LETTING GO
A couple of weeks ago I attended a creative small business conference in called The Makers Summit . We spent two days listening to industry leading keynote speakers and panel discussions, in one-on-one business sessions, and meeting other ‘makers’ who own creative small businesses. They also threw a progressive ‘best craft party ever’ where we made cool stuff, drank signature cocktails, ate amazing food provided by their sponsors, and got to know other creative business people. You know a party thrown by creative people for creative people has to be good.
As a result of this inspiring trip, I have spent a lot of time thinking about branding and the direction I want to take my business. As you may know, I spent several years in the stationery industry, designing and producing cute paper products. I’ve kept my ‘Barefoot Studios’ brand name and logo since then. I still love cute paper products, and although my work is painterly and loose, I’m not sure I’d call my paintings cute. My ‘cute’ brand and logo wasn’t matching up with the work that I’m doing now. All this thought about branding, and direction, and style solidified what I kind of already knew, but just wasn’t ready to change. Now I’m ready. I guess. It’s time to let go of my little beach house logo. I’ve designed something that better reflects the paintings I sell and the art that goes on products. Look for the little house logo to gradually disappear and something clean and simple to show up in my social media. I’m not getting rid of the ‘Barefoot Studios’ name though, because I think it still suits me. I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing my values, my direction, and my ‘brand’ so now it’s time to move on and spend some time painting.
Oh yeah, and if you see this on Facebook it’s because it feeds there automatically, so I apologize if I don’t respond for a couple of weeks. I gave FB up for lent so this doesn’t really count…right?