Logos and No-gos

One of the best parts of owning your own business (at least for me) is that you can pretty much do whatever you want advertising and marketing wise. From picking out your own logo to putting your face on everything you produce.

I spend a great deal of brain power thinking up crazy ideas I could put on a shirt or use on packaging or whatever. Most of the time I just have the idea and do nothing with it. Although every now and then I will actually draw up the idea and use it somewhere. I have had more bombs than I’d like to admit, but there lies the beauty in it, its my company and I can do whatever I want to do. So if I want to put “art by nemo” in the Harley Davidson logo, I can do that.

I have had a few of these logos, which I call no-gos, put on t-shirts or used as my avatars online. I have gotten a lot of crap for doing so. Like once I had my Starbucks logo (scroll down to see it on this blog) online and someone said I was confusing people and they would think I stopped selling art and started selling coffee. I for one don’t think people are that stupid, but I guess she was. Then the same logo on a t-shirt this time, I was walking around downtown Denver and a lady stops me, reads my shirt, starts laughing like a crazy lady as she walks off, come to think of it, she could have been a crazy lady. Also once at a restaurant I had on my G.I. Joe t-shirt and the cashier said he recognized the logo but didn’t know what “nemo” was. I’m sure he wished he did.

I was also told by a good twitter friend that she dared anyone to get more creative with their marketing. However, skateboard companies have been doing it for decades, which is where I got it from (a Facebook friend Michael Sieben already blogged about it). Its fun to do and I have to have a hobby right? Can't be drawing circles all day can I?

So have fun in your marketing and don’t worry too much about what people think, as long as you're having fun that should be all that matters.

What job could be better? We have no rules, no nothing telling us we should do something one way or another, there’s no right or wrong. Only thing is we gotta keep going, keep at it, keep planning and keep working hard.