I have the worst logo ever for a creative professional and I don’t care one bit. Zero. In this post I’ll tell you why and why a logo could be holding you back from doing your best work.
Before starting this site I had spent months planning for things that seemed important. I planned what my first 30 posts would be. I worked on learning how to schedule tweets. I went through pages and pages of WordPress themes. And I racked my brain on the most trivial one of them all – logo design.
One night I opened a beer and the rest is history. I never followed my schedule for the first 30 posts. I never learned how to schedule tweets. I picked a random WordPress theme and am content with it for the time being. And I slapped together a logo in about 30 seconds one morning when I wanted to put a banner image on my Twitter profile.
You know what I did instead? I created a website and filled it with useful posts and tutorials. I grew an audience who I love and want to continue to grow and help every single day. I created my first product and people bought it! Now I have a huge opportunity to help teach tons of new people (shhh!). And I did this all with the most ridiculously basic logo imaginable.
When you spend your time planning you are not spending your time creating. A plan is helpful but it can only be a guideline. Heck, you don’t want things 100% mapped out for you. First – if things don’t go according to plan you are going to get upset and resist the natural path set out before you. Second – not knowing where you are going is the fun part.
Just guessing, on the high end, I lost 3% of traffic based on not having an incredible, professional-quality logo. You know what? I don’t care. I get 100% of the traffic I wouldn’t have ever gotten if I were stuck planning and building out of the public eye. The content I’ve put out is 1,000x more important than a 700×100 pixel logo.
Have you looked at logos out there? Google! Google has the worst logo I’ve ever seen. Does it matter? No. They own our web searches, email, navigation, online video (you know they own YouTube, right?), etc. And Google does it all with their weird, ugly logo.
Logos don’t matter. It’s something to think about after you get going. Logos are something to consider after you start doing whatever it is you want to do.
My mission on Edit Video Faster is to equip video editors technically, emotionally and mentally for all the challenges they may face in their careers. A logo isn’t going to help me do that. Don’t let the small things stand in your way of completing the work that matters.
Is there anything like this keeping you from completing what you actually want to do? Share what they are and your thoughts in the comments.
Can you do me a favor and share this post with a fellow video editor that could benefit from it? Maybe he or she is struggling to start his or her next great project and this will push him or her over the edge to begin.
Thanks as always for reading. I look forward to seeing your thoughts in the comments and I’ll see you on Friday with a new tutorial!
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Oddly enough, I have just come across this post in the process of doing some ‘research’ for my own editing-based blog. I am taking a look at other blogs on the same subject for some inspiration.
This has come at an ideal time for me and reminded me that it is the content that will win over regular readers as opposed to the design of the blog.
And anyway – all of this stuff can be changed later, right?
I’m going to go get my URL, hosting and wordpress theme installed right away!
Thanks, Josh.
Go for it, Sam! You nailed it — you can always change themes, logos and all that stuff later. Getting started is what matters.
Send me your URL once you get going. I’m always here if you have any questions or want some input. Good luck!!