Be Yourself

Last night we had the pleasure to have the fabulous Mickey Marienfeld as a guest speaker on our LEO DLR 8 week Digital course, and we talked about being brave enough to be yourself in your business. 
This topic is one that comes up in every work-related conversation Hidai & I have with people, because there is nothing scarier than putting yourself out there, and for people to judge, not like, or the worse - ignore. 

But it is also because sometimes we find ourselves trapped in a convention or notion of how we "should" look. When Hidai and I first started our business we had no clients, no clear services, no idea what we were doing, but we just knew what a consultancy should "look like". And we assumed that if we wanted people to take us seriously then we had to look serious - no jokes, no feelings, and no colours. 

That's why when we designed our logo we went for monochrome.
But at the same time, we were never very good at following instructions, and that's why it's outside the box.

It seems strange looking back at it now, but that was the advice we got, and that was what we saw around us, and that seemed like the safest way to go.
It lasted a few months as well. 
Then we wrote our first tender and somehow all our bullet points turned orange... 

Because at the end of the day, as one of my favourite quotes go - Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

Over the years we discovered not only the importance of being ourselves, but the power it has, and step by step we dared more, we did more. Slowly but surely all presentations got chocolate related slides, and all bullet points got colour.  

But the logo stayed grey.

And then Ron, our eldest, discovered Blender. And created a 3D advert-quality flying Gameboy.
And I knew it's time for a change. 
So I had Ron blender me a new version of the logo, which turned out so much better than we imagined (and as it turned out, was also quite easy to do, apparently it was mostly that we were just lacking in imagination), and is exactly who we are, with colours and animation, and whenever I look at it, it makes me smile and reminds me that birds are meant to fly and bullet points are meant to be orange.