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View Full Version : I'm Branching Out and Want Some Input...



Blessed
08-13-2008, 10:07 AM
I've been "Crazy Dog Creative" for the past year and a half or so - Full time since September last year when my daughter was born - my market is primarily small business who can't afford to have an on-staff designer and/or marketing person so I work with them to design logos, promotional materials, stationary, billboards, posters, ad specialty items and etc...

Last month I became a kinda sorta almost not quite exactly a partner with another work-at-home-mom to sell advertising to local business for publication in a free magazine with a distribution of 25k (20k mailed, 5k dropped off around town) it's a random sampling of addresses covering about half the people in our town who make over 50k annually. The average household income in my town is 85k. There are less than 15k households with an income below 50k annually in our community.

Through this new partnership I have the opportunity to reach about 5,000 mom's at an event next month with no additional investment on my part. Since I started blogging in January I've thought off and on about branching into invitations/birth announcements and party invitations after seeing how popular they were - it's an easy transition for me to make.

I've already asked "who can't afford free advertising?" and since all this is going to cost me is the time and money to design and print 20 invitations/cards/announcements for one person (I'll donate it to a silent auction whose proceeds will benefit a local foster care group) I'm going to put it out there, run some ads in the magazine and see what happens. If it starts to go over well I'll add it to my Mom's Etsy Store and then my first website is going to be my own business website so I'd put it in there and start really pushing it.

My question is - does "Crazy Dog Creative" and my current logo/look work for that or do I need a different name for it? This is basically what the logo side of my business cards looks like (it's the button I made for my blog and the AFHW blog when I did that design)

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm73/CrazyDogsBlog/BlogButton.jpg

Thanks!

KristineS
08-13-2008, 10:30 AM
Personally I've always liked the name. I think it's memorable and different. I'd rather work with a company that had a name like yours rather than someone who called themselves "Acme Creative" or something boring. I also think people in creative fields have a lot more latitude.

I wouldn't change anything.

cbscreative
08-13-2008, 10:36 AM
I guess that depends on the "flavor" of your invitations. If they're less formal and more fun, then it fits. If you want to go for formal/classy, it doesn't seem to fit as well. There is always the concern about rebranding since you are now known for your other work. This is just my immediate reaction.

Blessed
08-14-2008, 08:09 AM
I'm leaning toward keeping my name the same and my dog etc... and changing my background, etc... for advertising purposes - I think that will work, now I just have to figure out how I want it to look - I suppose since it's just advertising I can go with the trends and do a grunge look or lines or circles but I'd like to stand out from the crowd so I'll be thinking on this some more...

thanks for the input!