Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business and make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast. Let's do this Hey, everybody, welcome to the Small Business Big mindset podcast this week we have Maura Kelby, founder of veggies and vodka and Maura Kay, creative welcome Maura.

Hi, Erin. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

So, so happy to connect. So Maura and I are in. We've been friends for a bit and we haven't had been able to chat. So it's so cool to have you on the show. And we could catch up a little bit before we started to record. More I want to hear from you. Before we jump in to your area of expertise, which listeners, it's going to be amazing today, because more is going to talk to us about building our visual brand, which I know we can all we all need help with that. But can you give us a little bit about your background? How you got started and your area of expertise, please?

Yeah, absolutely. So I have been a graphic designer running my own business for almost two decades now. And I've worked in everything from visual branding to producing entire magazines and brochures or 100 page books to do an email email campaigns for for SIG Matic I kind of cover the gamut when it comes to design, whether it's digital or print. But yeah, I've been very lucky to work with lots of amazing clients in the outdoor industry in the health and wellness industry. It's been a blast.

That's awesome. How did you get started?

Oh, man, back in the day. Well, I was a fine arts major in. So I had an emphasis in graphic design. And when I got out of college, I wasn't exactly sure if I was ready to jump straight into the full, you know, agency situation. So I started just doing some freelance projects while I was working in the restaurant industry, including lots of restaurant menu designs for the restaurants I was working for, which worked out really well. And had before I knew it, I had a full roster of clients. And it's just kind of taken off. I've been really fortunate to have, like I said, great clients over the years, just keep referring business my way. So it's all been a pretty strong word of mouth style of business. And that's just, and it was just kind of like one day I woke up and I was like, I don't need a full time job. This is great. You know, I worked in an agency for like a year at one point, but went straight back to freelancing. I just love connecting with people, you kind of lose that when you have a middleman. Yeah,

that's so cool. Well, yes, it was meant meant to be. So yeah, so I, I'm so excited to have you on because I would love to have you kind of like walk us through, like how to create a visual brand, because it's not just like picking out a cool logo, or someone else goes along with it. So like, how do you how do you get started? When you're working with clients? Like what do you suggest? Like when we're like, Okay, we've got this business and you know, what we're doing? Now what how do you how do we bring it to the world and and the design sets?

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I take on a branding project for a client, I often kind of start with this sort of almost like a questionnaire that basically the Google questionnaire honestly, it's a few pages long. And I ask a lot of questions about the person themselves, if it's a personal brand, or more about their company as a whole and their values to really try to do like a deep dive into what they're trying to express through their logo first, and who their audiences who we're trying to attract what kind of people and such to. And excuse me, because your visual brand, really encompasses, like you said, so much more than just a logo, right? It's also your colors, your typography, even your imagery, like how you use your photos, or how you take photos of yourself. I mean, you really want this whole consistent look between all of these elements, because it kind of helps to create this reliable and solid experience and for your customers, they start to know and understand what they're going to connect what to expect from you, because they see your brand everywhere and they start to recognize you and that builds trust. You know, like if you think about, like a great way actually explain to clients pretty often is like Target or apple or something like that. It's consistent. The experience that you have, like visually with their brand, like targets always gonna have that red bullseye, the red icons everywhere, when you're walking through their store, or Apple is like, their brand is super nice and clean. Their stores are really nice and clean. It's building that consistency builds trust with your customer. So that's kind of the first step is really asking those big questions and trying to get an understanding and you can even if you're working on it for yourself, ask yourself that question. You know, yeah, what matters to you?

Yeah, no, that's great. And so what do you once you kind of have Ah, you know, baked, you know, okay, this is kind of like, what matters. This is sort of the mission or the culture or the field that I want to get across like, what? What do you? What do people do that? And then so do you even to get to that point? So it sounds like you're saying, like, look at kind of like what other top brands are doing in your space? Is that something that you would recommend?

Yeah, so there's even to be more specific. So I like ask these kind of more specific question. So What brands do you gravitate towards as your company or as a person with a personal brand, like pay attention to things that you love that the things that you're gravitating towards, and maybe even start like a folder on your computer or on your phone and just start taking pictures and saving things, you're kind of starting to build this visual identity without even realizing it? One of my favorite things, actually, to tell people to look in their closet, if they're building a personal brand and being like, is your closet just filled with polka dots, maybe you need some polka dots in your brand, you know, like starting to bring in do love teal, do you love green like me, or like I love earthy colors, you know, like bringing those colors into your brand. And you can even think about the overall mood is like I said, like Apple has this really clean and simple vibe, or like anthropology has that more eclectic and urban site kind of vibe, you can kind of start paying attention to what brand mood you like. And again, start taking those pictures building that almost like a basically, you could even start a Pinterest board and start throwing everything up on Pinterest. And what's crazy is when you start to put all of that on like one in one place, whether it's a folder on your phone, or on Pinterest board, you'll start to see the themes, you'll start to see you could even start taking pictures of logos or icons that you like to throwing that up there. Yeah, and even like you could look at great, kind of cheaper, more affordable dockside, like Creative Market Envato elements, Google Images, start just searching all different kinds of logos color palette, and just throwing it up on that board. And you'll when you come back to that board, after stepping away, you'll be like, Oh, I really love green, or oh my gosh, there are polka dots everywhere, I've got to include this, you know, it's like finding those common themes.

It's so funny that you say that, because I would never have thought of you know, looking in my closet, you know, for inspiration for my, my business brand. But when you say that it makes total sense. So I like neutrals. And so I just redid my website, I say read it, I used I mean, I use Kajabi. So I just pick from such away because I'm the designer. But the colors that I had to use it first for like, browns, blacks, why, you know, that sort of a thing. And now I just, you know, redid it and now it's like Gray's black with a pop of pink, you know, and it's like, when you look at it, and you look at my closet, you're like, oh, yeah, it's, you know, it's, there's like a relation there. You know, it's just so interesting. And I love like dwell magazine, right? So I mean, like, open up dwell, I will live in any of those places. So it's all very clean lines, modern, you know, that sort of like no clutter, you know, and then that's how kind of how I try to make my website and my logo as well. So that's so true. Like, even if you even if you're not realizing it, you're probably you're going to gravitate back, you know, to the style that you personally like, like, so that's also a term we hear a lot is brand identity. Okay, so can you explain that a little bit? Like, what is a brand identity? And how do we find it? Maura, how do we?

Where is it? It's out there. It's out there, it's more obvious than you think. And I just have to say too, I love I'm like, looking around your home too. It's actually great inspiration to you said that I want to echo that. Like that's a great idea. And even like if you're looking at your closet, now I have to go look at your website. I'm like so excited that you have this like hot pink accent and stuff like what's great is if you're pulling colors in from your closet, when you go to do your photoshoot, you're the colors that you're wearing will mimic the colors on your website, which will tie it all in together so nicely. So that's your step ahead. That's great. So, with a brand identity, they're kind of what I mean. Yeah, there's a few like, I kind of think of it as five elements that kind of make up your total brand identity. You have the very obvious your logo, and your logo can be a word mark, which is just like straight font and a word. Like think of, oh gosh, now I'm like thinking well, even if you take that icon off of Apple, like the word Apple like that's like their word mark, and then that Apple is the icon. So usually there's like kind of two parts to a logo. And you want to generally speaking when it comes to the logo, biggest tip of advice, keep it simple. Like sometimes you think, Oh, it's just too simple. It's too big. Basic like the most basic, most beautiful, most popular logos in the world, Apple's Nike, like a target. You know, even whole foods, like their icon like all of them are really simple. And you because you want it to be able to be blown up really big and still understand what it is. And you have to fit really teeny tiny in that top corner of your website and still be recognizable or business cards if you use those two. So you need that like scalable factor is really important when it comes to logo. So that's one, number two would be your secondary logos. And that could be if you have a horizontal version, or a vertical version, maybe where the icon to the left with the word mark, as opposed to above it. And again, that could actually work really well. If you have that space in the top corner of your website, you want a horizontal logo, because you put your vertical logo up there, it's going to be super tiny to fit in that space. So it's nice to have that option. You could even have a monogram, which is a great thing to have for a personal brand, like just your initial that you can use as almost like a seal on, you know, like even a Instagram post or something like that, but just in the corner. So it's branded to you, for people that are like, again, building that familiarity and trust and like seeing that consistent brand showing up everywhere. So that secondary logos would be to third would be pretty obvious won't be your color palette, then looking at your closet, looking around your house, what are you drawn towards. And it's also again, with this one, you don't want to go overboard with the colors, like think of like two to 3123, even primary colors. And then maybe especially when you're building out a website, you're gonna need like four to five secondary colors to kind of keep that all intact. Because sometimes it's even helpful if you have those three primary colors, you might do a few shades lighter, that become part of your secondary colors, so that you can build the different layers on your website with like, you know, I think on top of like gray versus black or something. Number four would be your font. And with fonts, it's like you're typically going to have a font that's in your logo, you can keep, I mean, there's no set rules really here like, this is your brand, you got to make it work for you. So you could have that same logo font be a font that you use throughout your brand, and your headlines and your body copy whatever makes sense. Or you could also have your logo font, and maybe it's a really unique script, like you found a really cool font on Creative Market. And that's your logo right there. And so you keep that it's just your logo font, and then you have a headline font and a body font. And again, trying not to get too overboard with finding multiple fonts, like you can use different weights, like maybe you use one font, and it has a bold weight or an italic weight, because that can help you build like variety in the way everything looks and the appearance. And then sometimes it's great to have an accent font to like, if you're a really expressive personal brand, maybe you have like a handwritten cursive, that can be part of it as well. And then the last thing, the fifth thing would be any kind of additional elements. Or sometimes people call them devices or accent patterns, graphic things that are just really unique to your brand. And it could be you have kind of an ocean vibe, maybe there's a wave graphic that you kind of use in the background, or again, those polka dots, maybe you just really love the dot pattern. Or maybe it's kind of like a photo treatment that you always do like a filter, you could even consider that part of your brand as well, or a torn edge around all of your images to kind of give that more antique look like picking out these really unique elements that when you put all these things together, it becomes very unique. Excuse me to your brand.

Yeah, no, that's perfect, because I think the theme I'm getting here is simplify. And there's that saying that a confused mind says no. And so you want people to show up to your website. And they got five different fonts coming out of 10 different colors, they're like, I don't even know what to focus on here. So so this is all great. So then it's like, just simplify everything, make it true to you so that it's clear to the visitor on your website, you know, they can see the actual information and not be like hit over the head with you know, your color aesthetics or whatever. And as a writer, I do come up with like an editorial style guide, right? And so it's very specific as to you know, it's great. It's great resource for anybody who works with me who works for me to kind of like pull from that. It's like, Okay, do we use title case? Do we use the Oxford comma? Do we, you know, whatever, right? Like, how do we handle these certain situations? Right? And I'm like style guide. So what is the equivalent with brands? You know, like when you're, you're building a brand guide, like what does that usually encompass?

Yeah, great, great question on that too, because it is important that it becomes your cheat sheet. Like I'm sure with writing to like gets becomes your clients cheat sheet like this is like, Oh, I have a question, I'm going to refer to the, you know, guide that Eric gave me and I do the same thing, I build a brand guide for clients. And even if you're just doing it on your own, building it in Canva. And in that you can have all of your logos, your secondary logos, your color palettes, your font, maybe a few graphics, like I said, maybe if you have a WAV accent that you use throughout or something, and you just have that all ready and waiting for you in Canva. And so when you go to create an Instagram post, there's so much less thinking involved. You know, you're like, what color Am I use what I have these six colors or four colors to choose from? What font Am I getting, as well, I have these two or three fonts to choose from, you know, it's right there. And it's great, because even if you buy, you know, there's so many amazing templates you can download these days, you can download any template that's ready for Canva or whatever software you prefer to use. And then just instantly apply all of your brand elements and boom, done. Consistent look right there for you. So having all of that laid out in handy is like the best cheat sheet. I love having.

Yeah, and you can even get, you know, detailed as far as like, this logo option can be used for transparent but this one can't. And this one, you know if if you're going to use an all white version of the logo, use it in these placements. Right, you can get very specific as well to make sure that your brand is respected and taken care of in the way that you envision.

Right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. When I build out a brand guide for someone, I definitely put in more details, you know, like keep as much space around the logo, don't stretch it don't you know, tweak it and do funny things with it. Like all the specifics, like you're saying or like what, which colors can be on laid on top of other colors? Like you can definitely get into those specifics. Because sometimes your brand might get in the hands of someone else, you'd be like, What did you do is that logo? It's not at all what it looks like. So yeah, good to outline that stuff ahead of time.

Yeah, exactly. And you can even be like, that was an accent color. And you used it for the entire thing. What happened?

Exactly? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, cool. So you're, you've done all these steps, which are so super helpful. So what's next? Like? How, how do you then kind of like put it all together? You know, how do you organize it? How do you? You know, how do you make sure that it's all where all the information you need is where it's supposed to be? It's easy to access and all that good stuff? Because this is a lot.

Yeah, yes, absolutely. I totally get it. Like whether you have a PDF document that maybe a designer or you created for yourself with all of these five elements, or you put it in Canva, like just, it's like it's your brand go to, it's what you're always going to start whenever or refer to every time you go to build something. And you can even start really putting those colors, wearing those colors when you're on Instagram lives and things if you want to really tie it in. But you could even start putting those elements everywhere like in your email footer, in your on your LinkedIn profile, you know, like you have that banner image above your, your profile photo. So you could customize that to fit your brand and your colors and your fonts and everything to and even on Instagram posts again, like you could mark them with like maybe you have a monogram that you put in the bottom corner that helps to identify all of your posts or just using those colors. So it's consistent for Facebook and any social media really. And then even when it comes to creating, like, downloadable PDFs for all of your offers, you could build them in a Google Doc, if you google doc or Google Slides and start building out some templates. Again, based on your brand, your colors, your photos, using your icons or graphics, whatever you can sneak in there. And you just again, what really want like the biggest thing I can say I guess too, is like, like you said to is keeping it simple. And just making sure every time someone interacts with your brand, they're getting the same visual experience. building that trust and your words are a huge part of this too. So like I don't obviously do the copywriting part but them hiring someone like you, it'd be fantastic because then they'd have consistency with all of their messaging too. Because that really, really does it because you can build all these beautiful elements and have this great brand but it's also how you use it that matters. You know, you have to be consistent with it. You have to have the right words and be consistent in your home message. And like I said to the photoshoots a fun one to like bringing in all of your brand colors and details into your what you're actually wearing or where you shoot your photograph and stuff like two great way to tie it all in. Yeah, I

love that. You mentioned that because there was one time where I was doing this photo shoot. And in some of the photos I was holding up kind of like this leather book and like a Journal or something. And so then I got the photos back. And I was like, I really love that color. It's like a caramel leather, you know. And so I think it was Canada that I went on to, and it can actually pull out the colors from the photo. And I was like, Oh, this is perfect, because it could pull out that, that exact are very close to that kind of caramel leather color. And that became part of my color palette, you know, to which was like us so great. But yeah, so this is so super helpful. I wondering, like, you have so much so many areas of expertise, you're taking care of all these big clients, you have a lot going on in your life, like, and then you know, you have this other veggies and vodka. I mean, I'm like, Oh, how does she do it? Also, and you have mentioned to me in the past that you, you prioritize your downtime, you know, and then I even remember you mentioning that you will, it will kind of take two months off a year and like you'll try not to bring your laptop on trips and stuff like that. Can you just share your wisdom in that? Because I think so many of us like, we want to get to where you are. So please tell us, Kimo Sabe.

I know it's an ongoing, you know, journey, right, because there's always like, I definitely have busy seasons where I will be cranking on 100 page catalog. Like, I eat so much chocolate during that time. It's ridiculous, like my chocolate stash has been. But you know, that's what gets me through. But I just I tried really hard. It's a huge, huge priority in my life to balance that, like, I just have to note, there's an end in sight, it's good for my psyche. And for my stress levels, you know, and I like I guess I do. If you were to jam it all together, I take about two months off a year, which is feels so crazy. And my husband's a high school teacher. So I like to be off when he's off, we love to go outside, we love to play and it's just setting those expectations with your clients really is the biggest, biggest thing for me is like I tell my clients months in advance, when I'm about to go when I have a trip planned or something. And I tried really hard to build a schedule around those breaks, because you have to take breaks. If you don't take breaks, it just becomes so relentless, right and and just and then you don't get to enjoy everything that you're creating and building and what was even more wild as I think back on this journey of being like building this business. Now I'm like I have clients through September and such right now, like I have plenty of work lined up for myself. But there have been so many times over the years where there were low. And there were times when you didn't have a lot of clients. And I used to for so long would stress so much about those loans. And I would just force myself to sit in front of my computer, as if somehow that was going to make it all happen, you know. And what I finally started to realize was actually, when I would take the break, and I would walk away and I would go I love to mountain bike and snowboard and be outside. And I would take those breaks and go do something, I would come back and somehow be like, Oh, I could email this person or Oh, I could reach out in this way. It's like you just have this less stress take and I mean, it's not not a hard basketball, obviously, there are moments when just you have to really try to dig up clients. And I've definitely been there too. But when I can, that's the key when I can I take the breaks. And I try really, really hard when I'm on the breaks to disconnect to I like joke, I'm like no laptops on vacation, like a joke that I say to my husband, you know, if it's like, I mean, obviously, if you're gone for weeks at a time, it's kind of hard to be completely disconnected. But at least a long weekend, I've managed to pull off no laptop for two weeks vacation years in a row. Now I just I am precious with my breaks.

Well, and I think the main thing is, like you said, it's setting expectations, you know, so it's working with your clients and letting them know well ahead of time and so that they feel comfortable with it. And they feel like, no, she's got me, you know, like, we're, the my stuff will be taken care of like this is it's just fine. And then they can kind of like, manage it within their own schedules too. You know, so if you do it that way ahead of time and you're managing it like you say, then you shouldn't be able to do that, you know, and it kind of defeats the purpose. Yeah, if you're bringing your laptop with you, then it's like you're not really recharging. You're still burning yourself out, you know? So it's like

Yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly.

Where can people find you online if they want to connect with you?

Yeah, so I am Mark a creative.com. That is my graphic design site. I have also started another business that is called veggies and vodka.com where I love to talk about this balance and taking breaks and finding space for yourself and taking care of yourself. And I do Do lots of sketches and weekly newsletters through veggies and vodka.com. And both of them are on Instagram, but I am a master at email. So feel free to reach out via email, reach out through Instagram. Both are great. But yeah, those are the two sites that I'm spending all my time on these days.

And I love that you have the two because, you know, I there was something else I was working on where I was like, You know what people can have different interests. And it's like, if you want to have a second business of something, or even if it's a hobby, whatever it is, like, that's okay. You know, I think that sometimes it's drilled into our heads of like, you've got to focus on one thing, you know, and mastering that thing before you move on to the next and it's like, no, you can have different interests like we're, we're four dimensional people here. So

yeah, I, it's so I have to, I had, well, thank you, I Sorry, sorry, I just have to say that I had an aunt that was an artist, and she wants that to me when I was younger, and it really stuck with me, she's like, No one job is gonna fulfill every part of you. Like it's okay to have multiple jobs. And for years, I was like, I'm a graphic designer, this is all I do. And then I was like, I really miss writing and just creating for the fun of it. And I've had a massive health and wellness journey. And I've had people ask me about it for years. And once I finally started writing, and sketching and sharing that all of a sudden, I felt the most fully utilized that I have in the longest time it was this outlet. It was this released. And I was like, not having to put all my eggs in my graphic design basket and spreading it out. It's just been incredibly fulfilling. Like, I had no idea what I was missing. And all of a sudden it was like, Well, I'm not as, like burnt out with design anymore. Because I'm doing this other thing. Like it's just been. Yeah, but it's hard to remind yourself. Yes, we can we can be what is Marie Forleo say like multi passionate, we can do multiple things. No, that's okay.

No, and that's a good point to like, taking on a secondary thing could actually fuel your primary thing, you know, could like open up there's, you know, inspiration facets that you've been closed, you know, and like, kind of like free you up and not have you feel so stressed. So you can you know, have a whole other Outlook, you know, so that's yeah, that's smart. Okay, so one question I asked everybody on every single episode is, if you could only listen to one music artists for the rest of your life. Who would it be?

I've heard you ask this. And I've been thinking about it. I'm like, oh, man, I love love music. So this is a very hard question. I mean, everything from like the 40s and 50s, the 60s and 70s 80s and 90s. I like I seriously, I love it all. Play it constantly. But there is one artist and it feels almost cliche, but I am whenever I just like no need to put music on and I can just just keep functioning in life as Jack Johnson. It just bends me out. I think in another life. I was a surfer. I had a stint where I did it for a minute. And I think that's just there's a part of me that would love to embrace that. So I just I love Jack Dawson.

Yeah, he is a good one. I like him too. He's a he's a good one to have on in the background to just kind of like Yeah, yeah, he has a good vibe. I used to play him for my kids to because he has a kids. Yeah. It's like a kid's album. Right. And I don't have that on. You know, I'm like, Oh, okay. This is really cool.

Yeah, yeah, I think it was like the Curious George soundtrack or something. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Something Yeah. used to play that all the time. Because I was we were really my husband. I are huge, and music and he's a musician. And so we're big on trying to like expose our kids to music, music and not just like, Humpty Dumpty, or whatever, you know. And there was this show called Yo Gabba Gabba. And it has the best musicians on it. Like the shins were on it, like all these great artists run and we're like, This is amazing. And like the main character had like a boom box. I mean, it's just like, it's so we're like, wow, so it was really cool. We're that's what we're trying to do. So Jack Johnson. Yeah, he's right up there. So that's awesome. Maura, thank you so much for taking the time to chat and catch up today. It was just made my day seeing your face pop up on Zoom earlier. So

great to see you Erin. Thank you so much. It's been a blast.

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