Business Reflections Podcast Episode #19 - The Importance of Design with VAJ Design

Episode Transcript

Meredith Matics: Welcome to Business Reflections with your host Meredith Matics, and we are here to reflect on the business topics that are affecting you today and how you can better run your business. Today, I have Victor Jacques, owner and lead designer of VAJ Designs. I'm wondering if you could tell us more about how you got started in the field of design and branding. 

Victor Jacques: Well, it really started as a child, I was really always into art and math and science growing up. When I went to college, I was looking for a field that allowed me to mix all my passions together, all my interests together in one field. Eventually it took me to graphic design. 

Admittedly though, when I actually got accepted into the program I didn't know what graphic design was. I thought I did, but I didn't really understand what it was. As I went through the program and really got an understanding of what design is all about. By the time I left, I was I was just utterly grateful and looking back, I was like, wow, this is it's crazy how much I've learned. 

Meredith Matics: Well, so can you tell us, what did you think graphic design was before you went into it? And what is your definition of it now?  

Victor Jacques: Before I went into it, I had a vague idea of what it entailed, like logo development and I thought it had something to do with like color schemes and things like that. But I didn't really understand the principles of design in the first place. I also thought that it might've had something to do with other fields within it as well. 

Like I was thinking maybe illustration goes in there with it, which it does to some degree, but not really. But once I really started understanding the principles of design, I realized that I really didn't know what it was at first, like typography, for example. I didn't understand why, why I had to attend a class called typography where we studied like fonts and type setting. I just didn't understand what design entailed.  

Meredith Matics: What transitioned you from finishing school to starting your own company?  

Victor Jacques: I always was attracted to the idea of being my own boss at some point in life. I didn't have a particular time frame for it. Once I entered the field and started working professionally, I worked for a variety of different companies everywhere from small startup to like large multinational corporations. Through that experience, it really reiterated my desire to be my own boss and get out on my own. 

It wasn't because it was a bad experience by any means. Matter of fact, I really have been fortunate with the places that I've worked. I've always had a great team of folks that I've worked alongside. The companies themselves were just great places to work. 

There was always that thing in the back of my mind, like, yeah, at some point.  I don't know when, but at some point I want to do my own thing. Even in a great environment, working with great people, when you're not really calling the shots, sometimes it can be a struggle at times where it's like, okay, well, I understand this is what we have to do, because this is what we have to do, but there's a better way to do things or more effective way to do things. And you can't because there's reasons why decisions are made and  if you're not really calling the shots, then it's not your call, so you just have to roll with the punches.  

That's the advantage to starting your own business. You can build it up the way that you want. You can manage it the way that you want. You can prioritize things the way that you feel are necessary.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah. We're excited to have you on the podcast today because we want to talk a little bit about the value of the design and branding in a business. Do you mind sharing with us more about why business owners or small businesses should not underestimate the power of good branding and design? Because I think that a lot of small business owners probably jump over that cost and think, well, I'll just make my name on Word. 

Victor Jacques: Right. I completely understand when other folks who are completely outside of this industry can overlook its value. 

What I would say is a good way to think about branding is it's the face of your business, right? I mean, if it was a person, it would literally be your face and your outfit. Our appearance is something that we take seriously. We may adjust for a particular occasion, for example, right? Like you dress appropriately for an interview or to work out or to go to a wedding or something like that. Right. So branding, when you think about a business, okay, I want to start a business and I want it to be like really high end, or I want it to be playful, or I want it to have like an element of humor. That needs to be represented in, in the brand. 

All the little pieces that go into that are not necessarily something that you would consciously notice or be able to point out, but you'll subconsciously react to them, even if you are not a designer at all.  

Meredith Matics: Is that like the psychology where they say like, Coca-Cola has a red brand because it's impulsive and it'll make you buy it faster and you see it on the shelf and you grab it. Or like McDonald's is red and yellow, which is supposed to be fast and make the person perceiving it feel sped up.  

Victor Jacques: That's exactly right. And that's one of the things that goes into it, but you can even think of it in a way where it doesn't work. 

Like if I told you to close your eyes and imagine a movie poster for a Western, right? You, in your mind, you're probably thinking of whatever the title of that movie is it might look a certain way, like have like a certain font, right? Like ...  

Meredith Matics: Big bulky letters, be a little rough on the edges, not super smooth, not like fancy cursive.  

Victor Jacques: Right. And without being a designer, you react to certain things a certain way, certain things remind you of certain things. If you take it and you use the wrong thing, and wrong is not really the right word because in a lot of ways, there is no right wrong per se, when it comes to design. 

But I guess something that could be seemingly out of place. It conveys something that you don't want.  When you said you don't imagine like a script font, right? Well, imagine if something that you would think of as having a script font, like maybe like a wedding invitation, but that had the big bulky Western font. 

You'd be like, Oh, this is a weird, this is a weird font choice for this, right? So...  

Meredith Matics: I saw something like that. I was driving the other day and I happened to notice how pretty a font was on a building. That's really cute, it was really delicate, light blue and everything.  It was for something weird, like construction equipment. 

Victor Jacques: Yeah.  

Meredith Matics: I literally had to do a double look at the building. Oh, that's a pretty color. I wonder what they do. They must sell like invitations. And then I was like, wait, so-and-so's construction company.  

Victor Jacques: Right, right. You know? That's exactly what I mean. And when you bring a designer on board these are the things that they're going to be thinking about. Before they get started on working on anything they're gonna need some information out of you. What's the business about? What's the clientele that you're looking for? What kinds of products or services is it going to offer? 

There's all these things that we want to gather to make sure we really convey what you want to be conveyed through your brand, through your business. And then that really creates the rules and the guidelines around a lot of different aspects of what your business entails like everything that has a design component. You have your logo, you have your printed materials, you've stationary, might have packaging, a website, you might have a mobile app. All of these things need to be unified under a cohesive brand. 

And if you think about  more well-known companies, it's easy to recognize their brand anywhere. And then the other thing too is the logo. The logo is the cornerstone of your brand. That's another thing that I didn't really understand, that I underestimated when I went to school for it. We would work a logo for an extended period of time. 

You would work on it and refine it. You'd have all these different versions of it and they would critique it and then they would tear them down and be like, this one isn't working because of this, this one isn't working, because of that, this one over here is kind of going in the right direction. 

But you know, you might want to try X, Y, and Z. Then you go back and you rework it. It's a work and rework, it's a work and rework. And it's important because think about how pervasive it is. It's like a stamp that goes on everything. 

You're going to have it on your letterhead, on your business card, on your website, on your mobile app, on your labels for your packaging, on your tag for your apparel. It's important. You want to treat it as such and want to take it seriously and you want to get it right, as close to right as early as possible.  

Because a rebrand is time-consuming and very expensive. So it's better to, if you have the ability to do it, to really get something that is great in the beginning. Even before labels are designed or your apparel is designed, your website is designed, your logo is ready because that's the foundation of your brand. It dictates the color scheme, the type of fonts, all of these things stems from the logo itself and grows outward from there.  

Meredith Matics: Victor, what do you think are some of the biggest or most common mistakes that businesses make when they're designing their materials? Their website, their brochures, their business cards, the things that people are going to be seeing every day.  

Victor Jacques: I would say one of the biggest mistakes is a lack of unity. Over the years I've gotten a lot of different clients across a lot of different industries and they may be in various stages of their business, in various stages of development. Sometimes they already have an established brand and they just need something. I already have everything going, but the designer I had before, you know, I can't get ahold of them anymore, so I need someone to design this book for me, or I need a website now or something like that. 

That's perfectly fine. But  if it starts off that way in the beginning where somebody might say, okay, well, I'll have this person work on the logo and then I'll have this person over here, work on the website and then I'll have this person over here work on the packaging without any coordination between them. 

That's not the best way to go about that because again, the brand needs to be consistent, needs to be unified. A designer who wants to make sure that the client starts off on a good foot is going to provide the client with like a style guide, a brand guide. 

This is a document that has their logo. It has the colors, all the colors in their brand art, and the fonts that are used. It can be something that's simple or it can be very comprehensive. 

If you have something like that, then it's not as big of a problem because you can provide them with a brand guide that they can work from it to make sure that everything is unified. If that's not the case and things are just disconnected. I mean, sometimes people might have different logos. This is the logo I have for this item over here and this is the logo I have for this item over here. You shouldn't have two different logos. It really should be really pretty consistent and unify.  

Meredith Matics: For our listeners who are just starting out or just launching their small business and have a limited budget, like many small businesses do, where is the place that you recommend that the small business owner could start? 

Victor Jacques: I recommend free consultations is the best place to start because if a business owner is concerned about budget and they just assume that what they need is beyond their budget and therefore they don't even attempt to pursue it. 

That's a big mistake because it may be number one, it may be more affordable than you think. Number two, a lot of times, companies offer installment plans so even if it costs a certain amount of money, you can pay it off over time. There's ways that things can be more affordable than you may realize. Before even worry about how much things cost, I recommend free consultations. Bring in an expert as soon as possible, as early as possible. 

At their minimum, within five minutes of talking to someone, you'll learn something, you'll be like, Oh, okay. That's interesting. Okay. So yeah,  then that's what I'll do. I'll start there. I'll make sure that I'll address that first or whatever the case may be. 

Meredith Matics: Do you mind sharing an example from your own experience when working with a client that changes you made to their design or branding, maybe they agreed or didn't agree with, but why you made those changes? 

Victor Jacques: Sure. A lot of cases are actually kind of the same. And what I mean is back to what I said about consultation and educating the client. I try to do that as well as I can. So starting there,  it reveals where there may or may not be room for improvement or how to move forward or what direction needs to be taken based off where they are. 

It varies depending on the client, the industry and again where they are in their business and what exactly they need. They might need new labels for their product line. When I look at it, I'll study what they have and I may say I noticed that it doesn't have where it was manufactured and it doesn't have a barcode on it or anything like that. Would you like to expand and grow at some point, to the point where you will be stocked on shelves of a major distributor?  

Oh yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. Okay. Well, in that case, in addition to just an aesthetic redesign, there's actually additional information that we should really make sure are put on here because without it, it wouldn't pass the requirements.  

Meredith Matics: You bring up an excellent point about how there is that functional element of design of like we do have to put barcodes on items, or if it's a food item, you have to list the ingredients and how does that incorporate? Everybody knows what a nutritional label looks like but how do you make that into your product design in a way that isn't going to offend the customer's eyes, but isn't going to be shady and hiding information. 

Victor Jacques: Exactly.  

Meredith Matics: And that you're going to be in compliance. Cause at the end of the day, nobody wants to redo their food distribution because they forgot to put the barcode on it.  

Victor Jacques: Exactly. And that could be, it could be quite pricey. That's another reason why I say the education part of it is really important. I always when I can, just sit down with a client and talk to them about what design and branding is about, why it's important, why they need it and where it really applies for their particular business and what they're trying to do in terms of their goals.  

Meredith Matics: It sounds really important to bring in, you're going to have a product or a business that's going to be in front of anybody that's a consumer, to have a skilled set of eyes on it to make sure that it works for what you're trying to convey and that people aren't coming to your store cause they think you sell stationary when you sell construction equipment.  

Victor Jacques: Right. Exactly.  

Meredith Matics: As we close, there are two questions I ask everybody that comes onto our podcast. The first is what is one piece of advice that you have received that you would want to share with another small business owner? 

Victor Jacques: I would say my biggest piece of advice builds off of what I said about getting educated. It's really along the lines of leaning on a good team of experts. If you want to get your books together, you bring on an accountant. 

If you want to get all the appropriate contracts you need, if you need like NDAs or independent contractor contracts or anything like that. It's ideal to have an attorney on board for that, right? You bring experts on board to make sure that all your P's and Q's are taken care of in terms of your business. 

That's really the biggest piece of advice and of course design and branding falls in that. It's not just about making a logo look good or label look good. It's broader than that, right? 

It has larger implications. It has a ripple effect through everything that's client facing. Bring the team of experts on board and consult with them.  

Meredith Matics: Victor, where can our listeners find you on social media? 

Victor Jacques: You can find me on Instagram at VAJ_design and then on Facebook at VAJ Design. 

Meredith Matics: Well, Victor, thank you so much for coming on. You brought up some excellent points about how it really is important to talk about and look at your design before diving into mass producing your product, or even getting your brand out there in front of people. 

Victor Jacques: Thank you.  

Business Reflections Closing: Please note that these are thoughts and opinions alone. For tax advice, please see your CPA or tax advisor, tax professional for business advice and legal entities. Please see your local business, lawyer, or attorney for advice. And if you'd like to reach out to us for any topics or questions about. Any subject, any episode you can reach us podcast@maticsbilling.com. That's podcast@maticsbilling.com.    

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