Why your logo isn't the problem

Your logo isn’t actually the problem. I know it feels like it is. But it isn’t.

I bet when you first started you weren’t expecting all the things you’d have to do. You come along thinking "I'll do my thing and clients will flock to me," and then suddenly you're admin, social media manager, marketing, copywriter, graphic designer and about six other roles, all pulling you away from the thing you actually wanted to do. You’ve learned a lot, especially about those things that you didn’t know you needed to know but you really needed to know them.

From your corporate roots you knew branding and a logo were important. You maybe weren’t totally sure why, but you knew that they mattered. So you did your research, followed all the right people, Googled “how to make my brand look spectacular” you read all the things. And then the overwhelm just took over, your brain loaded with more information that it knows what to do with.

So you headed for the safety of fonts and colours because that’s what a brand in right. Sort a logo, pick some colours and fonts and it will all be fine.

Honestly, I totally support this when you are starting out. DIYing is fine while you’re figuring things out. You did a great job, not everything was perfect, but it was working. Give yourself credit for that.

But now something isn’t right and you can’t put your finger on it. You think “It’s my logo that’s the problem. I’m sorry to say it isn’t.

The real problem is that you started in the middle of the story. You picked fonts and colours and hoped that was good enough, and at the time, it was. But your business has grown, but your brand can’t keep up.

The reason is that you didn’t do the foundation work. Who you wanted to work with, what you actually offer, how you want to be perceived, how you want to sound and look. Not because you did anything wrong. It just doesn’t feel like branding. It feels like boring admin, and colours are more fun. I get it.

Without the foundation work and it starts to show up, in a social media post that should take half and hour but eats up half a day instead. Then you are hunting for the latest trending template just to check whether it’s better than the one you are already using. Every decision gets overthought, every choice takes longer than it should. And it’s quietly draining energy you don’t have to spare, energy that should be going into your business, not into second-guessing your design decisions.

Here’s something to actually try: take 10 minutes and write down who you are now. What matters to you, how you talk to clients, what’s changed. You’ll probably surprise yourself with how much has shifted. It’s all a good sign, it means that your business is moving and evolving. It also means that the brand you built back when you started, isn’t going to match the business that keeps evolving. It’s not your logo that’s the problem, it’s that your brand hasn’t caught up to who you’ve become.

If that is where you are, it’s a good time for an informal chat, which you can book here. We can pin point what’s actually going on with your brand. And we can talk about what working together could look like.