You Suck at Logo Design: Weekly Vlog

Añadido: 2026-05-12

[00:00:41][music] [music] I heard something the other day that like really struck a chord with me, which is being Being a mean person is really easy to do. Like being mean is lazy and uninventive. Not only are you a jerk, it's lazy. But being a nice person, like it takes work to be a nice person. Like it takes energy to be nice to people. And like that's why I like nice people.

[00:01:15][music] This week's vlog is going to be a little bit different. Um we're going to talk about a subject that ultimately is very close to my heart. Like it's not in any way that I want to make this vlog like sad and miserable and we won't do that.

[00:01:31]But like unfortunately sometimes we do need to talk about the ugly stuff and and I don't feel like we speak about it enough when it comes to our mental health. Now like the point of these vlogs is always to show the realistic side of doing this is to like genuinely document what's going on. And that's what's going on right now. I don't want to just show you the highlight reel of how badass and awesome it is to run a creative studio or anything like that.

[00:01:54]like I want to show you the ugly stuff, too. And this month, the month of May, is mental health awareness month. And on top of that, this month has already been very challenging for me and my own mental health. And we're going to get into that this week and we're going to talk about it. And it's not in any way that I want sympathy. Like, that's the last thing I want. And look, I am not in any way encouraging any of you to go to the comments and to give [music] sympathy. I would rather you didn't. The point of this, the point of me making this and actually talking about it and being real with you is honestly in I hope that you hear it, you see it, and you find peace with it or you feel heard or you feel seen [music] and maybe there's an opportunity here where just sharing some of my honest experiences can maybe help you. That's it. That's all I want to do with this vlog. Before we get into that, we need to take a look at what we got on this week, which is a bunch of really cool stuff. [music] So, this week is going to be really, really busy as always. And since the last vlog, I've had a bunch of really exciting updates from past projects, and we're going to be getting in some new projects this week. So, you may remember from one of the last vlogs, I was working on a brand called Grain that's been signed off, which is awesome. So, this week, we're probably going to be packaging things up for that project. I can show you exactly how I package up all of the materials for my client and get it over to them. Wicked. We also have a brand strategy meeting with a new client this week, which is also exciting because I know I've had quite a few of you in the comments asking me what does that even look like. So, we'll do that together.

[00:03:19]I'll show you quite a lot of what that session looks like, what I'm going to be doing in order to then flesh out the rest of the visual identity based on that brand strategy deck. So, that's exciting. Now, the first thing I'm going to be focusing on this week is a small visual identity project I've been working on now. Um, it's definitely not as big as some of the other stuff I've been working on and it's also been one of the most challenging. So, this is for a van hire company here in the UK, which doesn't sound sexy at all, but like that's kind of the point. That's why I took the project on is because the people that run this van hire company, it's like they want to do something genuinely different. Now, you may not know what the sort of van car hire scene looks like here in the UK, but it's pretty terrible. It's um it's very stuck in the '9s. It looks very industrial.

[00:04:01]Usually makes no sense at all. it usually looks very intimidating and very like masculine and not and not very inviting or trustworthy. Okay, the team that I'm working with on this like really want to challenge that and make something ultimately uh a little bit sexier, a little bit more trustworthy and have something build something with a little bit more character that actually takes on some of like the bigger van and car hire spaces here in the UK. So, I like a challenge. This one's definitely been a bit of a challenge. So, but before I show you anything, I just want to spend some time kind of tightening the screws on this thing and kind of get intimate with it for the rest of my day. And then we can walk through it together later.

[00:04:35][music] [music] [music] >> Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. such last minute >> movie sync, TV show sync. Um, >> straight off the bat, it's it's it's an odd project. It's very niche. It's it's super niche, isn't it? I didn't even know this >> was a thing, but [music] >> Oh, >> yeah. I can imagine it has I can imagine. The issue unfortunately I completely [music] have is that timeline is I'm getting married on the 6th of June because it doesn't meet your timeline. So, I'm so sorry. Um, >> no, that's okay about that.

[00:05:19]>> No worries. [music] You too.

[00:05:20]>> Take care. Bye-bye.

[00:05:23]Well, that sucks. That was uh that was a really cool opportunity to be working with Sony Music, which would have been sick. Uh the minute I saw their email come through my inbox last week, I was like, "Wo, Sony Music chatting to me.

[00:05:35]How cool would that be?" They have this like entire Christmas thing. I didn't know it was a thing. Um they pretty much own the URL w.christmusic.com and they market Christmas music basically throughout the year and obviously especially heavily at Christmas. But unfortunately, they want to get the visual identity literally completed by the middle of June. I can't even start on this thing till the end of June because I'm getting married at the start of June, and I'm away on my honeymoon for an entire month. So, unfortunately, I'm not going to do the gig, which sucks. I was this close to working with Sony Music, but it didn't happen. Oh well. Right. In other news, I have um I have made some pretty good leeway with this Viva Van stuff. Uh look, I'll show it to you now. All right. As you can see, this is a really ugly document of all kinds of random stuff going on here. But I'm coming up with a basically a custom logo type for these guys. Uh, and I what I love about the name is the V VA. Like these four letters are so much fun. They kind of like snugly fit together. Now, obviously, this is for a van hiring company. And I really like the idea of coming up with these kind of chevron like things like these kind of look like road markings and arrows and things. But the name is so fun to say. Hey, it's really powerful. It's really strong.

[00:06:43]Like, I think we need to really focus on coming up with a logo type that's really strong. Gets the name out there as a brand new thing. One of their competitors is Switch Car Rental. So, I'm kind of taking a look at this and being like, well, how can we how can we stand out from these guys? I also was messing around with like a little bit of color straight away. I quite liked like these shapes and what was happening here. And sometimes I like to just play with a little bit of color straight off the bat just to see if something's happening, but I wasn't quite sold on that. Uh, and then I really loved these, but these these felt a little bit too these felt a little bit too fun. Again, based on the brand Strat, we we want to come with a little bit more sort of sophistication, a little bit more serious, and these are way too playful, but I just couldn't help myself. I like the viva. I liked the kind of the jump of it, the way it sounded. I've kind of got a few more in the tank here. So, as you can see, they're all slightly different from each other. All following the kind of the same adoption because I just love like these little arrows that kind of come in. And I like the way the letters all fit together. And I'm just trying to come up with something ultimately very strong and very memorable straight off the bat.

[00:07:44]Something you'd see on the side of a van as it's driving around and you'd be able to read it and know exactly what it says. So like that's really important.

[00:07:50]But I'm also I mean I'm also trying to give it some character, right? So it's not just like this out of the box type face. So you know this is a completely customuilt uh sort of font I'm coming up with. I love this cuz these kind of feel like the roads and like these kind of paths and it's so simple and so powerful. But because it's like nice and soft like this, what I like about that is like it doesn't feel so aggressive and loud. And that's really important because because like one of the issues that we've got in this space is the like van hiring sort of scene is incredibly like male dominant and it's usually like the most untrusting place ever. The problem that these guys feel like they've got is that a lot of their customers maybe don't always feel like they trust the people they're hiring these vans from. It always feels a little bit strange. is quite high pressure and high stressed and like there's a lot of like deposit that you got to put down the line to drive this thing. People get nervous around it. So like like I kind of want to bring a little bit of like softness to it and gentleness to it and playfulness and not make it feel like this like big manly aggressive scene because like that's not true cuz because a lot of their customers are actually people maybe that are just moving home for a couple of days or maybe moving their son or daughter to university and just need a van to help move their stuff from one go to the other one. Like this isn't about men hiring like big heavy machinery and we want to make like a big manly brand.

[00:09:05]We don't want to do that. But, you know, I want it to be strong. I want it to be loud. I want it to sort of like be very confident on the road when you see it on the van cuz that's going to be like a big part of the marketing efforts of this thing. But I want it to kind of be a little bit soft and maybe a little bit gentle as well in that manner. So, it's quite tough. So, look like I think like a nice type like this, like it's strong, it's solid, it's rigid, but it's kind of got these like lovely like soft curves.

[00:09:26]kind of got those like chevrons like we get on the road, but it's really clear, right? Like I like the I think there's something here. I think I'm nearly there with this one, but if I'm honest, I'm not completely like sold on it yet. And my head's just not it's just not in the game today at all, man. It's like the last couple of weeks has been really tough, like I said. But look, I uh I haven't really been feeling my best these last couple of days or even weeks really. Uh, I've had a couple of really nasty old weeks and my head's just not here. Um, so I'm finding it really tough to kind of concentrate. I'm finding it tough to be creative. I'm kind of finding it tough to believe in anything that I'm making at the minute. And I want to tell you about it. Like I want to talk to you about it, but like it's a little bit hard. And like sometimes I don't like to talk about it here in the studio cuz I try I like I try and make the studio a really fun creative space.

[00:10:15]So like maybe I need to talk to you about it somewhere else. So let's go somewhere else.

[00:10:21]>> [music] [music] >> So, the last couple of weeks have been definitely challenging.

[00:10:41]Um, I've been trying to find the words to talk about this for ages. I guess I've been trying to find the words for a while to talk about it where it doesn't just sound [ __ ] all boohhooy. And I'm not trying to make it sound like that.

[00:10:55]But look, I've shared my work online with so many, not just my work, my ideas, who I am, my own personality, everything, right, for a little over 3 years now.

[00:11:07]And [music] the thing with sharing your stuff online is that like although so much good can come from it, like it like bad stuff can come with it too. And like you just kind of have to accept that.

[00:11:18]Like you can't have everything. You can't just have all of the eyeballs on your work, all of the eyeballs on your thoughts and your ideas and all of them be good. Like that just doesn't exist.

[00:11:29]That's not a thing. And like I'm very aware of that. I'm trying not to be some naive idiot.

[00:11:37]But like that's the thing with sharing your work online is that like it doesn't really even matter how much praise you get, how many likes you get, the views you get, like the constant [music] support from so many amazing people telling you that I love what you do. I I I enjoy what you do and you've helped me. Like it it doesn't really like even matter how much of that you get. All it takes is one negative comment. All it takes is one awful shitty remark towards you, your character, your thoughts, your beliefs, like whatever that is and it sticks out like a sore thumb. A couple of weeks ago, something happened.

[00:12:17]And it's not [music] so much that like I even care about like the thing that happened and I'm trying not to reference it too much anymore cuz I don't want to platform the thing. Like I don't care about that. But it's what it incited that I did care about. Because what it incited was like a real concentrated amount of hate all at once, all at the same time at me and my work and who I was. A couple of weeks ago, I was subject to some pretty savage online hate. And I get it a lot. I actually get it quite a bit. And usually I've got really thick [music] skin. But for some reason this time and I think just because of just like how much negative comments I got like it just the skin isn't thick enough.

[00:13:05]And unfortunately like I was receiving messages from people telling me to end my own life to that they hated me that they didn't respect me that they couldn't support what I was doing that I sucked my face sucked the way I did everything sucks.

[00:13:23]that I deserve every bad thing [music] that's coming my way. Like, some of these comments were absolutely gnarly.

[00:13:31]And I'm all for constructive criticism.

[00:13:35]I'm more than happy for someone to tell me, "Dude, I think you missed the mark on that thing." Like, I'm I understand that. I get that. I'm not a complete narcissist. But with genuinely without any exaggeration over the last few weeks I must have had in the hundreds of really really negative comments about me, my work and my beliefs. And like that takes its toll on you to the point where I'm [music] really struggling to just believe in myself now. Like I'm struggling to believe in my work. I'm struggling to believe in [music] like anything that I'm doing. Like even putting together like even putting together this vlog, I'm just thinking like what the [ __ ] are you doing, dude?

[00:14:13]Don't do it.

[00:14:15]like don't be honest, don't put yourself out there, don't speak up because people are just going to [ __ ] [ __ ] on it.

[00:14:21]People are going to give you a hard time, dude. But I've always believed in just being honest and keeping things real even when it's ugly because I needed that 10 years ago online.

[00:14:36]I guess you could argue like just don't look. And I imagine a lot of people would tell me to do that. Just don't look. Don't look at the comments. turn them off. I understand all of that, but I also owe so much to exposing my world on social media, exposing my ideas and my [music] thoughts and my feelings and putting as much of my character out there as possible because it changed my life, man. It completely changed my star. So, it's just like it's this kind of savage seesaw where like there's so much good that can come from it, but there is so much bad. And yes, you just can't expect that you don't have to have the bad. Like the bad is always coming, but it doesn't change that the bad still feels bad. Like I still feel things.

[00:15:18]Like I completely [music] understand that the more people that see my work, the more of myself that I put out there, the more of my ideas, the more of my beliefs that I put out here to be seen, of course, there's going to be more negativity. I'm okay with that. But I'm also a human being. So like I still feel things towards those negative comments.

[00:15:41]And like I said, you can have hundreds and thousands of people shouting your name or or saying great things about your work and supporting you, but for some reason, and to this day, I don't really have an [music] answer why. All it takes is just like one really shitty negative comment to completely derail you. I've had hundreds recently and it's just kicked my ass completely. And I want to be honest and open about that. I don't want to lie or act like it doesn't affect me cuz I don't think that's the right thing to do.

[00:16:15]Like I want you to know that like if like you have been getting like shitty comments or you know people aren't supporting you and this could like not just be from online but like it could be your friends, it could be your family, it could be like the most precious people that you have in your life. Like like I don't want that to be the thing that stops you. And like that's what I keep coming back to is every time I think maybe don't share this online, maybe don't talk about this. I just keep thinking like we really like are we not going to not talk about it? Like is that the world we're in now where we can't call out bad behavior and we can't say like I don't [music] like this and I feel good about this. I just don't think that helps. I don't think that's the right thing to do. And like even if it opens me up to even more scrutiny, even more people giving me a hard time, even more people telling me to [music] can end my own life, I still think it's the right thing to do.

[00:17:06]And that's why I'm doing it in this vlog.

[00:17:10]Like I said, this is not about me trying to gain any sympathy. Like, I legitimately am not trying to do that. trying to just put a light and shine a light on a really serious subject that so many of us are going to experience. If you're a creative and you're sharing your work with the world, there's good odds you're going to piss someone off along the way.

[00:17:32]And unfortunately, whether you like it or not is coming for you. And like I said, I don't really have any tangible advice that can hopefully solve that problem other than like don't be afraid to speak up about it. Like don't be afraid to like talk about how you feel and don't be afraid to share your ideas even if it's going to piss someone off.

[00:17:56]I mean, arguably that's why I'm making this video, right? That's why I'm making this vlog is I just like I'm trying to set some kind of an example of like a good example that like regardless of whether you get one negative comment or a thousand negative comments, like you shouldn't stop sharing what you do. And as much as I say that out loud, like I'm still struggling to even believe my own words. Like that's how powerful the negative comments can be. Like I've always just tried [music] to do the right thing. I've always tried to be the right person and always trying to be a good person. I've only ever shared what I thought was genuinely the right thing to do. I've only ever shared what I truly think is encouraging. I want to encourage people to be able to share fearlessly, to share their ideas, share their thoughts. And even if they're sharing their ideas or their thoughts and they're not completely supportive of what you do, like that's cool, too. Like I get that and that's fine. But just like sharing really horrible, negative, nasty [ __ ] about someone's character, about their their appearance, about what they believe in, and and telling them to to do terrible things to themselves for it. Like, I can't get on board of that.

[00:19:10]That's not right.

[00:19:13]That sucks.

[00:19:16]And after a fair few weeks of [music] it happening, I just got to hold my hands up and say like, "Yeah, it got me, man.

[00:19:22]got me good. I've really struggled these last couple of weeks. I just don't feel like I'm doing the right thing anymore.

[00:19:32]And I don't trust my own thoughts. I don't think [music] that I'm am I doing it right? Am I doing the right thing? Am I sharing good stuff with the world? I don't know. It's really hard to navigate.

[00:19:48]It's really hard to navigate it.

[00:19:51]But hey, look, like I said, it's just my honest thoughts, man. And I'm sure that'll probably piss someone off, too.

[00:19:58]Doesn't mean we shouldn't speak about it, though, right?

[00:20:05]Doesn't mean we shouldn't speak about it.

[00:20:12]I had a comment the other day saying, "Shut up, you cunt." Then underneath that, I love this so much. Then one after that said, bro, this ain't tough.

[00:20:20]Then [music] someone sent a tattoo pick and my stuff inked in their arm. Do you think that would be enough to solidify the validity of whatever I've done? Then someone pointed out my beard's ginger in the sun and I should go and kill myself and ah it's all fine. But then I had a message from this dead boy's mom saying she's [music] sorting out his funeral cuz the ideation one thinks her heart's no longer beating cuz her greatest love is gone. And she couldn't find the words quite precise [music] enough in song. So she asked to read my poem about no flowers, that one. She said, "Can I read it at the funeral?" I said, "Do anything you want. Lie down on the carpet. Scream until the font in the label on the rug starts to bleed into the mud. Until you summon up the dead, until your boy returns and [music] haunts you beautifully, lovingly, perpetually flaunts his spirit through your house."

[00:21:03]That's what I'd have [ __ ] done. If I lost my only boy, I wouldn't even ask someone for permission [music] to read good news. If anybody knows that, man, I don't expect you to know it if it wasn't written for you. But sometimes what you [music] hate saves the people who won't call you when the darkness gets too dark and the laughter's just a mask. [music] And all of you who make [ __ ] it's a pretty noble duty to look into a page or camera awaiting hate and scrutiny [music] and still you do it anyway cuz someone might wake up as usual and suddenly you get the news today. They need to plan a funeral. They need to pick [music] the music and they have nothing to read and they don't think they can do it and they see you on the screen and god knows why it's moving [music] but it wraps them up in feathers and takes the weight from off their chest. The world gets slightly better cuz everything you've ever seen that made you want to cry or motivated, educated, helped you stay alive was [music] dreamt up by a person who half the time missed. If you're laughing at the wrapping paper, you won't get the gift. [music] So you can burn all of your words and live a life of quiet. I think now I won't be criticized. Now I'm safe from violence. But you'll be at the funeral and have nothing to read. And goodness dies [music] in silence. So I think you should speak.