Nicole Nelson 5/7/21 Nicole Nelson 5/7/21

DesignU Series: Good Branding Design for Non-Designers

A big misconception out there, brought on in part by flashy success stories, tv shows, and curated social media, is that if you dream up a product you can make millions in the blink of an eye. What’s missing is throwing back the curtain to reveal all of the nuts and bolts that go into successful products that oftentimes require more work than just thinking of and executing the product itself.

We’re going to launch a blog series to shine a light on that “other stuff” that is the make or break of a successful product launch. Welcome to DesignU.

Today, since I’m writing this one and I’m the graphic designer half of our 2-person team, we’re focusing on branding. And since I know a lot of you out there are NOT designers by trade, I want to encourage you to stick around because (ssssshhhhh) you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create good branding.

I do want to denote that what I’m talking about here is visual design for branding and not establishing your brand strategy, mission, or identifying your audience. We’re focusing primarily on how to get started on creating brand visuals. If you’re interested in the conceptual work on establishing a brand, let us know on Twitter (@GamiiProducts) and we’ll work it in to a blog post!

Step 1: Keep It Simple

The best way to make branding that looks professional and attractive is to keep it simple. Use fonts that are clean and modern and don’t get too caught up in making sure the font exactly depicts the style of your product. In general, modern, clean and friendly personality traits favor a sans serif font, while a more traditional, conservative, or historic personality will usually favor a serif font. Using novelty or extremely decorative fonts can be OK, but can also work against the product and can increase an amateur look.

Same when it comes to colors. Choose 1 or 2 main colors to represent your brand. This is a color outside of black or white. If you use 2 colors, try to keep them complimentary or within the same tone family. If you aren’t super familiar with color families, reference an online color wheel like this one to help you out.

As far as imagery or logos go, simple is best again. Any artwork found off the web is off-limits. If you feel like the font and color is enough to represent your brand – go with it. If you do want a symbol or image, try sourcing a stock site for purchase such as Getty Images, or you may need to reach out to a graphic designer for something custom.

Step 2: Keep It Consistent

Once you have your brand font, colors and potential logo, use them (and only them) in all of your visual materials. For example, your website, social media and campaign page should all use the same colors, fonts and logos. Any graphics pertaining to your product as well, such as social media posts, web ads, brochures and even mailing packaging should coordinate with these branding elements.

A helpful tool is to create a template for all of your social media posts or banners where you switch out text and images but the branding elements stay the same. This will immediately create a cohesive look and make your brand look recognizable and professional. If you don’t have image editing software like Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva is a good resource that a lot of content creators use to create templatized, branded graphics.

Step 3: Keep it High Quality

The last step is really keeping it high quality. Quality can be judged in both the content of the design as well as the clarity of the visual.

When it comes to content, make sure that the visuals you create are part of your story or brand mission. It’s tempting to create visuals that seem “cool” or that are inspired by other brands, but it’s important to ask how it fits in to the story you are trying to tell through your brand, and if it is important to your audience and potential customers.

When it comes to clarity, the actual visuals should be easily recognizable and anyone can understand the message at first sight. Additionally, avoid blurry, oversized, or bitmapped images since these low quality images do not feel professional or trustworthy and detract from the message.

And there you go. 3 simple steps to get started on your brand identity that you can create even without a design degree! Have any other software suggestions or tried and true methods you think could help a starter product? Let us know on Twitter, and get the conversation going!

Our big idea is in the works to hit Kickstarter soon, and we’d love for you to be the first to know. To get updates on our upcoming products, or even blog posts like these, subscribe to our newsletter by entering your email in the footer below!

Nicole Nelson 4/23/21 Nicole Nelson 4/23/21

Developing Authentic Content for Non-Content-Creators

When we first launched Gamii we knew the biggest hurdle would be marketing and engagement. Specifically, social media engagement.

It wasn’t that we were new to social media. But neither one of us are marketers, and the thing we wanted to relay more than anything to our followers and potential customers was authenticity. We didn’t want to generate a brand that felt “salesy” or overpolished where we lost our personalities and therefore our main connection to everyone out there.

Even now, as we are at the beginning stages of our company and journey – it’s hard. We’ve already slipped up. We haven’t posted on Twitter consistently enough and we’ve had to shift our blog updates from once a week to twice a month. It happens because we’re a team of 2 and we’re busy. We’re spreading ourselves thin, and when that happens, creating authentic, valuable content is really hard. (And quite honestly, and I’m sure we’re wrong here, but if we don’t have something of value to share, we just don’t post.)

But, ok. Get to the point. What do we even know about creating authentic content? We’ve established that we’re not experts, so what could we possibly have to share as amateurs? One main thing, actually! This is what we’ve found out in our content creation journey that maybe could help you, or anyone looking to get started when this really isn’t “their thing”:

Create from a place of familiarity.

That’s it. The one thing we’ve found that gives us enough confidence to create from is our own personal experiences and knowledge banks. If we were trying to post content we don’t have a personal connection to, this would be impossible. It’s already hard! But at least when you create from a place of familiarity you can tap into your confidence, your experience, and the content you create flows like a conversation with a good friend.

And that honestly means more to followers, readers, supporters, or customers than pumping out posts for posts sake.

I’m sure we’re going to continue to mess up as we gain our momentum and confidence, but one thing we know for sure: we won’t be creating anything that doesn’t reflect our mission or our values.

Are you a content creator with tips to share? We’d love to hear about them and learn more! Share this post on Twitter to get the conversation going.

Nicole Nelson 4/9/21 Nicole Nelson 4/9/21

Real Talk: Overcoming the Emotional Toll of Failure

For anyone who has tried to build a business or product on their own, success is the goal. But success isn’t the majority, even though in this day and age we are constantly bombarded with success stories. You hear about children building million dollar apps from their bedrooms, or an inventor striking it rich with a product he made in his garage. Hearing these stories, it makes it seem like your failure or your path to success, if it’s longer than a few seconds, is monumental. To not make it when everyone around you is apparently striking it rich can make you feel so incompetent and small. Well, you’re not. You’re real. Because reality is failing towards success, and it can happen in an instant or take years.

The real magic is continuing to move forward in spite of failure. But let’s be honest, it’s easier said than done. Failure can be emotionally debilitating.

Here’s the good news. You’re not alone. We’ve failed pretty much every effort we’ve had due to a number of different factors: support, timing, lack of resources, not enough energy, you name it. But we’re still going because of a few tips we’ll share here for anyone who needs a push back onto the path of getting to that goal.

Identify your true vision of success.

This is a loaded one, but for so many years we’ve measured success as the amount of money made off an idea. When it comes to business, that’s the point, right? So when an idea didn’t happen or the dollars didn’t pour in, we felt like massive failures, and that failure was tied to our sense of self. This was beyond taking it personally, we built an identity on the idea of success, and since that idea of success was money, we felt like losers.

If you take a closer look, you may find that your idea of success is not actually tied to the material prize you’re focused on. It took a while, but we realized that our true vision of success wasn’t the amount we made but the quality of life we sought from creating something ourselves. Turns out, our quality of life is already in line with what we think success is. Which means how we value ourselves as people isn’t tied to money made but time well spent.

Now, when we fail, we can separate our identities from the failure, and move on quickly. Identify your true vision of success. Is it the amount of units sold? Cash in the bank? Is it living in a certain area code? Is it more time to spend doing the things you love? Then find out what you truly need to reach that success (and it may be you are closer than you think). This will help you find happiness in yourself separate from your project goals, which can help you rebound from failure more quickly.

Establish a failure plan.

When you are laser focused on a goal, it can be hard to consider what happens if it fails. Positive thinking only, right? Unfortunately, if you place all of your energy into the expectation of success, failure can feel like a door slammed in your face.

Keep your positivity, for sure. But, also make a plan for failure. What is your plan if the goal doesn’t go through? Drop the goal and move on to something different? Or maybe re-evaluate your goal and the event leading to the failure in order to position yourself differently? If you have a plan for failure, that slammed door won’t be the only opportunity you have, and it can keep your momentum going when otherwise it would crash to a halt.

Be honest about your commitment and find areas of improvement.

So earlier we told you how we attached our self identity to the success of a goal. When that happens, it’s easy to become defensive and even a bit in denial about failure. You play the blame game since the failure occurred because of a host of external factors. In some cases, that’s the truth. But sometimes, it’s important to take a good hard look at the events surrounding the failure and gauge your own participation in that failure.

For example, in other products we’ve designed, the failure of them taking off came down to a lack of commitment or consistency to marketing and effort. We had the idea, we produced a product, we then half expected the product to make itself successful. A lot of this also comes down to a lack of resources: not having enough time or support as a small team to develop the proper marketing or channels in order to launch something successfully. But it also was about us not accounting for those resources, and for expecting things to work out anyway.

Are you putting in enough care, work, and effort for your goal? Be realistic about it. You may not be and that may be contributing the failure. By being honest with yourself in order to change that, and it may be the difference between another setback, or finally scaling that mountain to success.

Do you have any tips when it comes to failing and overcoming it? We’d love to hear about them and maybe even add them to this list! Share this post on Twitter to get the conversation going.

Nicole Nelson 3/26/21 Nicole Nelson 3/26/21

How to Generate Good Ideas from Zero

If you’re in a creative field, it’s a learned skill to continually generate ideas from zero. Some creatives are much better than others, and sometimes it can be a soul crushing process that requires a few pots of coffee. For anyone not used to ideation, trying to come up with a good idea – whether it be for a new product, business, or even personal hobby – can be grueling and overwhelming.

Don’t give up! We experience this on the regular. Just trying to come up with ideas for blog posts like these can be challenging, especially when you’re first starting out and trying something new. Here we’ll share 5 tips that have really helped us along the way, and hopefully they can help you, too.

Look Inward to Your Personal Experiences.

The deepest well of idea generation is personal experience. If you’re trying to think of a new idea, trying to reach beyond your scope of experience can be insurmountable. Start by looking inward into what you already know: your experiences, hobbies, interests, and even embarrassing learning moments. If you’re trying to generate an idea for a new product, for example, lean into the areas and industries you are already involved in. By working with your current knowledge base, it can be easier to find confidence and to think of an idea based in your unique perspective.

Complain.

This is one area we at Gamii exploit pretty heavily, since we develop products from a problem:solution perspective. Usually, complaints are best kept to yourself, but in this case, think about the things you’ve complained about recently. It’s likely there is an underlying problem that could solved by your unique idea. Whether it’s a product approach, or maybe a creative outlet in your community, or modifying an existing system to be easier to use or interact with. By paying attention to our complaints, we can often tap into good ideas that can have a greater effect for other people as well. Chances are, if there’s something you’ve been griping about, someone else has probably had a similar complaint, too.

Go Down the Rabbit Hole.

If you’ve exhausted your personal experiences and complaints, it may be time to start looking outward to think of something new. Luckily, there is an unending fount of discovery online, if you know where to look. Without being too specific, start searching for topics related to your need or related to things that interest you. Then start reading articles, blog posts or forums and let yourself go down the internet rabbit hole. This can be tricky sometimes because it can be easy to regurgitate something that already exists, but sometimes all you need is a portion of an idea to spur another idea that piggybacks on your personal experiences or even complaints. By exploring with an open mind, you can spark something you never considered before.

Get Curious.

While sparks can ignite an eruption of idea flows, sometimes you may find an area of interest but can’t fully form a complete idea. When that happens, get curious. Position yourself as a journalist, and ask questions, even if it seems naïve. Try to investigate all the angles of a topic or pre-existing idea to discover something new. Believe it or not, a lot of times things are accepted at face value without further question, and you may be the first to uncover something unique based in your own perspective. Even if investigating may nullify the quality of the initial idea, it may expose other avenues you hadn’t considered and allow you to move forward.

Capture Eureka Moments by Logging Them.

One habit Chris (our brilliant engineer) adopted years ago was keeping a single Post-It note in his wallet. This Post-It is covered in his tiny, scrawling handwriting, but it has proven to be an invaluable resource. Every time Chris triggers a Eureka! moment, he logs it on the Post-It. This could be at work, at home, over dinner and drinks, or even waiting in line during an errand. When your mind is clear and focused on something else, some of your best ideas can come through out of no where. Unfortunately, once it passes and your brain finds something else to settle on, it can be impossible to recover later on. By keeping something on you at all times (could be your phone, a notebook, or a simple Post-It), you can keep that idea when you’re ready to start brainstorming. Full disclosure: not every Eureka! moment is a keeper, but again, by tapping into curiosity or exploring a rabbit hole fueled by that search term, it can be enough to get you from zero to brilliant idea.

Another great way to generate great ideas is through discussion! Do you have any tried and true methods that help you think of the next best thing? We’d love to hear about them and maybe even add them to this list! Share this post on Twitter to get the conversation going.

Nicole Nelson 5/28/19 Nicole Nelson 5/28/19

Welcome to The Grind

It’s our first blog post!

Hello and welcome fellow creators! And those that support creators! This is the inaugural blog post for The Grind, the Gamii blog where we talk about the work that goes in to product development, marketing, entrepreneurship and just making things happen! Spoiler alert: it’s not clean and tidy, it’s not magic, and there is nothing here that will tell you how to get 1,000 Twitter followers in 1 day (as of this moment, we have 1). What this is though, is a real look at what it takes when you don’t catch a lucky break and you instead have to commit yourself to the grind, the relentless pursuit of making something yourself and getting other people on board.

Additionally, we’re not super experts. Our team is made up of a stellar engineer and product designer (the ideas), and a designer and creator who likes to tell stories. (Hint hint, I’m the designer). We don’t have traditional backgrounds in marketing or product development and instead are hustling outside our 9-5s to scrap together what we can to make things work!

If you are like us, or can relate, or just want to see from the sidelines and potentially learn what NOT to do, we’re so happy to have you!

This blog will be updated weekly with stories, updates, tutorials or whatever is happening at that time.

If you’re interested in keeping in touch with blog updates, product updates, or any other news we may be sharing, I urge you to sign up for our e-mail newsletters or follow us on Twitter @gamiiproducts.