Recipe for a Behance Feature

Ian Paget: Something I've been doing with the podcast now, I've got a slight change of focus for the podcast and community. So with the interviews, I want to use it as an opportunity to find out how other people have made a living designing logos. And you're quite early on in your career; very, very early on in your career. I think in terms of the podcast, over a hundred episodes, you are probably the earliest in your career, and I think that gives us a unique opportunity because everything is really fresh in your mind.

You're clearly doing something right, because you seem to have established yourself very quickly, and I think in this interview, we can learn a lot from that, even though you are very early on in your career. So, I know that there's going to be other people that will be able to get a lot from this who also want to make a living designing logos.

So how I'm going to start this is by going back to pre-university... You went to university, didn't you?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah, correct. Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah? Cool. So the time prior to getting to university, did you know that you wanted to do graphic design?

Kwaku Amprako: I had no clue what I wanted to do, to be honest.

Ian Paget: So, what made you go in that direction? Because you obviously had some kind of choices to the direction you wanted to go. What was it you studied and why did you study that?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah, sure. So, the course that I decided to choose actually was digital media arts or digital arts, something like that. And I just got attracted to it because it had stuff like... I knew I was good with a computer before university I had had my A levels, which I studied like business economics and computing. And I knew that I was, I really liked doing business. And then I also like using like computers and stuff, but I didn't like computer science, which is I realised that fast. I absolutely hated doing coding and stuff. So, yeah, got attracted to digital media arts, and it was more like the course was basically, it was very broad.

It had the slightest part of graphic design. I remember we only used Photoshop and Illustrator for like one module out of the four years. And it was, yeah. So when I first got into the course, it was weird because I immediately knew that I didn't really want to do this course, and that really just because I... from an early age, I really knew that I wasn't quite the academic type. So I understood I was more creative than academic, and I done well when there wasn't academic barriers onto me. So, yeah, I hope I answered your question.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah, have. So, how did you go from this course that seemed quite high level to being at the position where you could start on your own as a graphic designer, because we've had a conversation prior to doing this interview, and looking on your website and seeing everything that you're doing, you seem to be making a lot of good news, all makes to the point where it looks like you've been doing this a lot longer than you have done, but in reality, it's like, what, six months, something like that. It's a relatively short space of time. So this course that had a very small amount of graphic design, I assume at that point, you didn't know anything about graphic design. What was in that course that allowed you to flourish as a graphic designer to get to where you are now?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah, that is a perfect question actually. So my course was four years. First year and second year, they were just normal academic year, however, the third year was like a sandwich year. And within that year, you would have to either do a placement or study abroad. And my choice was to study abroad. I was looking forward to it, to go to another country and study there, just do some artistic stuff there like on the computer and stuff. Just some digital media design. However, I didn't end up doing that, and instead I ended up doing a gap year. And within the gap year, that was like, I tell everyone it was like my golden year. Within that gap year, I was able to do a six month placement and some freelancing and I also got a job.

So that was actually the best year that gave me so many opportunities. So within that year, I really, because as I said, I wasn't studying graphic design, it was just some design course, but just some like media course. Yeah, that's the best word to describe it. Just some media course. So in the gap year, I really had the freedom to do what I wanted to do. And I made the choice to study... I'm sorry, work at a startup company, and this was unpaid. It was like for six month startup company and I did some logo identity and some branding. It's funny because, I'll say this story another day, but the owner actually ended up ghosting me, so I just made the best out of that situation. Something that I'm happy to talk about later.

I made the best out of that situation and I posted that project on Behance. And after that, I got my first feature from Behance, and then that's when a lot more doors opened up. And then within that year, after doing that, I repeated the same thing that I did, but obviously a different design project, and I got another feature, and then more doors started opening up. And then I believe the best thing that's happened to me being at uni was actually getting a design job at the university; the students union. So, there's like a... I'm not sure if everyone's familiar with a student union, but it's kind of like a charity that helps new students like freshers into the university, but also just the wellbeing of students at a university.

So I got a job there and I learned a lot. And one huge thing that I learned was I didn't want a job as a graphic designer. It sounds crazy, but that was definitely the best thing that's happened to me. The job was amazing. The people there were lovely. I just learned by myself quicker and I understood that I'm not able to thrive in particular environments. So, that really just gave me a direction of... It really confirmed with me that I want to do freelancIng. I knew I wanted to do freelance in for like a while prior, but that just really confirmed in me. Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I find it, it's quite an interesting story because we haven't had a conversation this deep prior to doing this and here, today, you seem very ambitious, very focused, but two, three years ago, it seemed like you wasn't sure what you wanted to do. You was more following what the system pushes you down and what you're encouraged to do after school. And personally, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I finished college. I didn't go to university for numerous reasons, but I didn't know what I wanted to do either. You get to this point where you just keep trying things and you just get to a point where you land in a position where you start to realize what you want to do, and then that's when you become a lot more focused.

And I think it's good that we've spoken about that because I think when you are young, you don't really know what you want to do. There's so many things that you can do. And I think it's interesting that you did a media course that had a little bit of everything. I've met a few students that have done things like that. It means that they have quite a broad portfolio and it helps people to figure out the direction you want to go. And it sounds like although it probably wasn't as useful as you thought it was, but did you get that knowledge to design a logo for that company that you worked with during your gap year? Did you gain that knowledge from university?

Kwaku Amprako: The sad truth is everything in my portfolio, nothing was taken from my course from university. Everything was on my Instagram or my website. The course was, because it was very broad, it was very difficult to build a portfolio because you don't really want to portfolio with a wide range of different kind of stuff. So, no, I really do say I am self-taught just because my course didn't have anything with logo design, didn't really teach us how to use software. And they just expected us to just get on with creating. For example, one assignment was create a book cover in Photoshop. They taught us a little bit how to use it. And then after that assignment was done, we just moved on to the next Adobe software, whatever. And I don't think they ever even taught us how to use Adobe Illustrator.

I don't think there was any assignment in Illustrator. But, yeah, I would say what I had learned from university was, from my course, was carrying out projects, which I'm happy to talk about later on, now, I'm at a stage that I have to do more than logo design, which is like, I have to do recording, I have to do audio after you video editing. I'm very grateful that I learned in university how to use Adobe Premiere. But yeah, I would say just working on a creative project on the whole was very valuable and something that I learned.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So, do you think that you would be where you are now if you didn't go to university?

Kwaku Amprako: That's a good question. I'm not sure. But what I would say is I made the best out of all the worst, all the bad things that had happened because even... I don't think I mentioned, but during uni, I started freelancing, but there was very small commissions, like just generic graphic design stuff. So I had done this since first year, and then in the gap year, because I had more time to focus, I was able to like... What's the word? I was able to just invest more of my time into what I wanted to do. And then when I started seeing results, then I was like, okay, this is working. But I would say that, yeah... I would say uni definitely pointed me in this direction, not because of the success of the course, but because of the failures that I encountered such as choosing the wrong course and just making the best out of every bad situation.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it sounds like it help you to figure out who you are as a person and-

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah, exactly.

Ian Paget: ... what you want it to do and the direction you wanted to go. And, in a way, I think it's good that universities encourage self-learning, rather than spoonfeeding everything, because when you're in the industry, in order to succeed, you have to keep learning constantly, because technology is changing. Things are coming out. It's a lifelong journey. Literally, you can read as many books as you want and you'll continue to learn stuff right until the end of your life. So, I've heard a lot of other people say similar.

My partner said the same thing about her course, but I think it's good that they encourage self-learning. And although I feel like we're putting a negative spin on universities, but it sounds like it was helpful for you and it helped you to go in the right direction. So you mentioned about this gap year, you mentioned about freelancing. You mentioned about that student union. You actually said in earlier, that it helped to work out that you don't actually want to work as a graphic designer. Did I hear that correctly?

Kwaku Amprako: Yes. Yeah, you heard that correctly.

Ian Paget: Is it more that you didn't want to work in a team and you prefer to work as an independent?

Kwaku Amprako: I think it was more just as in I knew the benefits of freelancing such as you can work on what you want to work on. You can like, yeah. So with the job, it was really just do this, do that, and I also learned about myself, it's hard for me to work on something that I don't have interest in. It's like it hurts me mentally because it becomes so boring to the point where it's like, I don't know if I want to... To the point where it's, I don't perform the best because I'm just genuinely not interested. So, with the job, there was many things that I didn't really want to do. I just thought it was boring, and I just knew that it became repave. So day after day, I was doing certain things.

I was working with the same type face, and then the same type of... working on the same poster. I know that's common in freelancing, but I just realised that I like to change projects very often. I think I really enjoy working in teams. I just think it's just what I'm working on. If I work on it for too long, it's really mind numbing. But yeah, I would just say, I just realised that I need to work on a variety of projects.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I find it interesting then that you've, based on your portfolio anyway, a lot of what's in your portfolio seems to be very niche and it's primarily logo design. How did you go from not really knowing what you wanted to do, deciding that you didn't want to do graphic design to enjoying working on logos? How did you get to that point?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah. I think it was actually... So when I was freelancing during that uni, as I said, it was very small commissions. People would just come to me for logos and then I just enjoyed, pardon me, I enjoyed making logos. So it was just quite fine and simple. And I'm just like, I'm quite a simple person. So I like just focusing on one thing. So, logos just became more of a habit to me. I remember I just used to just work on logos, posts on Instagram, and it just became a norm to me, just working on it. I think I just got attracted just to logos. And I think I grew fast in terms of understanding the importance of niching because I know that niching is difficult for a lot of designers, and I know that what I do is very niche.

I wouldn't say it's very niche actually, but I've made a decision to like... I don't just do logos, I do brand identity as well, but I put out there that I really do logos. But I would say that, I remember I was speaking to my brother actually, because he's a creative as well. He's very good at illustrations and stuff. I was speaking to my brother and I remember there was a time where I hit, and I was just like, I just want to do logos. Yeah, I just said, yeah, I just want to do logos. And he was like, nah, don't know, man. Don't think that that's... I think you're putting yourself in a box. And I was the only one that thought, no, I can really just niche down on logo design, and then yeah, done it.

But a lot of people think it's a bit strange to really niche down on logo design. But, yeah, and then when I started posting more stuff on Instagram, that became another habit as well. I was just starting to get into habits that I didn't really notice, which was just creating logos, posting on Instagram. And the more I did that, the more of those types of opportunities just came our way and I started to do more and then I started to like it more. And then, yeah, just like a cycle.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it's the compound effect. And I would say that also happened to me, because I've worked in design agencies for long periods of time and I've done the kind of jobs that you're talking about. I know exactly the type of thing. With those things, you just need to get on with it, but I can understand that for some people it's difficult. And I think it's good that we've spoken about that because there's probably going to be people that will relate with that. But when I started Logo Geek, which was just a hobby, I had the same situation. And what you find by doing a logo, posting it on social media, sharing it, so people can see it. When you start doing that consistently, you get known for doing that thing. You build a reputation doing that thing, and everybody knows that you do that.

And they tell their friends. When someone within your network mentions that they need a logo, people that know you should recommend you, because that's what you do. It's easy to put you in a box. And I think being in a box, as a graphic designer, is a good thing. It makes a lot easier when you go to events and people ask you, what do you do? I design logos. It's so easy to say. Yes, there's a lot of people doing it, but not many people really focused. There's only a handful of designers that I know that really go all in, and I've seen people question, is it possible? Of course it is. You just need to remain focused and do what you've been doing. You get that compound effect. So you mentioned those early projects were cheap. How low are we talking here? Are you open to speaking numbers?

Kwaku Amprako: Absolutely. I'm transparent with these things. But, yeah, we're talking... I remember the first logo I made was actually for my brother. I can't remember how much that was for but, I know it was my first logo.

Ian Paget: My first was 20 pounds.

Kwaku Amprako: After I made the logo for my brother, I started doing vector illustrations, like portrait illustrations for people's faces, and that was 10 pounds. I was charging 10 pounds for that. And that would take me up to six hours and I will charge 10 pounds for those. And I was happy, man. I was like, yeah, I remember I used to post on my Snapchat. People used to be, oh, I want one. And then I remember I increased it to 15, and then I started increasing, increasing, increasing it. And I remember till the time where it was, I started doing 50 pounds and I thought that was okay, but then I started to really listen to Logo Geek and watch the future, and I was like, no, enough is enough, there's no way I could charge that much for a logo.

Ian Paget: I think people don't realise, like when I work for a company, you got an annual salary, and I think from my personal background, I remember thinking like 30 grand a year was really good money. That was like the peak of success. I remember this guy that I saw coming in like a fancy car. It wasn't actually that fancy, looking back, but at the time, having a fancy car, having a 30 grand job, that was peak success. And I was the same as you. I didn't think that you could get paid more than a couple of hundred pounds for doing a logo, but through doing the podcast, through reading, through having conversations with other logo designers, there is no ceiling. There is literally no ceiling. There are designers out there that can charge in excess of a million dollars only for a logo design.

And the reason why it starts to cost that much, and I've done episodes on this that I can link to, but if you can imagine that you're a company like Coca-Cola, billions of dollars, and you have that logo redesign and it's wrong, that can lose that company millions, millions of dollars. So, a company like Coca-Cola will want to go with the designer or agency that is the least risky option. And you hear the future talk about this type of thing a lot. And they want to make sure that when they have their logo redesigned, that it's going to perform for them, that it's not going to cause any negative damage, that it's going to increase the amount of money that they will make as a business.

And the cost or the value to companies at that scale is enormous. And that's why you will see agencies that will get a logo design project that has that. Obviously, they have systems and processes in place that ensure that it will be a success. It doesn't always go right, but with the strategist, the research, user testing, all that sort of stuff, it's worth it for some companies to invest that volume of money. So, bargain basement, like right at the bottom of the pile is the 50 pound logos...That is such a tiny amount of money.

I'm consistently working for companies now that pay for a thousand pounds for a logo design only. And I'm not sure where you are yet. I know you're quite early in your journey, but for anyone that wants to consistently design logos and only logos, it's 100% possible, and the sky is the limit. Obviously don't chase the money. I think the approach that we've both taken is the right way to do it. Start off at the bottom. You have to start off at the bottom, because you don't have a reputation yet. You don't have proof, you don't have evidence that you can do it. But what you did is by doing those 20 quid projects or 10 pound projects, 20 pound projects, and scaling with each project, you was able to provide proof, or you was able to validate that you can do a good job.

And by adding to that, you was able to increase that because people had increased trust that you could do the right job. So, yeah, it's all the compound effect. The more projects you do, the more you share them, you build reputation. And you've done exactly that in a relatively short space of time. Okay. So you were doing a few logos. Now you have a really slick website. When did that come about? Because I'd like to go now with the next story. So you finished university, and you started doing these small projects that was making you happy. Where did it go from there to being something that was sustainable?

Kwaku Amprako: Okay. Yeah. Great question. So, when I finished university, I remember handing in my final assignment. Let me start from there, actually. And I just felt, I felt like I was on top of the world, because I felt like uni was great and I'm so grateful for it. I just felt like it was a time that I needed to move on. And the uni assignment was stopping me because I couldn't continue. I couldn't actually officially start on my business. So when I handed in the assignment, that's when I just completely went all out. So I started posting every day on Instagram and then I started attracting more clients. So after doing that, I just started to use Behance more actually. So after I started to use Behance more, I just started to be very strategic with how many projects I'll post it on Behance, when I'll post them, when I'll post Instagram posts.

And I started to get more clients, but to be honest, after I graduated, I had a dip. And actually not even a dip in success, I just felt completely lost just because I wasn't doing uni and I was completely focused on it, and you need to build a lot of momentum. So thank God, I was doing little things whilst I was still studying at uni such as that posting everyday on Instagram. So after I had done that, I had eventually like September, I think it was 2020 year, September to November, 2020 was so bad. That was the worst time ever for me. I had no clients. I had so much bills. I had a lot of uni stuff that I needed to pay back and it became so overwhelming, I was just like, I don't even know what to do. It just became so overwhelming.

Ian Paget: I think it wasn't an easy time either because it was peak of the pandemic as well, which didn't make anything easier.

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. So, with the pandemic, I ignored the pandemic thing, which I think was stupid of me. I shouldn't have ignored that aspect, but then when I started to get... I think I got a client and this was like an AI client. They dealt with... They was building an autonomous car software and their budget was exactly what I needed and was nice. And I was just happy. That was my breakthrough moment for that. After doing that, I just started working on the project, and I also had other clients as well, just started working on that. And then, yeah, I just started using Behance a lot more. Yeah. Am I going off topic?

Ian Paget: Oh, no, you're not. I think it's good to talk about these steps. I think it's important, because I think where that lull has come from is that you, and I think a lot of people go through this because as a kid, you go to school and you have structure. Then you go to college or university, wherever you are in the world, there's usually this education system where you're giving all this support and guidance and structure. You usually have a support network in terms of family that's there for you. And then you get to this point where it's like, there you go, it's like your post off the end of a plank, and you have to start swimming and it's like good luck.

You're just there to do your own thing. And I think a lot of people could have that moment where they suddenly have all of this support and then realize now I'm on my own and it's a lot harder than people might realise. So I think it's good that you brought that up. You mentioned that you was lucky enough to get this good project and I think that's... I'm happy that that did happen, but projects like that don't just come out of nowhere.

Kwaku Amprako: Oh yeah.

Ian Paget: What was it you was doing prior to having that down moment? Was there a website yet? Were you posting on Behance and social already by that point?

Kwaku Amprako: That is a perfect question, Ian. I was even thinking, oh, I need to say this, but yeah. So during the dip, the dip was extremely bad. And that was the moment when I just promised myself, yeah, I need to fix up. I need to completely change my work ethic because even though I felt like I was doing a few things, it wasn't enough. So what I did to eventually get bigger and better clients was, even though I was posting on Instagram, I was posting every day, but there were some days that I wouldn't. But this time I was posting consistently every day. And then I started to eventually do blog posts, and blog posts completely changed everything. Off the blog post, I started to just, it was literally just Instagram.

Kwaku Amprako: I just really went twice as hard on Instagram. Yeah, Instagram and blog posts. At this time I had the website. I did have a website, but it wasn't as nice. So I started working on it and I'm not really a web designer. As I said, I don't really like doing code or anything. So, the website was a big challenge for me. I just had to learn how to do a few things. Started to do a little bit of code and purchased a few plugins to make sure everything was where I want it to be. So eventually I built my website to a place that I wanted to attract a particular type of clients. And then it actually worked. Christo actually said this one time, your website is like a barrier to the clients that approach you.

Even on my website, I even have a pricing thing, like a little price suggestion. And as you said, Ian, it's not a thing where we chase the monies, it's really not, but the money is just the byproduct of your work and stuff. So I feel like it's just very important that, for the sake of my time and the other person's time that no time is wasted because you do get those clients that, I don't like some clients, they genuinely just don't know the value of design, but some do. And they disrespect you in a way where they try to get even free work and they do it quite like in a way that they just don't really care. So, yeah, I would just say blogging and Instagram just really changed everything.

And I would just like to also say as well, I listened to a podcast and it was a Logo Geek podcast. I can't remember who he was interviewing, Ian, but I think it was David Airey and I think both of you said that you can't just wake up and do everything, you will break. And that is completely true. When I was in my dip, I used to be frustrated with myself thinking on my days, why am I not doing this? I know I'm supposed to be doing this, but I'm not doing that. If you think like that, and you actually eventually wake up and do everything, you're just going to destroy yourself. So I just woke up and started doing things day by day. So Instagram, I finally accomplished that habit.

And then later on, I started waking up early. I would say I started waking up at 8:00 AM, just to blog and yeah, uni never woke me up at those times. There was a lot of times when I missed lectures, I wouldn't get up just because nothing could get me up at those times. Nothing, getting up at 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM just for uni, but blogging was surprisingly, extremely, weirdly the only thing that would get me up. Yeah, and also another thing apart from blogging, I also did logo folios, which allowed me to attract particular clients on Behance. I'm happy to talk about that next as well.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah. I think we should go into that, but I think one of the important takeaways from what you just said is in order to be successful, you don't need to do everything all in one go, you don't need to be hyper focused and sit down and one day build a website and then every day just hammer out on all these different platforms. It doesn't happen like that. I think as long as you have a clear target, so you know the direction that you want to go, every day can be just an hour here and an hour there or half an hour here. All these small things compound, they all build up and become this body of work that when you look back five, 10 years on, it looked like an enormous amount of work. But in reality, it's lots of small things.

And in your case, you mentioned about waking up early and starting to write. I don't know how long you write for, but even if it was just half an hour or an hour, at least you're making progress each day towards the greater good. And if you hadn't done that, you hadn't made that little bit of time a day to make progress, then you wouldn't be where you are today. You're only here now where you are because of those little things every day. And I think that's how you succeed in this space is just have some focus as to the direction you want to go. In your case, you had that website, you knew that you wanted to get clients, you saw Instagram and Behance growing in popularity. You saw that the blogs were helping.

So you just gradually worked on those things. And that worked out for you. One of the big topics I really wanted to go into in a center view, was how you leveraged Behance, because I know prior to doing this interview, it was something that you mentioned was a big success. You mentioned again for the listeners now. So I want to go into this because I don't post on Behance, so my knowledge of it is, obviously I've used it, but I don't know it that well at all. And there's probably people listening that either don't use it or might use it, but don't know the full capabilities. So do you want to give some background? I think we should go back to basics. So what is Behance and why did you specifically choose to use it?

Kwaku Amprako: Sure, yeah. So Behance is just a platform where creatives showcase their work, is normally they showcase like case studies, so step by step and what they did and stuff. So imagine your portfolio, but more explaining what you did and why you did, you can go that route or you can just go portfolio route. It's completely up to you. So yeah. So how I first got checked to Behance as mentioned earlier, was just posting a brand identity project that I did for the startup company. After I posted that you get a feature, which is an award by Adobe and believe it or not Adobe Behance people, the curators, they see every project that goes online, every project that's posted on Behance. And I think there's thousands or millions, I don't know if there's millions, but there's thousands of projects that are posted every day and only a few get awarded.

So when I got the first feature and the second feature, I became weirdly obsessed with getting features just because I knew the advantage it gives you, because when you get a feature, your work is automatically placed on the top page, the front page of that section. So if you get a feature in a brand identity, and a client goes on to Behance and searches brand identity, the client will see your work first. And bear in mind there is millions of projects on Behance. So already that is a huge benefit. Another thing as well, especially high profile clients, when they go on Behance, normally they're busy and they don't really have time to scout every corner of Behance. Only really good projects will automatically be on the front or on top of Behance.

So high-profile clients immediately just go on it. They probably wouldn't spend that long. They just pick a section that they’re after and the projects that are awarded and have the badges. Then they click on that project and then they see that, oh, this person's got this and that. And then, yeah, that's how it's worked, but also Behance is similar to YouTube in terms of views. So the most views you get then it's just better for your profile because it shows that people actually watch your profile as well.

Ian Paget: Okay. One huge question here. I want to ask I'm sure listeners are desperately screaming out to find out more about this, but what are you doing to get featured? It sounds like your first two projects that you posted got featured. What was it you did that you feel allowed you to get featured?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah. Chris Do said this actually. He said, I think he was talking to Melinda about this, Melinda Livsey. And he said, if you see something nice on Behance, copy that. But just in your own way. The truth is you just have to, nothing is original, everything comes from something. So you get inspirations by looking at things and then changing it and making it your own. So for example, if there's five projects that I really like, I take one thing from all of those five projects. Obviously it's my work. And then I just add those presentation skills to my work.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think for clarification, what you're talking about here is finding how other people have presented their work and what they've done to get featured and reverse engineering it. And I think that's very clever.

Kwaku Amprako: Exactly. For example, there's people that are better at graphic design than me in terms of like formation and positioning. And if they are really good at that and the way they laid it out, I'll just get inspiration from that. And I'll just apply it to my work. I've even written a blog post about how to get featured on Behance. One thing I can remember off the top of my head is that your pages can't be apparently bigger than 1,400 by 800, basically pages can't be so large when you upload them. Just because people don't want to sit around waiting for your work to load because they just click off. So the curie is, make sure that your pages aren't too large. Another thing, what I learned as well is that nobody cares unless you care, just about your work in general. If you're posting on Instagram or whatever platform it is, and you have no enthusiasm and you genuinely don't care and you're genuinely just doing it just to post and get through the day, no one else will care.

You have to care. And the more you care, people can see that and it will show through your actions. So how this is relevant to Behance is that you have to build hype around your projects that you post on Behance. If you just post it on, it's hard to get featured. You can get featured if you just post, but you have to build hype such as promoting it on Instagram, doing a countdown on Behance, sharing it to people on LinkedIn before and speaking about that. And then yeah, the compound effect, it just all adds up until it's finally released. The more views you get, the more people comment, the more people talk about it. And yeah, that's how you get featured. I have a more in-depth blog post on how to get featured and I kid you not, it works every time for me.

Ian Paget: I will link to that in the show notes for this episode, so that people can go and check that out. And 100% agree with you that you need to have enthusiasm for your work, not just for Behance, but I've literally done interviews with people and they've came in with their portfolio and they have a portfolio piece and I've literally had someone say, oh, don't look at this piece. It's not very good and then turn to the next piece. And I'm thinking, why did you put it in there, you idiot? Why would you do that? Why would you then slack off the work that you just brought in to show off? It makes you look really stupid. But if you came in and started to be like, oh, this is a project that I worked on for this really amazing company, this was the challenge.

This is how I solved it. And I'm really proud of the work I've done. This is the next project. If you came in with that enthusiasm, me as the interviewee, I come along with that journey. Yeah. I can look at it and think, this work could be better, but a lot of the time you see that spark of capability and something there that you can nurture and grow. And I think that applies to everything that you're doing all the way through your life. Don't be down and depressed and slate your own work. It's just not a good look. Always be enthusiastic and proud. And do what you've done. Now, something you said, I don't actually know what this means. So you mentioned about a countdown. So a countdown prior to showing off your work, how does that work? Is that a feature in Behance that you can do? Or are you just using posts and stuff to let people know that it's coming?

Kwaku Amprako: Yes. And there's a feature, I'm sorry, on Instagram like countdown clock. So for example, if I got a project coming out on Friday in two days’ time, I can just adjust the date to that and then everyone can see it and I believe you can post it every day and the time still stays there or the story still stays there and it just reminds people.

Ian Paget: Yeah. You're using social media and the tools available to build up hype that this thing is coming. So when it does come, it attracts attention. And I think that's one of the secrets to you being successful on Behance that you've done this. I don't know how they operate, but I'm wondering if they use a lot of the algorithms to assist a team that's there. So they can see that this page has, like you mentioned, that hype, it must be just on there and a little green or red light, if it's a red light, then it doesn't get featured. Things like the traffic, maybe they can see the, well, not maybe, they can definitely see all the traffic coming in and I'm sure that's helping in some way. And I think that's a really clever trick. Where did that come? Was that something that you came up with or did you see other people that have been successful do that same thing and you've replicated it?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah. So I believe, how this happened, so yeah, after I got them a few features, as I said, I wasn't obsessed with Behance, but I really liked it more than Instagram. And I knew that it was a great platform. So, I came across somebody's page on Behance, and they had 400, 500,000 views. And this was like 14 awards. That is insane. So I messaged him and I asked, hi, I really like your page. How are you doing this? Because that was just another level. And he told me these things like, boom, boom, boom. And then after I realised, oh my days, so there's actually a recipe to getting featured.

Then I started to research it and I found out what other people saw. And then I added what they said and what he said and what aligned and worked for me. I was like, okay, this works. Because then I tried it again in a project. And it's so funny, the way I got featured, I think I got featured the next day when I posted it. And I was like, this is just insane. But yeah.

Ian Paget: I think this is a real important takeaway, because you're really young and you're relatively new in your career. You graduated like a year ago, probably even less than that. And based on what I've seen you do as an outsider, just coming to your website and all of that, you look like you've been doing this a while. And I think the reason for that is because you are being smart enough to acknowledge that people that have been successful have been successful for a reason, and you've used your initiative to go out there and find out how they've done it. And that is a really, really good skill to have. And I think if anyone did that at any time, they will be successful because Behance won't always be the big thing.

There will be something else that will be successful. And I think something that I've learned through doing these podcasts that most designers are happy to help, happy to answer questions. So you just reaching out as young designer asking a few questions, you gained so much powerful information from that, and you've been able to apply that and be successful as a result. Now, I know we could keep going on that, but I am conscious of time. And there's another thing that I wanted to make sure to go into. And it's actually how I originally got to know you. You have a course with awards and how we actually got to know each other because Michael from Lego package express, I do a lot of affiliate marketing for him. We're friends as well, but he likes to connect people that he feels could benefit from knowing each other.

And he introduced us. And he mentioned about your course. Now, it's quite unusual for someone that's relatively young and new in this space to have a course, especially through a platform like the awards website. This is a really big deal for you. And I obviously want people to go and check out the course and I'll link to that. I'll put that all in the show notes, but I ask this question and I know that other people will be interested. How did you get this opportunity to create a logo design training course for a website as established as awards?

Kwaku Amprako: Nice. So yeah, back to what Ian said earlier in a previous podcast, he said, if you wake up and try to do everything, you'll break. One thing that I wanted to do was live streams. And I see the future, do it and I just fought it. I was just doing it. I had to get comfortable in front of the camera because it was a bit new to me, but Behance, luckily, started adding live stream features. So I just took advantage of that, started doing live streams. Every Friday I have a live stream called Fresco Friday that I do every Friday, like logo redesigns, just doing it. And I was strategic with this live stream. I knew that would open more doors, but I wasn't completely sure which doors it would open. After I think a couple of months of live streaming, I had somebody from the awards team reach out to me and just telling me like, yeah, they liked my stuff. They think I'll be great to do a logo design course. And I was just like, yeah, that's perfect. And yeah.

Ian Paget: I just find it amazing because, you're young, this is all new to you. But because of this drive inside of you to grow your Behance profile, you're seeing the tools that are available to you and making the most of them and by posting your work consistently and doing all these certain things to get featured, that's opening up doors and then to use the live streaming capabilities even though, like you said, you wasn't that comfortable doing it, but you started doing it. And by doing that, it increases your reputation, you get noticed. And then all these doors open and you will find that those doors open, you do these things, all open up the doors. So by doing this course thing is how we got connected to you now, and this podcast should be a domino effect and it should continue.

And, yeah, you're going to do really well. And I think your story is, I think you can replicate it. I think that that's the beauty of speaking to someone that's so fresh and so new in this area that anyone that's young, that's listening to this that are at university now and just finished, they can take this story exactly as it is and replicate it and do exactly the same thing. And in theory should have the same level of success. Obviously different doors will open and they're going in different directions of their own, but it's all these small things that you've been doing that we picked up through this conversation that have allowed you to reach that. And I think, I'm glad that we did this interview because I've spoken to a lot of people that they're like 10, 20 years ahead of you.

And they're so far ahead, that it's hard to relate with that. And even though they share good advice, which is amazing, but what you shared, I think it will be inspiring for people that are new, people that are just finishing uni, people like me that have been doing it maybe 10 years longer than you. I think it'd be inspiring to a lot of people, so it's been really valuable and I know that we can keep speaking. There's so many more topics that I know that we can cover, but I am conscious of time. So I'm going to wrap up the interview. But yeah, this has been absolutely incredible. So just before I do wrap up, do you want to share, how can people find out more about you?

Kwaku Amprako: Yeah, sure. So, you can find out about me on Instagram. I post every day, and my Instagram is amprako.co. You can also check me out on Behance, Kwaku Amprako. You can also check me out on my website. You can check my website and my website is just amprako.co.

Ian Paget: And what I would do is I'll link to that in the show notes for anyone that's not sure how to spell everything and yeah, this has been absolutely awesome. So I'm so glad that Michael connected us and, yeah, I'm happy to know you and I look forward to seeing how you succeed in the years coming. And I wish you all the best of luck.

Kwaku Amprako: Thank you. Just want to say, thank you so much for having me. This is a dream come true. I remember I used to listen to the podcast when I was doing another job, when I was in my dip and your podcast brought so much value, so yeah. It's an honour to be here. Thank you.

Ian Paget: Well, hopefully your story will help other people and it will continue that domino effect. So thanks so much. It's been absolutely amazing.