Learn by Studying the Design Masters

Melinda Livsey: Earlier this past year was when I started digging into Chris Do's content, I found ... I had seen him around a couple years ago online and I came across his content specifically about studying logos. I think he had posted on his future page on Facebook about studying logos, and getting better at logo design. And so he had ... I don't know if it's a 10 step process.

I don't think I finished it, whatever it was, but the first couple of steps he had posted on his Facebook page and it was first redraw or trace, I think it was, famous logos from the masters. So, he suggested Paul Rand, Saul Bass and the like. So, take their logos and just trace them as precisely as you possibly can.

That's what I started with and then he posted the following week that with those logos that you traced, then study them. And so start making notes on them, draw the grid over them. Just observe them and sit with them for a while and observe.

And so he posted a few of his, I believe the Bell logo I saw of his and there was another one. And after seeing his studies, I thought, "Oh, this is really interesting." I never learned how to study logos like that when I was in school or just learning logo design. And so I figured, "Well, I'm going to try this with the logos that I traced."

And so I started drawing the grids on them, and then I don't remember if Chris had showed in any of his the golden ratio, but I think when I first ... I started first with the UPS logo by Paul Rand. I was just thinking, "Well, what if I laid the golden ratio over it?" I don't remember what triggered that thought or why I thought of it, but I started placing it on that logo and my mind was blown. Because as I was doing it, I just kept finding ...

Because once you find one or two of the golden ratios, it's a never ending because it can go on for eternity because it just keeps getting smaller or bigger. If you find one or two, it's in there. It's in there somewhere. I just kept doing that and that was where it started. It all started with really the UPS logo, Paul Rand and really Chris Do.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I know there's so much that I learned from those. Can you kind of run through specifically what you did learn from doing that? Because I mean, obviously, we see logos all the time, but seeing your studies and Chris's studies, it's like I started seeing stuff I never noticed. Can you kind of just run through a few of the common things that you saw across different logos by studying them in this way?

Melinda Livsey: Of course. So first off, again, the UPS logo, going back to that, there were so many things that I noticed. One was that everything was deliberate. So even the placement and the size of the registration mark. The registration mark, when you put that on a logo, usually at least with myself, it was always by intuition.

It was, "Oh, where does this look the best? What does it line up with?" But with the UPS logo, there was no ... When you look at it, you can see it's below the S, but I was just so curious like, "Why was the registration mark right there at that spot? And why was it that size?"

And when I started studying it, that's when I realised, "Oh, that's actually very intentional with how big it is, what the width of the stroke is." And also, speaking of the stroke, the stroke of the entire logo too, that comes from the golden ratio.

And so I started learning that all these decisions are extremely deliberate. And then it made me go back to my work and see if I was as deliberate. Because I would go off of intuition or, "Does this look good? Does this feel right?" But I didn't know why I did it, and I couldn't really explain if I had to deconstruct it. But this allowed me, and it helped me learn how to make decisions better in logo design.

And one other thing was also being ... Doing these logo studies, it's helped me observe and train my eyes. So now, I go back to my old work and I see, "Oh, gosh, something is off." And it doesn't mean that the golden ratio is in there or not in there, it's just that I can now see what things are off or what things don't align or what's not symmetrical that should be. And so in these studies, I've learned and trained my eye to see when something is off or when something doesn't look right.

Ian Paget: That's amazing. I know when I first saw the those logos actually use the golden ratio, I was so surprised because there's been a number of blogs and articles that debunk the golden ratios. There's also a lot of argument from designers who kind of complained that the golden ratio is a myth. So, it was fascinating to see that work by the greats actually use the golden ratio.

I know you've started to apply the golden ratio to your work. How have you gone about applying that to your work? Can you talk through how you've gone about doing that?

Melinda Livsey: How I started using it in my work, well, I definitely am not as extreme as Paul Rand by any means that if you start setting my logos, you're not going to find it everywhere. What I've learned to use it in is making decisions after I've already have the concept. I'm not using it at the beginning, I'm using it just like I would a grid to line things up or to make a decision.

Say if I have to put a circle or a dot in there or use two different circles, then I'm going to pull those ratios from the golden ratio when I go to tighten up the logo. It's after I already have the idea drawn out, and it's pretty close to final. Not completely final, I'd say 75%, 80% there, and it's when I'm tightening it up at the end.

And then again, if I'm using circles, then I'll use the ratios from the golden ratio. If I'm looking at placement, I might lay the golden ratio over it to perfect where I play something. Or if I'm deciding about the stroke and how thick a stroke should be, I might use the golden ratio for that to make that decision, and how thick something should be.

Ian Paget: Now, I'm curious to know, when you've done that, because I currently don't use the golden ratio. I tend to do make a lot of my choices by eye. Now, I'm assuming that you're basically creating your logos as you would without any grid or without any rules. And then like you said, you're applying it afterwards.

Do you actually see a big difference in how it looks? Does it actually look better or are you simply using the golden ratio as a way to justify your choices?

Melinda Livsey: That's a good question. I believe for one it has made ... I went back to some of my old logos that were not used for anything and I was curious about that same thing. And so I applied it to an old logo, and it definitely made it look better.

That one, it was a house and a heart and I have that on my Instagram. I think I might have shown the before and after, but I don't even think I showed the very first iteration of the logo and it was awful. Nothing lined up.

I look back at and then I think, "Gosh, how did I even present that to a client?" It was so bad, so I definitely see how it can improve a design. I've seen it in my own work how it did definitely bring up the quality of my design. I'm now embarrassed looking at some of my older ones.

I don't know if I would necessarily use the word justify, but I would use it as in it helps me make decisions. I'm not trying to justify that the design is great because it has the golden ratio. I don't care, because it could be great and not use the golden ratio, but I am the type of person that loves ... I love science. I love logic. I love data. I personally like to use something like that to make my decisions instead of just going off of my gut intuition.

I personally like using it, but as a means to make a decision and be intentional but not to just justify design to say, "Hey, look, it uses the golden ratio, it must be great." I don't think that is a good argument.

Ian Paget: I think what we need to do is I get some of those images from you and we'd pop them in the show notes with this episode, because I think everyone would be really interested to see. From a technical point of view, how are you actually applying that? Have you created your own template grids or something that you're applying over the top?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. I actually do have a template. I saved it into my library in the Adobe Cloud. The golden ratio, once I got into it actually can't even think it would. Well, for me, it was a little confusing because there are a couple different ones where one starts off with two equal squares. And then another one, it doesn't start off with two equal square, so I have a couple of them and I don't know.

I have to research it more and get into it, but I don't necessarily think that's necessary to know all that, but I have those two. I have two golden ratio templates that I do use. They're grids. I just open it up and bring it over into my logo file and just lay it on top.

Once I have the golden ratio I'm going to use in the logo, it's really important to not then resize it to then fit a different part of the logo. Once you have a golden ratio size, you stick with it. That's hard to explain if I'm not showing it, but it's like if you bring in a golden ratio, don't then adjust the size to fit the logo and then keep copying the golden ratio and then resize it again. Don't resize it unless it fits within the original golden ratio. It always has to fit with that.

I think that's one important thing that a lot of people don't realise that are the hairs of the golden ratio. They say, :"Well, can't you fit that into any logo?" Well, no, not necessarily. In their mind, they're thinking, "Well, you just keep adjusting the size to make it fit and then you can fit a ton of golden ratios in there." That's not necessarily the way it works. Yes, I do have a grid and then I just apply it over the logo.

Ian Paget: Are you then recreating the logo in order to make those changes? Are you just simply modifying like a near finished version of that logo?

Melinda Livsey: It depends on how bad the logo was drawn in the first place. I might actually tweak what I already have. And it depends on what kind of logo it is. If it's just a monogram that none of the letters are connecting and it's just in placement, then I might just lay the golden ratio over and then fix, adjust where the letters are or how big they are, or how far they reach.

That's just minor tweaks, but then the example of the house and the heart, I literally had to redraw the entire thing because the circles weren't lining up right, and the square that I used for house wasn't a triangle. It just was all over the place. So in that respect, I did have to completely redraw it. I looked back at the first one as my sketch you could say, and then redrew it from there.

Ian Paget: Sounds like a really good idea. I definitely need to start trying it myself, because I've always been quite comfortable of making choices by eye, but you convinced me with your studies that is definitely worth kind of investigating further. I hope that other people, seeing the fact, that poor end to it.

I've not read that anywhere. Literally, those studies was the first time that I'd ever seen it and it kind of blew my mind, so thanks for pointing that out. And I hope by doing this podcast that people will be able to see this and will start studying logos in the same way and experiment with them to see if it will actually make their work any better. Yeah, thanks for doing that. It was really cool. I kind of want to go into your story a little bit more. Marks and Maker, how long has that been around?

Melinda Livsey: It has been around for almost two years now.

Ian Paget: Okay. Can you talk through a little bit about your history and how that actually came into existence?

Melinda Livsey: Of course. I was working as an in-house designer over here at Oakley, in action sports world and they did a lot of apparel and eyewear. I worked from the marketing advertising departments to ... I did a little bit of everything, the retail displays. And at the end, branding and packaging, and then also product graphics as well.

They actually dissolved the creative department there. That's when I started Marks and Maker. I had to kind of figure out what I was going to do. I had always wanted to work for myself. That was my dream. I always freelanced on the side even when I was an in-house designer.

I knew that, that was on the table, I just didn't know when. But then when they dissolved the creative department, it was a perfect time for me to start my own thing. I did start freelancing right after I left there and I just figured, this has got to be ...

If I'm going to go all in with this, I can't just be a freelancer. I have to think about actually making a business. I was debating about, "Well, should I use my name?" I think this is something a lot of designers go through. "Should I use my name for my business? Or should I make up a business name? Or why should I make up a business name?"

I struggle with all that. I finally came up with the name because my thought was that I'd eventually like to grow to the point where I do hire a team and then I'm not considered a freelancer myself. I wanted to hire freelancers to help with certain projects, and I didn't want to be the sole designer.

I figured, "Well, maybe that's a good reason to then have a business and have a business name." That's when I started Marks and Maker. I actually work with a lot of creative entrepreneurs, and then I consider myself one as well. So, that's where Maker came from. And then Marks, we make marks for them, right? We make graphics and marks and logos, and so that's how the name Marks and Maker came about. It's kind of fun, because there's a lot of plan words that we can do with that. And so that's how it all got started.

Ian Paget: Okay. I guess at that point, you kind of started building your website. You need to put a portfolio on there. One thing that I noticed when I was having a look at your site, I noticed that you'd got other people to build the website and other people to write the content as well. I know a lot of people would kind of do it themselves when they start out. What's the reason why you chose to employ someone to do it for you?

Melinda Livsey: For one, I don't do websites at all. And because I wanted to start learning how to be more of the director and not the maker, I wanted to see what it was like, for one, being on the client's end and hiring someone to do something for me and, two, also being a director.

I wanted that experience, and I figured, "Well, if that's what I want to do moving forward in my business, then I should practice doing that at the beginning of it." And also, I knew that I couldn't do as good a job as another person could, and I already did my portfolio site when I was a freelancer, and it was fine. It got the job done as a freelancer, but I knew I wouldn't be able to execute on the level that someone else could for the website or the copy. I just figured, "Well, it's better for me to hire people who actually know what they're doing and have more experience in it than I do."

Ian Paget: Okay. Now, I'm quite curious with your agency at the moment. It's two years old. Have you actually started outsourcing work to other people already?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah, I have outsourced not 100%, but I have outsourced over these past two years when I'm able to and when the job pays enough and I'm able to hire on freelancers, then I do. So, I have over these past two years been able to hire some people.

Ian Paget: How have you actually gone about sourcing those people and working with those people?

Melinda Livsey: I have been extremely lucky to where that most of the people I have actually hired have been either ex-coworkers that I know. I know them really well. I used to work with them. I know the type of work that they do. I know how fast they get things done, they're trustworthy.

And so I've hired multiple people I used to work with when I was an in-house designer. I've hired one of my friends. That's one of my best friends. She's a wonderful designer. I know and trust her and know that she does good work.

And then the last one that I use a lot is my cousin actually. My cousin is also a graphic designer, so I have completely lucked out in that respect. It's mostly been people that I've worked with and I know what their work is like. I know them as individuals. That's where I find most of my people.

Ian Paget: In terms of communicating with the client then, when you do have a team like that, are you the main point of contact? Are you kind of passing that onto those people with some kind of branded email address?

Melinda Livsey: Currently, I am the sole point of contact currently. I don't know if I'm going to stay that way. It depends on how big the scope of work is. I haven't actually done. I haven't done a website for a client. I have directed them when they've hired a designer and developer, but I haven't actually done a website to where a client has hired me to execute it.

And so possibly in that scenario, I might have the designer be in contact with the client. But for the jobs that I've done and hired out for, I've been the point of contact.

Ian Paget: That's pretty amazing. You've done a lot in a short space of time to get to that point within two years. Because what I'm doing at the moment, say, when I've needed to get a website built, I've actually just passed that with someone else and taken a commission from it. What you've done is awesome.

Now, I'm curious to know, what's been the most useful book for you? A lot of people will know you from the interviews with Chris and I know that you've read a lot of books during that time. Was there any that have been particularly key for you in terms of advancing your business and career forward?

Melinda Livsey: Well, there's been a couple. One is design based, the other one is more business. It is circling back to the golden ratio. During that time of studying the golden ratio, I found the book, The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art, and Architecture.

I'm going to butcher the guy's name, so I'm not going to say who the author is, but if you look up The Power of Limits, you'll find it. I did not even get through maybe the first two chapters, but that's enough to give me enough information to then go back to the golden ratio and the grids and apply them, because it shows the pentagram.

Gosh, there's all that, that comes from the golden ratio. And it has all these diagrams from what the golden ratio pattern is in leaves and flowers. And then it goes through even it showing up into music and architecture. It goes really deep, but I didn't even go past the first two chapters, but those were enough to give me a basis to then bring back to my studies and to my logo design.

That book, I still reference the first couple of chapters even now when I'm working with logos. That one has been really helpful as far as the design is concerned and applying the golden ratio.

I started reading a lot of books when I was being coached by Chris and then I all of a sudden stopped because I had to implement everything that he was teaching me. I was trying to balance between, "Okay, what do I read? And what do I do?" It was a lot. The Creative Strategy and the Business of Design was one that was really helpful, and I'm still not done with it. But what I have read of it has been extremely helpful in my business.

And the other one was the 101 Things I Learned in Business School. And I did read that whole thing. It's a really quick read, but it really helped because I didn't go to business school and I went to design school and we have to get versed in business language and how to talk to business people that we're serving to be taken seriously as a business and not just a designer, an order taker.

And so that gave me the vocabulary that I needed as a jumping off point. And now, I find myself being able to relate to people in their business as they're starting their business and talk to them on a level that they feel I can relate to them as a business owner as well, and then I'm not just some designer that they need to direct. And they think that I don't know anything about their business. They actually feel like, "Oh, you get it. You know what I'm talking about."

Ian Paget: Now, we've gone through quite a few of the questions I planned already and we got loads of time. So, I want to kind of dive into your process because every single person I talk to, they generally have quite a different process. I mean, there's always similarities. Would you be able to talk through how you kind of run your process of working on a logo design or branding project?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. I recently, from being coached by Chris, have changed, altered process slightly.

Ian Paget: Okay. Would you be able to explain what you did previously and what you changed it to and why? That could be really interesting.

Melinda Livsey: Yes, I'd love to. Previously, prior to Chris Do, I had a very lengthy questionnaire. Once I sign the client, and contract, and invoice, everything is paid, I would give them homework, which was a very lengthy questionnaire that ran through everything from why did you start this business to give me the story of your business, your target market. Who are these people? What do they want? How is your business perceived? How do you want to be perceived? What social media platforms are you going to be on?

It was lengthy and I would keep adding to it or altering the questions. I would give my clients about ... It usually was done within a week and they all did really great with it. They gave me so much information. And so from there, I would print out the document and I would study it for one to two days. I would highlight words. I would make notes on it. I would see what are the things that the client repeats over and over and over. Is there a certain word? Is there a concept that they keep saying?

Because usually, I ask so many questions that there was usually something that the client would keep repeating. It would either be maybe an adjective of how they describe their business or themselves or their target market. It would be something within their story that kept popping up. It would be something maybe how they want to be perceived.

And inevitably, every client had something that stuck out like that, like that was repeated. And so from there, I'd make my notes, and I would then have ... Most likely, it was a call. I think I used to hop on a call after that with my clients, and I would dig deeper.

I usually would have questions for them after that and trying to dig deep like, "What did you mean by this? Is this what you meant?" Trying to get on the same page with them and understanding their problems and understanding their vision. And from there, I had all this information.

What I used to do was just open up my sketchbook and I would start writing down those keywords, and I would make three different buckets. I would put those words together that fit. I'm trying to think of an example, but the first one could be soft, and relaxing, and soothing.

And so I would put those words and I put all the words that I found in the questionnaire in that bucket. And then the next one, I was really trying to separate the buckets of separate concepts because I would present three concepts to my client.

I was trying to figure out, "Okay, from what they said, I can gather three different concepts for this." And so after I made my buckets, I would start thinking on each one. "Okay, what represents what they're trying to say here?" And that's when I would just start sketching out logo ideas.

I would do that. I'd also do research at the same time. I would type in those words in Google or in Pinterest or just trying to find visual representations of all that list of words that I had. I would pull visual representations. I would sometimes look at how other people represented that word. That's when I would go back and start drawing out concepts for each bucket of words.

And then it would start come into life. Then I would have a concept and I have a visual for each of those. Then I just start building it out, so I'd start working on the logo of each. I'd refine the logo on each of them, and then I build mock ups for each of those concepts to show with the colour palette and how it looks on a business card, and how it looks in the wild. How that concept would live.

And so I tried to tell a story. I put all that into a presentation and tried to tell a story of each concept and walk through the different mock ups and walk through maybe suggested photography. I usually would never just solely work on just a logo. It normally would be a whole brand identity system.

Because for me, I wanted to start working on the whole and the whole feeling of everything, because a logo is only one piece of it and that is very important, but there's also everything else that goes with it. It's the brand story. It's the feeling with everything, and so I really wanted to nail down that feeling through the brand identity and so I'd put it into a presentation, walk them through it. They could feel each concept. That was how I started. That was my previous Chris Do process.

Ian Paget: Okay. Doing that, how you used to do that, did you find that there was problems in some way in terms of the process?

Melinda Livsey: Sometimes, and I didn't realise that there was so many issues until I started doing it the new way, and then I realised my old way was not ... For one, it was not efficient. I spent roughly 40, 45 hours on that. So, I'd say from start to finish, it's about 45 hours.

That's one, but then in the other was I did have a couple clients that the revision started getting out of hand, very much out of hand. It wasn't recently. That probably was two, three years ago, even before I started my Marks in Maker when I was a freelancer. That was horrible. We got on revision 11, 12. It was bad. It was very bad.

Ian Paget: Okay. I know there's going to be a lot of people now listening to this that are thinking, "That's exactly my process and I'm getting into the exact same situation." Everyone is going to be really curious. How have you gone about actually changing your process?

Melinda Livsey: Good question. With Chris, Chris has been teaching me for one, ditch the questionnaire. He said, "Do not make your clients work like that. You need to do the heavy lifting. So one, ditch the questionnaire." And then I thought, "Okay, well then what do I do? If I don't have a questionnaire, how am I supposed to get all of my information? How am I supposed to get all this out of my client?"

If your listeners have listened to Chris or watched his videos, he does use something that's called Core. It's a strategic framework. He actually sells it on the future site. I went through Core and learned how to facilitate strategy with my client to understand. It was almost like I took my questionnaire and made it into a workshop with my client.

After I learned Core, I thought, "Well, I have been asking these questions, kind of. I've been doing this." This is kind of what I've been doing, but it was almost like a reformatting of how I got the information for my clients. It was a different relationship with him as well. I realised that even once the client signs you that you've signed the client that you still have to build that trust and the rapport with them and the relationship and they still have to trust you. You have to be seen as an expert in their eyes, not just an order taker.

What Core did was it's a facilitated workshop. Instead of a questionnaire, I ditched that. I actually have a workshop with my clients and it can range anywhere from ... I've done it as short as two hour sessions to all the way to an all day thing where you I'm my client the whole day and we go through this together.

It goes through the users and the ideal target market, very specific into user personas. We also go through their brand and talk about the brand attributes, the mission, their why. Maybe brand archetypes or digging into who they are as a brand.

And then the end part is the goals. The goals are, "Okay, knowing your user, knowing your brand, what do we need to do now to line up to make sure everything lines up?"

A lot of those things end up being, "Oh, I need a new logo. Now, we need to work on your website because I need somewhere to land. We need to do print collateral." And so it's a whole different framework than what I used to do with the questionnaire and it completely changed my entire process.

What I've noticed that's been doing, because I've done it now with, I want to say, around eight to nine clients now. The first few I did it free because I was still learning how to do it. I've noticed that it's built so much trust.

What happens there is you don't end up with 11 revisions because I'm working now so closely with my client that after these facilitated workshops, I'm then showing them inspiration based off of what we talked about and trying to align the vision that I understood from them and showing them back in a visual form and saying, "Hey, is this what you meant by futuristic? Is this what you meant by rustic and chic?"

I'm trying to align what I'm seeing in my head and then what they're seeing in their eyes and saying, "Are we on the same page here?" And after I get there buy off on inspiration, then I move closer. I do style scape. It's a visual landscape of their business. It's not a mood board, but then it's not total built out mock ups like I used to, but it's getting closer and closer to what their brand is going to look like.

Even then, I don't work on the logos yet. It's maybe a rough sketch of a logo, but they can get the feeling in the sense of the design. And since doing this, I have reduced the time that I spent on projects by, I want to say half at least.

Ian Paget: By half? No way. I've always been curious about this process and I've always thought that it would actually take longer. But to find out it's taking you half the time is kind of mind blowing. I mean, it sounds more viable too. I would assume that you would be able to charge more for this too.

Core is something definitely I need to look into and I know that listeners of this are going to be really keen to check it out for themselves. Just to make it easy for everyone now, what I'm going to do is after this call, I'm going to create a quick link, which will be fiolentvillage.com/core so that people could just go and find that, learn more about that for themselves. I'm definitely going to be doing that.

Melinda Livsey: I agree. The other thing I want to add is it has given me a chance to raise my prices, a lot. Because I actually charge for this portion. I charge for my process. I charge for my thinking, which that's the big thing Chris was trying to get through to me which I did not understand and half the videos I was so confused because I didn't understand this process. And then after I learned it, I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is so easy."

Now that I see the framework, I understand how you can actually charge so much money for these things, because I'm actually charging now for the thinking that I did, I did so much of that, with the questionnaire. But now, I'm actually charging my client for it.

And then everything that comes after it, all the deliverables that we outline, the logo, the website, the print collateral, whatever comes after that, I charge separately for as well.

But when you think about it this whole time, I've been building trust with them. I've worked with them closely. They feel I understand their vision. They want to work with me for all this that comes after it. And so they're excited to get all this done. And most likely, if they value the thinking, they're going to value the deliverables as well.

Ian Paget: One of my questions and thinking, so you have that initial workshop. I take it by that point you charge for doing the rebrand. How does it work in terms of the other things that you're talking about? Do you just quote for those separately of separate jobs on top of what you're already doing?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. I actually might give them a range of, "Hey, if you're thinking about doing a rebrand, let's start off with strategy and see what all you're going to need." And I'll give them maybe a range like, "Hey, this is normally what you can expect for this for a rebrand or for a logo."

And then once we do strategy, we actually go through and talk about, "Okay, now that we know, this is what you need. Let's just say you need a logo and you need some business cards." Let's just say. Then I talk to them, "Okay, do you have a budget for this? And this is typically what you can expect to pay for a logo."

That's when we get into the nitty gritty of, "Okay, how much it's going to be?" And then it's actually opened up a different project and then start a whole new project for anything that's on that list.

Ian Paget: So, you're charging for the strategy session to start with, and then anything you discussed that's needed during that session then gets quoted for separately which is kind of within the price range that you agreed beforehand. Is that correct?

Melinda Livsey: Yes.

Ian Paget: Wow, that's cool. So, I definitely need to look into call myself. As mentioned earlier, what I do is I create a link which would be fiolentvillage.com/core for the listeners out there that actually want to look into it themselves and find out more.

Now, I want to ask you another question. I noticed in a recent blog of yours that you spoke about mastermind groups and how they've been really important for you over the past few years. Can you talk through how you went about finding mastermind groups and how that's worked for you?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. A couple years ago when I started Marks and Maker, right about the same time that I was working on planning out the site, planning out the name, I had went onto one of the Facebook groups. It was some entrepreneur Facebook group. It probably had, I want to say, 30,000 people. It was one of those really big ones and I forgot who it was by. It might have been Pat Flynn. There were a couple others that were pretty big at that time.

I just hopped on and I asked if there were any groups in my area. I figured, "Well, I'd love to meet with people and see if there's any groups and there might be someone in that." And so I asked and someone replied and said, "Well, I have one that meets online." And that was before I really dug into Facebook groups and I didn't meet a ton of people on Facebook. I thought it was weird to meet people on Facebook that you don't know, unless you knew them in real life.

It was the beginning of me actually digging into the online world and meeting people through there. So, I figured, "Okay, well, I'll try it." We'll come to find out there's this lady who had started this Facebook group that starts mastermind groups. She would group people together. I don't think she does it anymore, but she grouped people I think between ... It was roughly four people in each group.

And so there were a ton of groups in there that she had meet with their little pods of people. And so I got put in one. I didn't even know it was happening. I got put in one and we met on Google Hangouts once a week. I think it was about an hour once a week and we just determined the time when we met.

I was so scared to be in that group, because I didn't know these ladies and I thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm just starting my business. I have no idea what I'm doing and then I'm with all these leads who probably know business and are so far ahead of me." I always made sure to have all of my things done by the time we met, because I didn't want to be that slacker who never does anything.

And so what we did was we got on a call. We did it for three months at a time and we would have, "Okay, what is your three month goal?" We would all say what our three month goal is, and then we talk about what ... Now, knowing your three month goal, what are you going to work on this week?

And so every week, we would say that but then we also talked about what we did during the previous week if we had any issues, if we needed feedback on something. And what I found really helpful was that everyone was in a different industry. And so we could give each other perspective that we couldn't necessarily get if everybody was doing the same thing.

There's a benefit to both. There's a benefit to have people that aren't in your same industry and then there's definitely a benefit to have people that are in your same industry. In that one in particular, everyone is in a different industry. I was in it for about a year and a half, and then just different things have been schedules and whatnot.

And so we haven't met recently, but I'm still in contact with them, but that was pivotal for me to start my business because there were so many things I needed to do to get that website to launch. I had to get the copywriter. I had to do the presentation of my work. I didn't realise how much work that actually is and then making sure the copy is there and then the design of the website, directing that. Being in that first mastermind group, I give credit to them to helping me actually launched that website. Because otherwise, I would have slacked, I think.

Ian Paget: I'm just curious, is that a paid thing? Because I've heard about these mastermind groups, like the Pat Flynn podcast you mentioned earlier. Is that a paid thing? Or is it just a group of people that just want to do it freely and just ...

Melinda Livsey: This one was free. This was just a group of people that wanted to get together and we formed our own one. So, everything was just on our own.

Ian Paget: And that was just from basically a Facebook group?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah.

Ian Paget: That's fascinating. I need to have a look into that. Yeah, I guess anyone listening to this obviously needs to try it as well. Yeah, it sounds like it's been really useful for you, so I'm going to try that as well.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. And the other one now that I'm focusing more of my time in is the Pro Group, the Futur Pro Group with Chris Do. I joined that in the summer. During the time, I was being coached by him. Now, all those people are roughly, we're all in the same industry, which I found that now to be super helpful because I'm trying to learn how to change my process into the new strategy.

It's really hard to do it when you don't talk to anyone that has done it. And so being in the Pro Group now, that has been extremely helpful now too because then I can start talking to other people and say, "Okay, well you've done it for a while, how do you present it to your clients? Or how do you talk to your clients about it?" And so now being on the site of having that group of people that are actually in the same industry, it has been helpful for me to be in that.

Ian Paget: That group sounds really useful. I just happen to know quite a few people that are actually in there. So, at some point, I probably need to join as well and see what I can get out of it. Okay. Now, what would you say is your best logo design tips?

Melinda Livsey: I would suggest that people study the masters, because if they study the masters, they're going to start ... They'll learn everything that I'm telling you about the golden ratio, about how I design logos. They're going to see it for themselves.

There's a lot of people that keep saying, "Oh, the Golden Ratio is a gimmick, or this is dumb." That's fine. They can have their opinions, but a lot of them, they haven't actually studied the logos. I say don't say anything about it until you actually study the best logos, and then form your opinion.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think what you demonstrated with everything that you've done so far is that is definitely worth studying the masters because there's stuff that they're doing within their work to make those choices. And with your logo studies that we spoke about earlier, you clearly unraveled some interesting stuff from that.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. I figured too. Now that it's used in architecture, we know that it's found in nature, why would we not want to use it in logo design?

Ian Paget: Well, I find with the golden ratio, it's fascinating that you found that it had been used in a lot of really good logos because you see it in architecture, you see it in the great paintings. You see it in everything, so it makes total sense there's actually in logos as well.

Melinda Livsey: Exactly.

Ian Paget: I think we're pretty much at the end of our time for this. So, Melinda, thank you so much for being a guest and for giving so much value for this. I think we can all learn a lot from your ability to learn to see and start to apply some of that learnings to our own logos as well, so hank you very much.

Melinda Livsey: Thank you for having me.