Recently there has been a surge in “free” logo websites and articles pointing people to “free” logo design websites. This irks me to no end, not because this is my business, but because I know it will do more harm than good. So I ‘m going to tell you why I think getting a free logo sucks:

1. You are not supporting your local designers. By supporting this type of design you are cheapening the art, the research & the creative/intellectual process of logo design & brand identity and the experience the designer will bring to the table.

2. Your business is unique, most likely original and deserves to have a unique and personal logo/brand

3. It will end up costing you valuable time & money that I know you do not have as a start up.

4.You will not be able to give the people who need it (printers, newspapers, organizations) the proper files when needed. Therefore costing you time, effort and usually extra fees to get it right.

5. 25, 000 other companies might have downloaded the same “free” logo and this might get you into copyrighting hot water later on. The effort to get something-for-nothing turns out to be very costly because it requires a COMPLETE overhaul of your brand identity and ALL of its marketing materials when you realize that someone else has used the same image / clip art.

6. It will look very generic and will not be customized to fit the look and feel of your company culture and brand.

7. Because you wouldn’t download a free Will from an unknown source or trust a plumber to do your electrical work would you? Or even expect them to do it for free?

Give the Brand of your company a healthy start by letting a designer, design your brand it will be very worth it in the end! Hire a graphic designer who specializes in identity design. It’s worth the expense and is also a legitimate write-off on your business taxes. To see how the design process works and to understand the worth of your logo here is a post I wrote a while back .

The Google Street view vehicle passed through Paisley last summer giving viewers a really good picture of what Paisley looks like. Here is my office store front.If you are a visual person like me this is a blessing!

Google has some pretty amazing tools for entrepreneurs like this one as well as Google Calendar, Google Alerts, Google Locator and Google Keywords. I use many of these tools on a daily basis to make my workflow much easier. Which ones do you use? why do you love them?
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Just finished up designing my new business cards in preparation for PodCamp Toronto next weekend. I wanted a simple card that would really point people to my website quickly. Ryan at takeontheweb.com suggested I use a QR (quick response) code on my business card. I had a vague idea of what they were because I had seen them recently in a magazine I receive.

A QR code is like a bar code/UPC code. Using your cell phone, you can take a picture of it and it would either 1. take you to a website, 2. start dialing a phone # or 3. send you a text with the information on it. I created my QR code at this site: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ You need an app for your phone for it to be able to work.

This article better explains the technical & historical side of it

So when you see my business card next you will see this little code on it. Oh, and hey look at that… there is one on my Hydro One bill too!

Heres a sneek peek at my new business card as well: