Logo Sketches Made By James

Ian Paget: You run your own agency, Baby Giant. I understand that prior to that, you worked for a company. Can we discuss those early days? What was it that you was doing at that time and what made you start your own thing?

James Martin: So, basically, I was actually at uni at the time and this must have been like early mid 20s, at uni. Had a little part-time job at a local café, just to bring some money in, all the rest of it. And one of the guys who used to come in, knew a guy who had a design agency. I was obviously seeing the guy quite a lot. And basically said maybe I’ll go and chat to them and they set me up the opportunity. But before that, knocking on doors getting nothing. But I always wanted to get into that kind of… it’s better to make money in an industry that I wanted to make money in, or even get the experience than anything else.

I went and just took them my big old A3 black portfolio that we always used to walk around with back in the day. I say back in the day, like 15, 20 years ago. I’m sure you know them well.

And so I basically, just kind of fell into it a little bit. My work was extremely average. Because I used to do, basically I wanted to be an artist before I wanted to be a designer. So I had a lot of sketches, illustrations. Not a huge amount of design based work.

But I just went in there for a very quick interview, half an hour, bing, bang, bosh, and it was like, do you want to come in once a week? And then that kind of grew and grew and grew. So obviously I was doing that, as I said, during my university years.

I started off as, I basically did everything and nothing well.

Ian Paget: I think that’s how it is, when you start out as a junior, I know you said that your work was average. I’ve been in the position where I needed to hire people. When you’re looking for a junior, in general, from a skillset point of view, most are not great, but you can generally see some raw talent and some enthusiasm and they obviously saw that in you and thought they’d get you in early, which is good.

James Martin: Yeah, as I said, I learned more in six weeks of working in that environment than I did in two and a half years of university. I would never dis education or university, because I did it and I had quite a good experience. I think it teaches you good things, like sticking to timelines and having to hand in projects on time and all these kind of things. So that time management side, I think it helps a lot.

But there’s nothing better than real world clients, real world experiences. And the agency was doing some pretty… it was quite a small agency and it was doing some pretty cool stuff and lots of different stuff as well, lots of web, lots of print. I was doing Photoshop, I was a rubbish web designer, rubbish Photoshopper, rubbish illustrator, rubbish logo designer, but I got to do so much stuff. I think that really helped me to explore and all that kind of exploration in those early years, has obviously helped me figure out what I like doing, how I like doing it, and all the rest of it.

I really enjoyed the time there. But it just got to that stage where you just think now’s the time, now’s the time to move on.

Ian Paget: So you started off in that position. It was just one day a week. And then I guess it went to a full-time position eventually?

James Martin: Yes. So it started off, as I say, once a week and then it was a couple of days a week. So basically part time, I would say. Obviously, I was doing uni as well. So I had to juggle that a bit.

So I was in there one day and then it was two afternoons, but maybe on a Tuesday afternoon, Thursday afternoon, and then I think that went up to three days, as I was able to balance my uni work in the evening and then work during the day. Because you didn’t have to be in university all the time, you only had to be in there for tutor… What do you call them? Things. I don’t even know what they’re called anymore. That shows you how much I listened.

So basically, obviously when I left university, I just approached them and said, I’d be really interested in working full time. But obviously, if there isn’t the space for me, I’m going to go… I was very transparent with them. I was like I want to be a full-time designer. If I can’t do it here, I’m going to go and… I wasn’t giving them an ultimatum at all. I was just telling them how it is.

Luckily, they had a chat and a few days later said we’d like to take you on. I ended up being there for about five years, which was quite cool. It was a fun journey.

Ian Paget: Yeah. And it sounds like in that position, you was given the opportunity to work on pretty much everything.

James Martin: Everything.

Ian Paget: So it wasn’t just branding. It sounds like it was web, it was printed based stuff. It was pretty much any design related thing that that company needed. It came to you and I guess there was a team of some kind there.

James Martin: Yeah, I think at the strongest time, we had I think it was close to 10 people in there. So it wasn’t a huge agency. It was fairly small in comparison to a lot of agencies. But then obviously in 2008, wasn’t it? Yeah, the economic crisis hit and they went down to a team of five. And then it just shrunk a bit and then shrunk a bit more. And that’s when it was time to move on. You could see things weren’t going too well. I was just going to run away.

Ian Paget: Right, right. That kind of answers my next question because I know that you eventually ended up building Baby Giant, which is your agency now.

James Martin: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Was the main reason you left because they wasn’t doing very well and you thought that you’d be better off or was that always the plan? Could you talk a little bit more about why you eventually went ahead to create your own thing?

James Martin: Yeah, I’m pretty self-motivated, very driven and I always wanted to have something by myself. But at the time, it was a stage where the company wasn’t doing great. I was going for job interviews at the same time, while still working there, just going for proper designer jobs and not being a proper designer.

But that experience alone, the amount I learned from going to interviews, knowing I wouldn’t get them was… I’ve held some of that information forever, that’s helped me grow and stuff. But it just got to that stage. I was, so what would I have been? I would have been 26, 27. It was one of those situations where it was, if I don’t do it now, I didn’t think I’m going to do it.

Because what will happen is I’ll get into another design job, and then from there, I’ll probably be there for another five years to 10 years and by that time, who knows? But I’m always thinking forward. I was thinking probably mortgages, probably wife, possible family and it’s very difficult to obviously then, I thought it’s better to take that risk now while I’ve got none of that, and then run with it and give it a couple of years and then I can always, if it doesn’t go so well, go and find another job or go and get another agency job.

I felt that for me, if I didn’t do it then, I probably would never have done it, if that makes sense. Again, who knows? You can’t predict the future. Maybe I could have done that. Maybe I would have done that. But that was where my brain was at the time. It was just, right, do it now, James, or never do it.

And luckily I bit the bullet and it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at all. I didn’t make a huge amount of money for the first couple of years. I actually started it with a good friend Adie, so he does all the web based development, all that deep… I basically say I do all this stuff you see, he does all the stuff you can’t see. So he does all the clever stuff. And obviously, I do all the creative branding, general as I say, the stuff you can see.

So together, we didn’t really make a huge amount for the first couple of years. And then a couple of clients led to a couple more clients, and then it just started to really snowball. And we’re still working with clients now that we picked up 10 years ago, which is awesome.

So I absolutely love it, being able to… not so much in the beginning. It was kind of take everything and do it, even if the money is not right, just do it to be getting work in. So you’re busy, just keeping busy. But now, it’s a slightly different scenario where we can pick and choose, based on the project itself, whether we find it interesting. We don’t tend to do multiple things.

For example, we were chatting a minute ago about my wife’s veg box delivery service kind of thing. And we’ve had a few more come to us and say, well, can you build us this, build us that? And we’re like, no, because we’ve done that, we want to do other things. You don’t want to regurgitate work or even, on the other flip side of it, break relationships with people who do the same thing.

Because that’s the other way of looking at it. So it’s really fun. I love my life, mate. I can’t complain whatsoever.

Ian Paget: It’s good news, it’s good news.

James Martin: Isn’t it!

Ian Paget: You mentioned about that transition. So you left that job and then you started your own thing. I know that’s quite a risky thing to do. I’ve recently done that myself, but I’m in a totally different situation by the sound of it, because I do have a mortgage, I do you have a daughter-

James Martin: I didn’t mean to scare you.

Ian Paget: I’ve got all those overheads. I had to do it differently. So I had to build a business on the side, I worked on it for a number of years on the side of a full-time job. And that meant that when it did come around to cutting the cord, I already had clients, I already had a relatively stable income. I had all the processes set up.

So in terms of switching, it’s been good for me, because I’ve just been scaling what was already there, rather than having to start from scratch. But it sounds like you had to start from scratch. What was your position at that time? Was you living at home with parents or what was your situation when you switched the switch? And did you do any prep work previously or did you just cut the cord and then start things?

James Martin: Well, yeah, so basically, it was very much that. Obviously, the agency that we had been working for did have clients and obviously, this is another reason, because you’re sitting there within this agency, you’re doing all the client meetings, you’re doing all the work and you’re only getting paid a certain amount of money. You’re suddenly thinking, how does this work?

So what we actually did was took on the clients, because I think eventually we left and the agency then shut down. So we reached out to, there weren’t many clients, I think there was like two, and it wasn’t a huge amount of work there, a bit of web dev and all the rest of it. We reached out to them and said, me and Adie are going to carry on and build something ourselves. We’d happily continue working with you and all the rest of it.

But at that stage, we were just the young bucks and it was from their point of view, probably a bit of a worry, but a couple of them did jump on with us. And unfortunately, one of them took the mick and a little bit, because they knew we needed the work. And we sucked it up and got on with it.

But then finally that’s a great segue into a story, basically, I’m not going to say any names because that’s not the way I do it. But they took the mick out of us and generally drove us into the ground and gave us not a lot of money.

But obviously, we started to grow, and we grew bigger and bigger and bigger. And about three years ago, we had an email from them, saying, hey guys, we’ve been watching your journey, we’re looking to partner up again, blah, blah, blah. And we had the greatest honour in saying no. Not really, but just say at the end of the day, I don’t think our kind of ethos or businesses align very well anymore, because it’s not the kind of stuff we do. We wish you all the best, but secretly in the background we were going, yes, got you. How dare you drive us into the ground?

But it’s just so funny, they were obviously just looking to partner up with another agency or they had another agency and it didn’t go well. And then they came back to us and just that little being able to high five yourself and go, yeah, we’re obviously doing something right because they came back. And to say no was a wonderful thing. It was like Christmas.

But I think I’ve gone off on tangent, I have.

Ian Paget: No, no, it’s all relevant, and we can go back to some of the bad client stuff later on in the conversation.

James Martin: Yeah, of course.

Ian Paget: That’s something I definitely want to cover, because I think that’s one of the benefits of, when you started out obviously you had that scarcity mindset where you’re taking on everything, but now you’re in a good place, you’ve got clients, you’ve got all that stability and you can pick and choose. Who you want to work with and stuff like that.

One thing I did just want to briefly talk about was this partnership that you had with a friend. I think it’s interesting what you mentioned and I have covered this briefly on other episodes. When you partner with someone, it’s good to have complementary skills rather than conflicting skills, because that’s when I think it works best, is when you partner up with someone that can do the things that you can’t do or don’t want to do.

James Martin: That’s exactly it.

Ian Paget: It sounds like in your case, you’re doing the graphic design and your friend is doing all the development, all the techie stuff, basically collaborating. In terms of partnering up with someone and building a business, how have you been managing that? Are you just splitting it 50/50 and working the same hours or do you have some clever system in place, so that it’s mutually beneficial and fair for both of you?

James Martin: I think the only way a partnership can work is if it is a 50/50 partnership. For me, that’s the only way a true working relationship can work. Some people might do it differently but that’s fair. But for me, it has to be 50/50.

And like you said, if we were both graphic designers, both logo designers predominantly, it would probably be a car crash, to say the least. Because obviously we have our own ways of doing stuff, but as you say, we complement each other extremely well, because the fact that somebody will come to Made By James or Baby Giant to get a logo done, and then for them to be able to stay with us and get their print done, their packaging done, their website design done, and all these other things, it’s being able to add stuff.

And as you say, it’s doing the stuff, I do the stuff that he doesn’t necessarily want to do. I do a lot of the meetings, I’ll do a lot of the creative work. I’ll do basically, obviously, Made By James has brought a lot of work into the studio.

But again, he does all the stuff that I don’t want to do. So he looks after all their web development. He liaises with all of our developers, he project manages all the bigger projects we have going on, he deals with all the accounts stuff. Obviously, we have an accountant and a lady who does all of our invoicing, all that kind of stuff, but he’ll liaise with all the… basically all the stuff that I don’t want to do.

And that’s why, for me, it’s not about, well, I bring in X amount of money and you don’t, it’s like a marriage, isn’t it? You all have your things you do. And the only way it can possibly work is by being totally fair straight down the middle, everybody knows where they are.

And we also partner, so we also have other businesses, so we’ve got Baby Giant but we also have other businesses which we are splitting fairly, 50/50. We have investments in other businesses which we have an equal sharing. So for me, it just makes it sit so much better tummy wise, you can go to sleep, everybody what their job is, but everything is split down the middle. I think it just makes it for a cleaner break, not break, but a cleaner… What’s the word I’m looking for? Cleaner business proposition.

Ian Paget: I think I get the point.

James Martin: I went off again, didn’t I?

Ian Paget: No, no, it’s all relevant, it’s all good. I’m loving this, it’s great stories. I did actually want to ask you about Made By James. You’ve got Baby Giant. I actually found out about Baby Giant through Made By James which is your Instagram. I don’t know if there’s more to it than that, but that’s how I know about you, that’s how I found you through Made By James.

So all of the work that you’re doing on that, even though it’s under your name, any work that comes in, is it all going under Baby Giant? So it’s still that 50/50 split.

James Martin: 100%. So for anybody who doesn’t know, so Made By James is Instagram account and funny enough, we’re actually building, it’s got to a stage now where we’re building a Made By James site which should be launching next week or so, week or two. And that it is going to be basically a platform for inspiration for young designers, but obviously there’s also, if somebody stumbles across it, it’s going to have all my logo work on it. It’s basically just going to be a logo website with all had my logos, sign up to newsletters where you can get lots of free, cool stuff and just become a part of a community.

But like you said, everything that comes through business wise, through that Made By James vessel or the funnel, whatever you want to call it, all gets created by Baby Giant. Made By James is just my personal account where I share my process on logos and all the rest of it. It brings in a good chunk of work, but that all gets done under the Baby Giant umbrella. Yes, everything is split 50/50.

Ian Paget: Nice. So you’re essentially treating it as a lead generation platform for Baby Giant. And it sounds really cool what you’ve got planned for the Made By James brand. So I’ll keep an eye on that. And if it’s released by the time this podcast comes out, I’ll definitely link to it in the show notes.

And that actually leads on really nicely to another thing that I really want to speak about during this interview. And that is your Made By James Instagram feed. You’re sharing so many awesome logo sketches, and I’m going to be honest with you, when I first seen these perfect sketches with notes, I had assumed that you’d gone through the whole design process, you completed that logo as a vector. And then afterwards, you’d drawn up these sketches with notes and stuff like that, especially for Instagram. And there’s nothing wrong with that, because it does look really cool, but I actually caught a little bit of a YouTube video that you put out like a week ago. I was really surprised and I think I’ve been proven wrong, because it looks like these awesome sketches are part of your design process.

So could you talk a little bit more about these sketches? Because they’re so polished, they’re so clean, they’re so perfect. It almost looks like they are sketches based on some kind of finalised artwork, but I’m sure that’s not the case. So can you talk through how you approached that sketchbook development work that’s being shared on Instagram?

James Martin: Yeah, sure. You’re not the only one who thinks that. The amount of people who think it’s all a game is quite funny. But basically, I grew up as an artist, I was an illustrator, I did a tattoo apprenticeship. So I’ve always been into that kind of fine art. Basically I’ve always drawn, I’ve drawn since I was diddy, diddy, diddy.

I love drawing. I absolutely love drawing. I actually hate computers. A lot of my process is all sketchbook, and I had somebody the other day saying, why do you take your sketching so seriously? And I was like, well, why do you not take your job seriously?

And that’s basically what it is. I love trying to almost perfect stuff in the sketchbook, because it helps me spend less time on the computer. I could do things a lot quicker on the computer probably, but I don’t like them. I use them to do the final 20%. And so basically, I’ve started to share a lot more of the rawer, deeper sketch process. Before, it was maybe just a final picture. But now I’ve started to share all the stuff that leads up to that because I’m trying to be more transparent and all the rest of it.

And for me, as I said, I just love drawing. And as you said, you’ll see that it’s not all a game by all these YouTube videos I’m about to bring out. I don’t know what else to say, it’s just a part of the process that I love and funny enough, obviously when I’m going through my process for clients now, I basically make sure obviously, because I do share a lot of stuff on Instagram, I make sure I’m drawing it, I’ve got a big A3 sketchbook, and I make sure that it’s in a square shape, if that makes sense.

So then obviously, I don’t know if it’s the right word, but regurgitate the content. So as I’m going through the process, doing my word mapping, or doing my simple sketches, I’m always making sure it’s in a square-ish format. So I can just take a picture of it as I go.

I’ve got, let’s say, 15, 20 more projects that I can share. I’ve got them all in folders, because I’ve already created all that content. It’s not like I’m creating the content for Instagram. I’m creating it for my clients, but then I get to share it on Instagram, if that makes sense.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So you’re able to repurpose that content. It’s an interesting way of working, because I never really thought about it. So all of the development, all the planning work, all of the stuff that you are getting paid for by clients, you’re factoring in that it could be repurposed on Instagram. So just doing everything on square pages, so that you can do that.

James Martin: Yeah, that’s exactly it. They’re paying me to create content, but they’re paying me to create content for them.

Ian Paget: That’s good.

James Martin: That process, you’d be amazed, because obviously I offer all my clients and stuff, I offer them… basically my process is I create one. And we might go into that a bit further, but I send them my sketches. And they love the sketches. They absolutely love them. Because it’s where I break down my thought patterns, it’s where I make my little notes around them.

I think my point is, it’s amazing how many people come to me through Instagram and go, I love your process. They don’t say I like your logo design. They go, I love your process. That’s how they want to work and they can see the ideas and how the thoughts come up and all the rest of it.

So although it’s probably a bit of a pain in the ass to do for other people, I actually love that drawing process and doing a rough sketch, and then tracing over it and making it neater and then tracing over it and making it neater and it’s basically like layering and layering it up until it’s almost perfect. I can spend two minutes in Illustrator bing, bang, bosh, and I’m done.

Ian Paget: We’ve spoken about what you’ve done for Instagram, which is obviously a point in your process and you briefly went over a part of your process. Would you be able to talk through how you typically work on a project from start to finish? Because I think it’d be good to help people understand what happens prior to those nice, fancy sketches that I believe you’re presenting to clients. And then what happens after that as well.

James Martin: So from client discovery to concept, basically, so the client will approach me via either Instagram, website, LinkedIn, Dribbble, wherever it’s going to be. I ask them to supply a brief. And then obviously, I can look at the brief. And that gives me an idea of whether it’s going to be the right project that suits my style. Or, it’s a project that I want to do.

And obviously, I make sure, there’s certain things I don’t do, like tobacco companies and all of these kind of things. So I just make sure that it’s… 99% of the time, they’re all good, but there’s always one that you just think, I don’t think this is going to be for me, maybe because my general style is pretty clean and minimal. But if they want to come to me for more like a caricature, or like an EA Sportsy kind of logo, I say it’s not really my kind of thing.

Then, obviously, we talk pricing and if the pricings are all good, we then jump on a call prior to the project starting. Basically, I ask for a mood board from them and the brief. So when we’re on the call, we’re looking through the… I’m talking to them through the brief, and I’m talking to them through the mood board, and just making sure that what they’re showing me and telling me is accurate. Basically, just trying to make sure…

Because we’ve all been there, I’m sure, where we don’t do enough due diligence in the beginning, and you get halfway through a project and they’re like, what’s this? You’ll go, well, and it’s probably because you haven’t done your discovery process well enough.

So once we’ve okayed all of that, I then go straight into a sketch process and basically from… I do like super rough sketches in my notebook, then super rough sketches after my word mapping process. And the reason I like doing word mapping is, you can see, there’s stuff on my Instagram and there will be stuff on YouTube eventually that you could see about this.

So basically, for the word mapping process, I get the brief, I print it out. I just read it three or four times. And then what I’m doing here is, I’m circling and looking for possible ideas for creative direction and all that kind of stuff. I’m highlighting interesting words, I’m highlighting what they do and all these bits and pieces.

And then what I do is I use all those bits I’ve highlighted as like headers on like a big word map, and then I associate words with those words. And that’s when all that cool, creative stuff starts to happen. So basically, I’m starting to build a creative path.

Personally from my process point of view, I present one idea. I don’t present three or four. My theory is, I prefer to put my full ass into one idea rather than half ass a load of ideas. I know that’s not the same for everybody. And we all have a different process, which I think is wonderful about the industry is because everybody does it differently.

But the way I like to work and how I think I can get all this goodness and story into the logos, because I can fully concentrate on making sure I execute that one design perfectly. And so basically, what I do, as I said, I’ve done my web mapping, I know where my ideas are going to be. I then go into super rough sketching process where I’m starting to pull those.

So from that word map, I like to choose like two or three elements that I think I can visualise without overcomplicating the logo itself. Once I’ve done that, I go into that sketch process, and then I go into that refinement stage where I’m sketching, sketching better, sketching better, gridding up, sketching better.

And then when I have it pretty much down in my sketchbook, I then take it into Illustrator, vector it up and all that stuff. And then I start to just mock it up nicely, present it in a way, so based on the company, if it’s a brewery, I’ll start putting it on cans and bottles and crates. And if it’s an apparel company, I’ll start, like an athleisure wear for example, I’ll start showing it on ladies’ leggings. It’s kind of painting a picture for them.

For me, I think it’s the best way to sell a logo is to show it working. Because basically it’s our job to imagine, I think it’s my job to imagine it working and show them it working and how it can be used in its different applications and how versatile it is. And sometimes when you just show a black and white logo to somebody, they’re like, it could be the best logo on the planet, but they can’t visualise how it’s going to work. So it might not get over the line, for example.

Ian Paget: I always say to clients that it’s important to see how that logo looks in situ, because you never see a logo on a white piece of paper. You always see it on a business card or on products or on a website or a vehicle or whatever. And even for yourself as a graphic designer, I find it so helpful to see how that logo looks when you actually apply it to a real life situation.

And there’s been times when I’ve made tweaks just to improve how it looks, because like I said, you never seen it on a white piece of paper. So why on earth would you present it in that way? I think that’s one of the most important things when it comes around to presentation is to mock up how that logo could look in the real world.

James Martin: 100%. And it makes it, as I said, it will take a logo that you might have, if you showed a great logo on black and white and you showed a great logo mocked up on a business card, that business card will sell it. Do you know what I mean? And the flat black and white might not sell it.

Within the mock-ups or within the presentations I send, I do mock it up in black and white. If we’re using colour, I mock up it, showing them in colour, with the colour tones and stuff, the colours I’ve chosen. As well as the mock-ups, they can see it flat, but it’s very rare that, as you say, you’re seeing it flat front on black and white, it’s usually at an angle.

And as you say, that’s probably why in some of your logo designs, you might have tweaked it, because you might have seen it at an angle and thought maybe that gap’s too small or maybe if I’m going to be embroidering it or foiling it, for example, that gap’s too small and it’ll bleed. So you start to, as you say, I’ve done exactly the same, you think, maybe I need to just widen that gap a bit for this application. Because I know that’s what they’re going to use it in.

I always think it’s right to, you obviously do your general mock-ups, like your business cards and maybe a letterhead and maybe some signage and all that kind of stuff, but making those mock-ups applicable to the industry as well. So, as I say, if it’s a coffee roasters or a cafe, mock it up in that kind of scenario, coffee bags, mugs. All those kind of weird and wonderful places that they’re actually going to be using it on. There’s no point showing them something that they’re not going to be using it on, if that makes sense.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it does. This actually reminds me of a story I read in a book a few days back. I finally got myself a copy of Identity, which is a book from Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv. And in there, there’s a story of how, when they presented the tennis logo they did, I think it was the US Open. They first presented that logo and the client seen it on a white background and they wasn’t actually sure about it, but the moment they started to see images of that logo in use, they absolutely loved it.

For example, they were seeing how it looked in single colour on a tennis ball, how it looked on billboards, how it worked as a social media icon. And because of that, the client really started to get it and they loved it. And so it can definitely make a big difference presenting it in this way.

And it doesn’t take long to create these images either. You can mock them up in Photoshop, there’s loads of branding mock-ups that you can get for free online. Or, I use a tool called LiveSurface frequently, which is an extension for Adobe Illustrator. So it’s really easy to do now, and it makes a massive difference.

James Martin: Super easy. Well, that’s why I sometimes feel that, we’ve seen a lot of redesigns of logos recently of big companies and you see a lot of stuff that the pentagram, legends, I like to call them are doing. And people are so quick to go, it’s rubbish, it’s this, I prefer the old one and blah, blah, blah.

But they’re not thinking, there’s a reason why it’s been done. You can take the Formula One for example, the rebrand they did. I think it was last year, wasn’t it? It was fairly recently anyway, people were like I love the F1, the heritage, all this. But what they did and I’ve read an article about it somewhere and the reasonings behind what they did and they showed it working in situ, on everything Formula One. On the barriers, on the signage, everywhere and you just think it’s genius. There’s always a reason why these things are done the way they are.

And it’s usually for how they’re going to be used, especially in this new online digital world as well. Basically my fear is, don’t slag off a logo before you can really, A, if you don’t understand what the brief was. Yes, obviously you’re going to have a personal opinion, which you’re more than entitled to, but just saying a logo is rubbish because you prefer the old one isn’t good enough for me.

Ian Paget: As a designer, it’s important to understand what it is they aim to do and the reasons why they made that change and look at it objectively rather than the stereotypical knee-jerk reactions. I think it’s hard with something like F1 or any sports club or anything that’s of that scale, because I know that F1 logo from… it’s been around for years.

James Martin: Donkeys.

Ian Paget: It’s become this iconic thing. And anyone that’s into F1, they’d be wearing that as part of who they are. And suddenly-

James Martin: It’s a lifestyle, isn’t it?

Ian Paget: It’s a lifestyle thing. So coming in and redesigning that, I’ve described it like… imagine if someone came into your house and swapped your sofa for a new swanky one that was actually better. You’re just going to be annoyed because that was my sofa. I didn’t want it changed. I liked my broken one that-

James Martin: My bum print. The squishy side that I sit on.

Ian Paget: Even though it’s better, what’s there now, you’d just be annoyed. But then give it a few weeks, you’d be like, oh, actually, this is more comfortable. It’s newer, it looks nicer.

James Martin: It fits the room better. As you say, there’s a reason why things do get changed, is because they need to change. That’s the other thing to think about is they’re not just doing it willy nilly. I’ve just fancied doing a rebrand today. There’s a reason why they’re doing that. And it’s because their logo doesn’t work for the application that it needs to. So they need to therefore make sure it does.

We’ve all been there, where we’ve hated certain bits and pieces. And when I was younger, I was very much saw like that, oh, why’d they do that? But now being a slightly older, grumpier old man, I now totally get why things are done.

Ian Paget: And as Michael Bierut says, a logo redesign is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to really test the success of it over a long period of time. And one good example is the Airbnb logo. You know when that came out, everyone’s drawing all sorts of dirty things with that logo, like certain body parts.

But fast forward a number of years, actually looking back on it, that’s become a very successful, very identifiable logo. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen some of the behind the scenes stats. I know that that launch, even though there was a lot of negativity around it, it actually performed incredibly well for the business, just due to the attention it brought to the company and all the conversations that happened.

You really have to look at any of these big redesign projects in the long term, not on a short term basis.

James Martin: Yeah. Not on a double click on an Instagram feed.

Ian Paget: Yeah, we’ve gone slightly off topic and I want to go back to your process. So I know you pretty much ran through the bulk of the process. But there was a couple of things I wanted to discuss in a little bit more detail if you’re okay. So you mentioned about your clients creating a mood board. So your client is doing that. Do you direct them how to put that together in any way?

James Martin: No, not at all. In fact, a lot of the people who do come to me have already collected… basically, I asked them to just put, whether it’s a Pinterest board, when I say mood board, it’s more just maybe a folder full of inspiration, whichever way you want to play it.

I ask them just to create a mood board, inverted commas, whatever you want to call those, air bunnies. And basically, what I ask them to do is just put together and find designs they like, brands they like, colours they like and maybe even chuck some logos in there that they like that. Because a lot of these people who are starting a business have been looking for designers, they’ve been looking at stuff that they like.

And basically what that doe, is it helps me create like a visual personality. So if they’ve shown me five logos that they like the look of, I know the kind of style that they like the look of. If they’ve shown me five logos that are all different styles, I can then discuss with them and say you’ve shown me all of these. They’re all very different. Which is your direction?

And basically what this does, I find, it starts to help me build a picture. If they show me five logos, and they’ve all got serif based fonts, I’d be silly to show them a logo with a sans serif font. Do you know what I mean?

So basically what it is, is it just helps me break down what it is they like the look of. I always say that I can create you a great logo, but the end of the day, you have to live with it every single day. It’s yours. It’s not mine. I’m going to love it, because it’s going to go out there with my name on it. So I’m going to make sure it’s done extremely, extremely, extremely well. And I always create stuff as if it was going to be for me as well.

So that mood board process, I find really helps us to A, have something to talk about when we’re on a call because we can really get into the not so boring stuff, we can get into the cool stuff, which is looking at cool things. I can see what they get excited about talking about. I can see what puts a smile on their face. I’ll ask them, so why do you like this, and they’re talking, I really like how bold it is and I really like the energy it has.

Basically, what I’m doing is I’m making notes, going, bold, energy. So by the time I’ve even come to starting that word mapping process, I’ve already kind of got an idea of visually where I need to be. I’ve tried doing stylescapes and all those bits and pieces, but for me, it just wasn’t really fitting into my process very well. I know a lot of people who do do stylescapes and stuff like that, which is no problem whatsoever. Again, that’s what I love about this logo process. We all have different ways of doing stuff, which is cool.

Ian Paget: Yeah, very much so. So I guess for you, it’s more about providing some sort of clarity as to what their expectations are. Something I do want to ask you with this approach, do you ever have the situation where the client wants something for their business, but the vision that they have for it seems totally off whack and it seems totally way off where they should potentially be?

James Martin: Yeah, it doesn’t happen very often, but there are some people who, for example, they want something… it happened recently with a clothing brand and they wanted to go almost like super dark, gothic, but that was totally against their values. Because obviously, when you ask for a brief I ask them, get some values down, what kind of words do you think that would express you and your company and all the rest of it?

Sometimes you look at those words and you look at their mood board and they just clash. And that’s when I said that’s why I always have this call beforehand, because that’s when you start to discuss and break down some… they might have put that together in a bad mood, they might have not totally understood what I meant by a mood board. So they might have just thought, this is what I like, but obviously not thinking this is what my company is. So they don’t really align.

That’s why that process of that call with the brief and with the mood board really helps. I can start to ask the proper questions then, and really get down what it is and who they are. Do you know what I mean? I can say this doesn’t really emote your brief, emotes this, and your mood board emotes this. What’s going on here? And then they go, yeah, you’re right. Maybe we need to go down a different route and then we start to talk about that process.

But there have been situations and I’ve had situations where some one person’s written a brief and another person’s put the mood board together. So there’s no way and obviously, two different people within the company, they have one vision, yet somebody else has another vision sometimes. I always ask them, put it together, together. So you got to tell me what you both like, where you see your business in five years. What are your values? Not personally, but as a company. Because I think they’re two very different things.

Ian Paget: It’s good that you are doing that, that you do have that separate brief. And you do have that mood board and that separate conversation because I can see, like you said, that some clients might just have their vision totally off whack. And you’re in the position to provide a little bit of clarity and point them in the right direction, where you feel it’s totally off course. So, yeah, that’s really good.

The other thing I wanted to speak about was grids. And I can see from all of your sketches on Instagram, and I’ll make sure to link to that in the show notes, so that anyone can find it, but you’re always using some kind of grid system, even with sketches. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because it’s something that everyone asks, how do you grid up a logo? How do you use grids? Do you have any input for those people that are questioning how to go about using them?

James Martin: Grids are really there for the latter stages of the logo process. I never used the golden ratio, not purposefully anyway. Basically, I always draw very loosely. And the gridding element that comes right at the end of my sketch process is all about balance. I like to make sure that things are aligned, gaps are the same, weights of, for example, curves are the same, angles are the same.

I see so many logos that I look at, and I think that angle is off and I can see it straight away. And it’s just purely probably because they haven’t gridded it properly. As I say, that gridding processes is all about the detail. And as I said, making sure that if you’ve got three columns in your logo, making sure that those three columns are the same width, same height, and they’ve got the same gaps in between them, for example.

And for me, gridding is more of that slightly perfectionist nature that… I’ve looked at logos before, I’ve completed them. And then they look great, they look absolutely fantastic. But then I start getting my ruler out and grids out, and I realise that there’s actually a bigger gap… my eye hasn’t picked it up.

So, for me, I don’t want to babble on too much because grids are a very big topic, but it’s all about, for me, it’s just about fine tuning your design and making sure that the balance is right, the gaps are right, the widths are right. And basically, it’s that fine tuning. That’s where the grids really help. As I said, they come in towards the end and I do them in my sketches and I also do them in Illustrator as well.

So it’s just that fine tuning process. I’m sure we’ve all been there, where we think a logo is finished and then you start getting your grids out and your rulers out on Illustrator and you think, hang on a minute, that’s slightly higher than that. And you think, oh my God, I’ve already sent it to the client and all the rest of it.

Grids are, as I said, just that kind of process of balance and bringing harmony into your latter stages of the process and the logo creation.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I think that’s the best answer that you could give on that. Because a lot of I guess newbies or people that aren’t so familiar with grids, they see all these logos on Instagram that have these circles and lines and all that sort of stuff. I’m sure you’re familiar them.

James Martin: Yes, I do them.

Ian Paget: But it’s important to bear in mind that they are applied afterwards to fine tune and perfect that logo. In terms of the process that I personally take, I get my logos to about 95% and then I present them to my clients. But that final checking of spacing and curves and all that sort of stuff, I do that at the end, just to make sure that the finished logo is perfect at all sizes it possibly can be.

And there’s been situations where I’ve completely recreated that symbol from scratch, just to make sure that it’s all mathematically correct. Because it’s easy to play, when you’re playing with ideas, you don’t need to worry about the spacing so much. You’re just trying things out. But it’s when you know this is what it’s going to look like, how perfect can I make this? And it’s worth doing, because I think it takes a logo from that pretty good to extremely good. Just execution, and that’s what makes that major difference and why grids, even though it’s one of those topics that makes some people groan, grids, just applying them makes so much difference.

James Martin: Oh, yeah, like I said, exactly what you just highlighted there, grids are not there to control your design and your process, they’re there to just smarten your ideas up right at the end. You don’t start with a grid and then just start drawing.

To be fair, sometimes when I do, for example, I quite like logos to have, even though they’re not in a shape, I like them to have a shape. So like Made By James icon for example, I knew I wanted it to be square, so when I’m doing my sketches, I’ve got a rough square. Or, with another logo if I want it to be circular, I do have a rough circle and then I’m drawing inside the circle, because I know that’s the kind of shape I want it to be.

But all that kind of fine tuning of widths and angles and curves and all the rest of it happens right at the end. Because like we chatted about, to the eye, it looks perfect, it looks great. But it looks great at a certain size on a computer. If you blew that bad boy up and there was a wrong angle and it was on the side of, massive on the side of a wall or something, people’s signage, that angle would become pretty apparent at quite a big scale. But that smaller scale, you can’t even notice it.

So like you, it’s all about that final tweaking and as you say, it takes a perfect logo to a super perfect logo. Not that there’s such a thing, but as I said it’s more than that OCD. I just want to make sure when it leaves my house to go to somebody else’s house, it’s the best it can possibly be and there’s no weirdness in there.

Ian Paget: Yeah, well, we spoke for pretty much an hour. I really want to ask one more question.

James Martin: Of course, mate.

Ian Paget: I watched your YouTube video. You’ve got one video out at the moment. I noticed you put that out a couple of weeks ago. But there was a part in there where you was in your studio and I could see you had a very nice sketching area. You had pots of all these fancy pens and pencils.

James Martin: They’re not fancy.

Ian Paget: They look really nice. Do you have any special kit, special pens that you’re using? Because I know you say that they’re not that fancy but it looked like you had a good, decent selection.

James Martin: I’ve been collecting utensils for decades. So my favourite, I tend to use rotary pencils, mechanical pencils. For me, they just feel right. There’s loads of brands out there. There’s loads of pencils. This is another thing I get is like what pencils do you use and what paper do you use? I always say to people, just draw, it doesn’t matter what it is, just do something. They all do the same thing.

But as you’ve asked the question, I use like rotary pencils, mechanical pencils for drawing, usually 0.5, 0.7. And then for the black line work, I tend to use Microns, I’ve got three that I’m flipping round. So I use one for coloring, one for line work and all the rest of it. So I’m using like the Molotow black liners at the moment. I’ve got some Faber-Castell artist pens. I’ve got some Pigma Microns that I use, all different, anything from 0.1 to 0.8 depending on what I’m doing.

I’ve got my little metal rulers, don’t really tend to use a lot of Sharpie stuff, because it just inks through all the paper. But as I said, pencils, definitely rotary for me. But pens, I’m a bit like a magpie. If I’m on Amazon or something, I see a cool pen that I haven’t seen before, I’ll just buy it. I think I need to try it. But as I said, for like fine liners, generally, Microns, Molotow and Faber-Castell artist’s pens I like to use.

Because all of my nibs, for example, have got like this massive angle cut out of them, where I use to colour them in. So use them to colour in some of the logos and a lot of artists would hate me for that, because I go through pens pretty quick.

Ian Paget: Yeah, well, that’s what they’re there for. And I think one thing worth pointing out, I personally use whatever pen, pencil I can find to sketch ideas. But I think because your process and your approach, because you do I guess 95% of the work on paper, you need the extra pens and the extra tools to really get right.

But to be honest. I personally spend most of my time on a screen in some form, whether it’s my phone or it’s a television, whether it’s like computer, that actually gets in the way and doing a lot of that work on paper is actually quite nice.

James Martin:
I draw because I love drawing. I know a lot of logo designers who don’t draw and you probably know a lot of logos that draw and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s really nothing wrong with that. I know a lot of people who go straight into Illustrator and rapid prototype by just creating shapes and then copy and pasting that shape and tweaking it. And there’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

Ian Paget: I’d actually say differently, because I think one of the benefits of using paper and pen is that you do happy accidents. But say when you draw in Illustrator, you draw and you try to draw a circle or you draw a circle, but when you do it in a sketchbook, it’s not quite a circle.

I’ve had so many times where I’ve scribbled an idea that I thought was going to be rubbish, and I draw it slightly wrong and I think there’s something to it. You suddenly see something that you wouldn’t have saw otherwise, because of these happy accidents. And that doesn’t happen in Illustrator.

And the other problem with illustrator is that you can pick out a font and a shape and it looks finished.

James Martin: Bing, bang, bosh.

Ian Paget: It looks good straightaway so there’s no development, the work can be too artificial. So personally, it doesn’t matter what you use, because I know iPads now have things that can replicate pencils. But I think that whole concept of quickly sketching and throwing things down and the freedom of using your hand, paper and a pencil, there’s so many things that can happen within that. Whether it’s those happy accidents or just the freedom that it gives you.

Personally, I think it’s a mistake to jump straight into the computer, just because it’s too artificial, too perfect. It’s much better to have that raw energy I guess on paper, but everyone’s process is different.

James Martin: I was just trying to be polite. As I said, that’s what I love about our industry and design. We all have different processes set up, people sometimes whinge and moan about why do you do this? Why do you do that? And why don’t you just do this? And we’re all different, we’re all different humans.

I think, unlike you, I get an emotion, I think there’s an emotional attachment to something hand drawn, than slightly cold and stiff, as you say, on Illustrator. Illustrator is a great tool, a logo designer needs Illustrator, everything needs to be vectored or some sort of vector software. But for me, I do say 100 logos a year on average, that process for me, I smile all the way through it.

It’s always different. The journey is always different, even if I’m not really, sometimes when you get up for work and you’re not super motivated and you just sit back and think, I get to be paid to draw today, that’s not bad. Life can’t be that bad if I’m getting paid to draw and just come up with cool ideas. And as soon as I’m in that sketchbook and the music’s on, I’m just like, I’m in, I’m into day, mate. As I said, it just goes so quickly.

I’m the same as you. Some of my best work has come from slips, accidents, mistakes, like the lead braking and I slipped suddenly, and I think hang on a minute. That’s an interesting way to draw that or an angle or whatever. But everybody’s process is different. I’m like you, I would suggest there is an element of sketching within somebody’s process, whether it be 20 minutes or 20 hours, but you just got to do what works for you at the end of the day, I think.

Ian Paget: Yeah, absolutely.

James, I know we could keep talking for at least another hour.

James Martin: That hour went quick, didn’t it?

Ian Paget: It did, and for listeners, I actually wrote down a whole load of questions. And I know that there’s probably 100 more things I could ask. And we could talk all day about this stuff, but I think we’ve done one hour and eight minutes, based on the recording. But it’s been a really good one hour and eight minutes.

So James, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I’m sure we’ll have to do another episode at a later date, because we’ve got a lot more to talk about.

James Martin: There’s always more to talk about, mate.

Ian Paget: Cheers, James, appreciate you coming on.

James Martin: Thanks for having me, mate. Thank you very much.