. Even if it looks like I'm talking randomly to my phone, I've scripted it. Otherwise I waffle and lose viewers.

I read one line at a time to the camera, cut the clips together and add screen-recorded footage over the top. Tools like Screen Studio are great for that. Eventually I got a slightly better camera and studio lights and got quicker with it. And to your point about it looking like I post every day, I really don't. I post two videos a week at most.

Ian: It feels like I see you all the time, but some of that is probably six months old.

James: I recently went on holiday with the kids and reposted ten of my best-performing videos, which I don't usually do. If you post a video a day, you'll be burnt out in two weeks. You have to find a routine that fits into daily life, so you can make time for marketing alongside client work. And you need to do it even when you're busy, because when client work dries up you'll have a steady stream of leads from your content.

It looks easy because I've been doing it for four years. I have muscle memory and a workflow. I've done two free Adobe Live streams on how I put it together, so you can watch those. I also stick to my niche and don't make videos about things unrelated to graphic design. I stay in my lane and post about what I know.

Ian: I'll link to those in the show notes, because they'll be useful for anyone who wants to start creating content.

How James Fits Content Creation Around Client Work

Ian: I've started promoting a Kickstarter campaign for a new book, so I'm making time for content, with an hour in the morning for carousel posts. A week in, I'm drained, and I wonder whether that's because I'm an introvert. How do you manage your time with two pieces of content a week plus client work?

James: You said it yourself: it's about making time and scheduling your week. When I do a logo project, I ask for two weeks from the discovery call to presenting my first option. That's a chunky amount of time, so I can sleep on the work and dip in and out without panicking. That gives me room to create content.

I've also become very quick. A short video under a minute takes me about two to two and a half hours, from pulling the idea from my ideas list to writing the script, filming, editing and posting. So it's about half a day here or there. It's part of my routine: admin in the morning, a bit of client work, and on a Tuesday or Thursday I work on a video. I used to try for three a week, but that became a strain.

Longer, in-depth explainers take more time, because you need overlays, diagrams and explainers to keep people engaged. They're so rewarding when they come together. And success is what stops me feeling burnt out. If a video does well and brings leads, it's actively making my life easier, and that's a huge motivator.

Script writing is the key. If you can't write a video as a tight script, I wouldn't bother making it. Video content on social media is ruthless. If you don't keep people engaged, they're gone with a flick of the finger.

Ian: I agree. When I started doing video versions of my podcast, I watched the first one and thought, "Dear God, this is boring." People will happily listen to audio for hours while running or driving, but video is different. Everything has a hook. You don't notice that until you start creating, and I don't think you can master it without doing it.

James: There's very little barrier to entry for me now. I'm lucky to have my own office, so I can close the door, and I have studio lights, so I can record at nine at night and it looks the same as during the day. It's a protected space where I don't feel silly in front of people. Recording in public is mortifying.

Ian: I tried it a couple of times and someone walked past with a dog right in the middle of my flow.

James: It's just part of the game these days. Content marketing is free if you get it right, and it's one of the most powerful ways to bring in business. At first you're embarrassed because your mates see your profile, but the older I've got, the less I care what people think. I care what my peers think, but not what my old school friends think of my Instagram.

Live Q&A: Varying Your Content and Choosing Platforms

At this point, Ian opened the room to questions from the More Creative Academy community watching live.

Ian: Jackie says this is helpful for those just starting out. Her question is: any other tips you wish you'd known earlier about making video content?

James: Vary it as much as you can. If a format works and a video goes viral, you want to repeat it. But you'll bore your audience with the same format. For a while my format was to find an Illustrator tip, set it to a banger of an old-school R&B track, and show a problem and a solution. Those videos did less and less well because people got bored.

You have a niche, but your style of content can vary and people will allow for it. I have four pillars: education, case studies, software tips, and general entertainment, which is mucking around and making a funny video with no value whatsoever. Mixing it up works for your audience and it keeps you doing it, because you won't get bored of your own content.

The point is to play the long game. You don't want peaks and troughs where business comes in and then you stop. If you keep it fun and sustainable, someone who finds your profile has a bank of videos to binge. I have around 600 videos after four years. That usually leads to a follow, which is social proof. When a client finds you, you already look like the expert, and it's just about whether you're a good fit and whether they have the budget.

Ian: Doesn't varying it take away from the muscle memory and make it more work?

James: If a video doesn't do well, no one sees it, so you can experiment. Different platforms also behave differently. Instagram seems to like polished content with studio lighting and a good camera. TikTok wants you to pick up the phone and talk to it, with behind-the-scenes content and more point-of-view yapping. YouTube wants longer-form explanation, and I'm not very good at that. I barely do long-form, because it's hard enough to make a one-minute video, and an eleven-minute one would take me two weeks or an editor.

If you don't mix content up, one platform will outperform the others. I've found the secret is varied content that works across different platforms. LinkedIn is also pushing video now, and people like Kristy Campbell of Pink Pony Creative are doing well by reposting their videos there with a longer explanation.

Ian: You haven't needed YouTube, even though it opened so many doors, including Adobe MAX. You picked the channels that work for you.

James: I once made an Adobe Illustrator course. It took six weeks for about an hour and a half of content, and I was exhausted and burnt out by the end. It was really lucrative, which was annoying because it was so much work. I can't imagine doing longer-form regularly. I've had so much practice making short videos tight and polished that long-form would expose me, because I can't talk off the cuff on camera and I rely on editing.

Ian: Not true at all, James. You're the master at this.

Designing Logos for Friends and Family

Ian: Justin asks: when you designed a logo for your wife, what was the breaking point that made you hire out for the redesign? Have you faced anything similar with clients who become friends?

James: My wife runs a baby product business called Hacker Lily, which sells the Hip Surfer, a shelf you strap around your waist so you can hold your baby with one arm. I did her original logo before I was as good as I am now. She's now working with international distributors and needs a rebrand to match the bigger business. I've done so much free graphic design for her over the years that if I'd charged, I could have bought a jet ski. It was taking away from my own business and we had to draw the line.

I did the new logo and all the ideation, including a full client consultation with her. Then we worked with an Australian agency, Your One and Only, to roll out the visual identity and brand guidelines, which I couldn't do for free anymore. It was nice to work with a partner for once, and they did a wonderful job.

With friends and family, you usually get one free logo. If my cousin starts a business, I'll do the logo. Then they do nothing with it and come back for another. I say, "You've had your free one. Now it's paid, because otherwise I'm being pulled away from client work." You have to be firm, otherwise they'll take the piss for the rest of your life.

Ian: Jackie added that she's married to Justin, and she's the one who asked him for free work.

What Would James Do if He Started in Logo Design Today?

Ian: One more question. Kelton asks: if you were starting out in logo design today, what would you prioritise, knowing what you know now?

James: That's tricky, because I slowly wormed my way into logo design after trying everything, and that was the right way for me. One thing I'd do is start sooner. I became a graphic designer at 25. If I'd started straight out of university, who knows where I'd be.

I'd also learn the history. I didn't have a design education, so I came to the greats later: Paul Rand, Saul Bass. I'm in two minds about education, because you learn far more on the job than at university, but I do think people should learn the history of branding and logo design. I'm now going backwards and finding it fascinating: George Boole, who gave us Boolean logic in Illustrator; Albert Henry Munsell and the Munsell colour system; Pierre Bézier, the French engineer behind the Bézier curves we use in vector design. I'd study why logos designed fifty or sixty years ago are still around. Whatever makes them timeless will make your designs simpler, more reductive and more unique.

Ian: I'd add my own view. If I started from scratch, I'd pick a niche within the niche. Leah Kuelker, in our community loves animals, and she's building a company around designing identities for zoos and animal organisations, called Wild Haus. Picking a hyper-focused niche tells you exactly who to target. My own business model targets everyone, which isn't ideal, though it brings in enough work.

I'd go straight to the source: create a printed newspaper and send it to those organisations, and befriend the people in the offices and reception, not just the owners. Then you can offer a really cool idea now and again, and build a whole product line of signage, leaflets, brochures and gifts. I'd also start a podcast on the subject and use it as a networking tool to interview people in that world, so you become known as the expert. With a niche model you can go straight to the source, build a quick website with a few examples one day, and approach your first customers the next.

James: That works if you know exactly what your passion is, but not everybody does. Without trying other niches, how do you know which one is yours? That's why I say don't niche down too soon. You need to find what floats your boat, because if you're not passionate about it you can't talk expertly about it and it won't be sustainable. But if you know you're the animal advocate, then absolutely, why water down your portfolio with work you don't want? Show the work you want to attract more of. The more you niche, the more you can charge, because you become the expert. You just need to experiment first.

Ian: I've seen people go from generalists to specialists naturally. I'm falling that way too, because a lot of my best clients are science and research teams in universities. Maybe it's the geek thing.

Closing Thoughts

Ian: James, it's been an honour. I know your time is valuable and you don't need stuff like this with your massive audience, so I really appreciate it.

James: Thanks for having me. It gave me an hour to talk about myself, so I took it. Hopefully we'll meet in person when I'm next back in the UK.