Jeff Fisher Interview Transcript

Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives shares all in this revealing interview

Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives, has designed logos and created identities for over 25 years. Clients have included one-person entrepreneurial companies, educational facilities, non-profits, government agencies, professional sports teams and major international corporations.

Listen in as Jeff shares: The #1 skill you need to understand to succeed •

What surprising marketing methods work best for designers • Should designers blog? why and why not • What 1 thing you need to be doing at all times as a designer - and a whole lot more.

Doug:

Hello everyone. This is Doug Farrick again, and today's special guest, we are talking with Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives. Welcome, Jeff.

Jeff:

Hi, thank you.

Doug:

Hi. Jeff, I wanted to start off just talking a little bit about how you actually got involved in the design business.

Jeff:

Well, I was always interested in art as a kid, from the time I was in grade school. And, of course, I was always told by my family that there was no way I could ever make a living doing that.

Doug:

Well join the club!

Jeff:

Yes, I think all families discourage children from going into art. But I was actually the first student put on independent study in art in my city high school system, and so I was kind of positioning myself for that. But when I was a senior in high school, which would have been 1974, I came across Milton Glaser's book Graphic Design in a public library. And not only did it give a name to what I wanted to do, but it showed that somebody could actually make a living doing it. So that's kind of how I started in that direction.

Doug:

Okay, and did you go on to a design school, Jeff?

Jeff:

I actually ended up going to the University of Oregon, state college. And started out in the fine arts department, which had a graphic design degree. And in that first year of school, I just got incredibly frustrated with the program itself, and even considered quitting school.

And someone told me that I should be talking with a professor in the journalism school, because he offered course studies in advertising design and publication design, and it might be something that interested me more. And so I met with the professor. His name was Roy Paul Nelson, and he actually had written a textbook at that time on the design of advertising. And after talking to him, I switched over to the journalism school, got all the… had to take all the writing requirements, but also got a really good education in advertising, publication and a little book of design as well.

It was a really good direction to go. It had great typography classes. Because I was in a journalism school, I had to take public relations classes, copywriting classes, even some business classes.

Doug:

Did you also take like a design foundation course as well? Was that part of your curriculum?

Jeff:

I had taken that in the fine arts program the year before, the preliminary classes. Roy Paul Nelson had excellent classes in actual design skills that could get you a job once you got out of college! [laughs]

Doug:

That's probably a little bit different from today. I remember when I went to school, I went to Pratt a number of years ago. We were just, as I was leaving school, we were getting involved in these big, large, I don't know if you remember the five-and-a-half by five-and-a-half floppy disks?

Jeff:

Yes.

Doug:

So I think that slightly predates you. Computers weren't even around when you were in school, were they?

Jeff:

No, I worked as a designer for about thirteen or fourteen years before a computer ever appeared on my desk.

Doug:

Out of curiosity, what do you think of people who, you know, the hand skills that we were brought up with and people who are brought up on a computer today. Do you find there's any difference?

Jeff:

I think there's a huge difference, and we really appreciate the philosophy of, there's a school of visual concepts up in Seattle with their design students, they will not let a design student use a computer the first year at school. And I think that game of hands-on experience, actually getting the battle scars of the Exacto knife cuts and all of that. I think it really is important. And I was explaining to somebody recently about having to correct type on a newspaper by cutting out individual letters because we didn't have time to reset the entire article. They were different times.

Doug:

Yeah for sure, for sure. Things have changed, and man they change fast. So what happened after school Jeff? Did you know you wanted to go on to a design position or did you sort of fall into it?

Jeff:

I really thought that I would end up getting a position in an advertising agency. And after school, in 1980 I moved to Portland. I knew I wanted to stay in Oregon. And the week I arrived in Portland, several ad agencies and some design firms closed their doors. It was a horrible economic time here. Lots of designers were getting laid off and there were absolutely no jobs to be had. It was one of those what-have-I-done-with-my-life moments, because I didn't have a clue what was going to happen next.

And I ended up having a great opportunity to do a lot of informational interviews with principles in different firms in the Portland area. They didn't have any work, but they had time to talk to me. And what came out of that was referrals to do a lot of contract work on the side for different firms that in some cases had let their entire in-house design staff go.

So I had no intention of actually starting an independent business, at that time, but that's kind of what happened, the first couple years that I was in Portland.

Doug:

So soon after that did you start your own business, Jeff?

Jeff:

I was doing projects for a lot of different clients. One of my clients then offered me a chance to come in-house and create a design department for a medical association. And I took them up on that. I actually had a real job of coordinating all their medical publications and supervising the staff at the medical society. And I must have been there, probably a year and a half when I left to become the art director of a small advertising agency. So I got that ad agency experience that I'd hoped to get earlier.

So after being there for about a year, I decided it was time to move to a different market. And then I moved to Seattle, and I was doing a lot of independent work for Portland clients and Seattle clients, and then went to work as the creative director for a clothing manufacturer in Seattle.

Doug:

Did you have an idea at that time that you might want to investigate looking into, perhaps starting your own studio, your own business?

Jeff:

All the time I was doing work for other clients on the side, and I did know that at some point I would, you know, be working on my own. The publication experience, the ad agency experience and then the in-house job at the clothing manufacturer really rounded out my experience that I felt I needed to start my own business. And so after about a year at the clothing manufacturer, that's what I did. I went out on my own and just worked independently for companies in both Oregon and Washington.

Doug:

Now did you always focus your work on identity design, Jeff? Or did you do a number of different things and then concentrate on identity logo design?

Jeff:

Well, I had also been working as a designer in college for my last two years, so by the time, I guess it was about seventeen years after starting to work professionally as a designer, I was really getting burned out. I had been taking on every and all design projects that came my way, because I thought that's what a designer was supposed to do, and starting to get, just real frustrated, not real pleased with a lot of the projects that I was taking on. I was having a talk with my sister who owned a PR firm and ad agency, and she said, 'Why don't you do what you really enjoy the most?' And I kind of looked at her, and she said, 'Logo design,' she said, 'you love logo design.'

And so that is what happened in 1995. I really started just focusing on identity design at that time, and that's what I've done now for--what is it?--twelve years. I really do enjoy it the most. I still have the opportunity to do, you know, the corporate identity package, a lot of other projects, but I also have the ability to say, no I'm really not interested in doing that.

Doug:

Well, it certainly shows in your work. Out of curiosity, what would you recommend, because I certainly went through the path of sort of being a generalist and then really trying to focus in on a particular niche. Do you have any insight on that for people who are started or who are already in business and might want to be more of a specialist?

Jeff:

I really do think it comes down to doing what you enjoy the most, or what you are the best at doing. Maybe that's combined. But I don't think there's anything wrong with being a generalist to begin with. I think that most designers should do that, to really get a sense of all aspects of design and be able to understand all aspects of… It would be really good for people to be a generalist and get a real good understanding of all different aspects of project work.

Doug:

And then would you recommend sort of honing in on a particular area?

Jeff:

I think it's really good for some designers. I know it was really good for me to get myself out of that rut that I'd found myself in. For me personally, identity design is the most challenging of all the work that I had been doing previously. I lost interest in doing all the production and design work on an eighty or a hundred page magazine. You create the magazine and its format and then you're just plugging in the same thing all the time. I once told somebody that I didn't want to do anything that a chimpanzee could be trained to do. Some of the long-term projects that I have been involved with in the past started to feel that way. And I just think that people really should follow their passion. And if that is specializing in identity design, or publications, or advertising, or web design and development, go for it.

Doug:

Yeah, I just found the challenge for me was really when I got involved in marketing. And we'll touch upon that in a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your process, Jeff, of how you actually go through an identity design.

Jeff:

Well, the most interesting thing is that my best concepts very seldom come to me when I'm sitting at my desk in front of my computer. Usually I'm in the shower, driving, gardening. Something totally unrelated to the project that needs to be done. And I just kind of have this…

Doug:

Well when your brain's a little bit more relaxed and receptive…

Jeff:

Yeah, I really think that's it. It can't be forced. And I'm amazed at clients who think that design on demand is a possibility. Take a step away from all the specifications of the job, and give yourself a really good chance to think about it.

Doug:

There's a lot of that out there, as you well know today, that sort of design on the spot mentality. You know there's all these logo shops where, hey, I'll do a logo for fifty bucks. And it cannot be good for the business. I don't know what your viewpoint is on that.

Jeff:

Oh, no, I agree. It's not even considering basic design principles in most cases, and certainly not working on the most amount of information you can get from a client as to their needs and requirements. And I think that professional designers are going to be coming up against that more and more. It's kind of an internet phenomenon. So I think part of it is designers educating the public and clients about what graphic design really is.

Doug:

I agree. I agree one hundred per cent. So we were just talking about your process, Jeff. Do you do a lot of research with each project you take on?

Jeff:

It depends on the project. A lot of times I'm doing things for similar industries that I've researched before, and new research is not required. I have a survey of questions that I give all potential clients, and I usually find that in answering those questions, what a client doesn't like helps me more that what they do like.

Doug:

So you're saying like a creative brief? That sort of thing?

Jeff:

Right. I think it's important for them to provide their perception of their industry. A lot of times that includes showing examples of businesses they think are doing a really good job in marketing and promoting and identifying themselves. It seems that, I think I did so much research on projects early on that I have a good memory bank and a bank of files on research.

Doug:

And a good well to draw upon. That's great.

Jeff:

So there's not a lot of research. I don't do a lot of sketching. Usually my sketching occurs if I'm away from my office and have an idea. I've been cleaning out my files and kind of archiving and thirty years of design work, and I'm coming across all kinds of little scraps of paper that eventually became logos. And they are meeting notes, telephone message pads, the backs of envelopes. So that's really where my sketching is. It's not sitting down and just sketching on purpose to try to come to a solution.

Doug:

But when you're first introduced, say to a new company, and you're trying to begin with some idea generation. Is that done like via software, like Illustrator on the computer, or do you actually do that out of the office or...? I'm just curious on how your…

Jeff:

Well, it's really interesting. When I am meeting with a client, about a good eighty per cent of the time, while I'm talking with the client, I've already formulated my initial concept in my head while talking to them. Or I've literally doodled it on the notes that I'm taking for the meeting. And so a lot of times, by the time I get back to my office, I'm ready to go directly to the computer and start formulating what it's really going to look like. It's interesting, in presenting designs to clients, it's probably eighty to eighty-five per cent of the time, the client will go with my first idea, or a slight variation of my first idea.

Doug:

That doesn't always happen.

Jeff:

It doesn't always happen, but it seems to happen a lot to me! [laughs]

Doug:

Now, would you present like maybe five, Jeff? Do you present two? Do you present three?

Jeff:

I usually don't present more than three. Four or five, I usually will stick them on the wall and take a good look at them, and realize that one or two of those should not be presented, because they're not what I think will serve the client best, and the client's likely to pick one of them.

Doug:

And are these three completely different directions?

Jeff:

Most of the time they are. I've had many cases where I have come up with one concept and taken it to a client and said, I really think this is a logo to represent you, and they've agreed. But it's kind of chancy. [laughs] It really is.

Doug:

But if you feel that, that's the right thing to do for you.

Jeff:

And then of course you have the client that, you know, you think the first idea is the logo to represent them, and two months later you're still working on the process and getting a little frustrated and all of a sudden one of the principals in the business says, 'you know, I really liked that first one.'

Doug:

That can happen.

Jeff:

It does!

Doug:

So what separates the men from the boys in identity design?

Jeff:

I do think the number one thing is a really good understanding of basic design principles. And I think what we have seen since the computer became a tool in design is you have a great number of people out there promoting themselves as designers, who do not have any design education or any experience in studying basic design principles. I find that I'm often hired to fix logos that people with no design background have created. And I really do think that's what separates the men from the boys.

Doug:

A basic lack of design understanding, design principles.

Jeff:

Yeah, I'm always amazed when someone will say, or post on an internet forum, 'What kind of software is best for designing a logo?'

Doug:

[laughs]

You must love that one!

Jeff:

And it's like, 'Okay, well it's not the software. It's the concepts you come up with and the ideas you have that are just being translated by the software.'

Doug:

Yeah, because ultimately that's what you're getting paid for. You're getting paid for Jeff Fisher's ideas, and you have all that experience and reference bank to call upon. What do you do to, if you get… I know you mentioned earlier that sometimes there's a point where you do get a little bit of burnout. How do you recharge or get inspired?

Jeff:

I always tell people to push themselves away from their desk. I really think that you find designers getting more and more frustrated as they're struggling with the project or getting burnout. And they're sitting at their desk and they're trying to work harder to fix the problem, and the problem is that they're sitting at their desk trying to fix the problem.

And I work out of my home, and my friends and clients think that it's absolutely crazy that my passion has become gardening. This was the first home that I've ever lived in that had a space to do gardening. But for me, if I'm frustrated, I just push myself away and go out and play in the dirt for a while, and things start flowing in again.

I travel a lot too, and there's always great inspiration in travel. And it's always good to come back from a trip and have your batteries completely recharged. And especially if you're traveling in a different culture and just kind of soaking in everything design-related about that culture, and then coming back to your work.

The one thing I seldom do for actual inspiration is look at design books. I think subconsciously there's a danger of borrowing someone else's ideas a little too closely if you do that. So that's not inspiration to me. I also write and read a lot, and that's real inspiring, gets your brain going and present new concepts.

Doug:

Now tell me a little bit about how you do marketing. Tell me what you do to market at this point, Jeff.

Jeff:

Well, I come from a family of PR professionals, so that I think has kind of given me an unfair advantage over the years of having watched how they have done their jobs. My dad was in public relations for many years. My mother was in public relations for the banking industry for quite some time, and then my sister owned a PR and advertising firm, so I think that some of that's probably genetic in looking at PR as a marketing tool, more than traditional methods.

I've never found print advertising a successful way to promote my business. Which is kind of difficult, since I studied advertising design so much, and can't seem to make use of it to promote myself. I have only done one direct mail piece in my career, and that was, it must have been sixteen years ago now. It was very successful. I was still getting work from that five years after I'd sent it, but I haven't needed to do marketing in that way since then.

Doug:

So no postcards, nothing like that?

Jeff:

I haven't done any of that. And I do a lot of press releases and have established a lot of relationships with different members of the media over the years, and so I promote new clients, completing projects, awards that projects have received.

Doug:

I think you're an absolute master at this, if you don't mind my saying. I mean, I love your book. I've seen a lot of books and the name of your book… I think you said there might be a new edition coming out?

Jeff:

Actually, no, I have a new book coming out.

Doug:

Well, let me mention this last one, it's called The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success: Ideas and Tactics for a Killer Career. And I highly recommend this book. There is so much good stuff in this book that I think designers… And sometimes it's the myth of the designer just staying in his or her own studio and just doing the work, but it's so much about business, it's so much about the stuff that's in this book. I just think it's real refreshing to see someone really talk about design and business and PR and how to get out there and use a press release. And there's just not a lot of stuff out there like that in my experience.

Jeff:

No, and thanks for your comments about the book. I do think that that has been one of the failings of design schools in the past is not preparing designers for the business of design. They're very well prepared for being designers, but not marketing and promoting themselves. And you do find a lot more programs offering design business courses now, and I think that's going to just be increasingly important. Because you do find a lot of designers kind of creating their own businesses by default as I did. It wasn't my initial plan right after I got out of school, but when you have economic situations and design jobs being cut, with big firms and other challenges like that, a lot of designers are going to find themselves in the position where they suddenly need to be marketing and promoting themselves as an independent business.

Doug:

And I think your book again is a wonderful resource. It'll help you even formulate a plan and I think to some degree, you need a type of blueprint when you start your business you can just kind of start with a blank slate, but you do need basic business skills of learning how to sell and how to market and obviously it'd help you to do a press release and those sort of things. So I think it's really almost a necessity to have a resource like your book.

Jeff:

Thanks and I do think that one of the things that was so great about the book is the large number of designers around the country, or you know around the world, who were willing to supply me with information on their experiences and resources they have used. And then the book does have a lot of good additional resources to send designers in the right directions. It's funny because one time I told someone that I thought the book was more of a how-not-to book than a how-to book because so many of the other designers who had shared in the process told stories of mistakes they'd made along the way.

Doug:

Sure. And would you agree that it's applicable for sort of beginning people and people who have been in the business for a bit?

Jeff:

Oh, definitely. In fact I know that some design schools have used it as a textbook and I get e-mails and letters all the time from people who've been in the industry for a long time saying, 'Thank you for your book. It reminded me what I need to be doing.'

Doug:

That's true.

Jeff:

And so it think that it has covered the whole spectrum of the design industry.

Doug:

Tell me about your most recent book.

Jeff:

Well the new book is being completed right now, and it's called Identity Crisis.

Doug:

Good name.

Jeff:

And it's fifty case studies from designers, all around the world, of redesigning the identities of corporations, non-profit organizations, universities and then even very small businesses, jewelry stores, auto body repair shops. So again we're tried to cover the entire spectrum of potential clients out there. And all these different design firms have been really great about sharing their process that they've gone through, their frustrations that they've gone through in different aspects of projects and showing real good examples of the before and after of the design process.

Doug:

Wonderful, I'll look forward to that. Do you have a release date on that?

Jeff:

I think it's going to be in the fall. I know that on Amazon it says that it's July and I know that to not be true! [laughs] I do think it will be coming out in the fall. We're just finalizing it now, and they're working on the actual design of the book. It'll also be produced by HOW Design Books that did The Savvy Designer.

Doug:

Great. What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes that designers make nowadays, Jeff?

Jeff:

Well, I think that we've kind of touched on it with regards to marketing. The biggest mistake I see designers making on a regular basis is to not be marketing and promoting themselves all the time. Designers wait til there's no project coming in the door and start marketing and promoting. Instead of doing a good job of marketing themselves, the panic comes into play.

And what I do and has worked really well, is every Friday is set aside as a marketing and promotion day. I have no client contact on Friday. I tell my clients that my office is open Monday through Thursday, eight to five, and then Friday is my day. And I usually spend a good half of every Friday just on marketing and promotion effort.

Doug:

Jeez, no wonder Jeff, you get so much done. That's your secret, huh?

Jeff:

Well, it's not necessarily a secret, but I think it's a good tactic to take.

Doug:

But it's a consistent way to do it…

Jeff:

Right. You have to treat yourself as you would any other client and mark the time on the calendar. It's like this time is for me, and I need to do what is necessary for my business instead of my client's business.

Doug:

I mean is it divided up between writing and forum posts and…?

Jeff:

It just depends on what needs to be done on a given week. I do have marketing packets that I send out to people that contact me about potential projects. All of that is done in-house so I can adapt it directly to them.

Doug:

Now what is that, Jeff? Tell me what your marketing packet includes.

Jeff:

My marketing packet includes a bio, a list of articles I've written, a list of articles that I've been mentioned in, a copy of my project agreement, which is a nice word for contract. I include a blank estimate sheet. I have several examples of pages of identity designs and I can tweak that so it is directed to a specific industry, and then I usually include two or three recent press releases, and maybe an article or two that I have written recently.

And I always include two business cards when I send it out, so the potential client has another business card to give to someone else.

And that evolves and instead of doing a printed brochure, I do that all in-house, so I can manipulate it to create a custom marketing piece for a given client.

Doug:

It sounds like a very good dimensional piece where you have a press release, and you know you have a bio and a contract, those sort of things. I really haven't heard of a lot of designers doing that, so that's nice to hear.

Jeff:

It really does seem to work real well. It answers a lot of the questions a potential client will have before they actually have to ask.

Doug:

True. Jeff, do you recommend any design resources that we might not know about that you use on a regular basis? Any web sites or recent books you've read?

Jeff:

Well one of the things that I think there are more and more designers doing all the time is blogging. It's really important for designers to be able to write a complete sentence, and I think that blogging has really helped a lot of designers improve their writing skills, but also put themselves out there, where the blog becomes a marketing tool, much more so than a rather static web site. Tied in with that… I don't know, are you familiar with the Designers Who Blog site - http://www.designers-who-blog.com

Doug:

I believe I am.

Jeff:

Yeah, it's become a really good resource. It's probably something that I, yeah I probably check in three or four times a week on that particular site. It's kind of evolved from initially just being Designers Who Blog to being Illustrators Who Blog and Writers Who Blog, so it's a real good resource, finding other creative types, seeing what work people are doing. Because people are posting very recent stuff and just collecting ideas and thoughts from others in the creative industries.

And you're probably familiar with http://www.creativelatitude.com, a site that I've been involved with since the beginning. Yeah, there are all kinds of new and exciting things coming related to Creative Latitude that I probably can't talk about yet! [laughs] And I do think that forum participation is really good for any designer. Just the sharing of ideas with other designers and not feeling quite as isolated if you do work by yourself.

Doug:

Do you have any particular designers that you look to on a regular basis?

Jeff:

See, I'm kind of old school, so I'm always looking to see what Milton Glaser's up to. I always check and see what Pentagram is doing. In fact Pentagram has a blog that I check on a regular basis, because they're really good about posting the projects that they are working on. I really like Sayles Graphic Design, Art Chantry. So for me for the most part it's really a different generation of designers. [laughs]

Doug:

Well a lot of those people are icons, so you should know about them.

Jeff:

One of my greatest experiences was, I had followed Milton Glaser's career ever since I was a senior in high school, and at one of the HOW design conferences, I was at a cocktail party and got to meet him in person. I was kind of stunned when he mentioned that he knew who I was, and so I kind of became the blubbering idiot who could not speak a complete sentence. It was really fun meeting him and realizing that he's just a very approachable person like the rest of us. And an excellent designer, and he's got a really good philosophy. I think at one point, I heard him speak somewhere and he just said that his philosophy was 'do good work'. And I think that really is what it comes down to.

Doug:

So what's next for Jeff Fisher and LogoMotives? http://www.jfisherlogomotives.com/

Jeff:

It's constant. I've got several new clients, just last week actually, who are willing to wait for me to return from my vacation to start their projects. But there's other books in the works. I've got several other publishers that want to work with me. I have a book that I really want to do. I'm having a lot of fun with my blog. I'm talking about all kinds of aspects of design and gardening and everything else I do.

Doug:

Now is that off your main site or is that…?

Jeff:

No in fact my main site… I'm one of those people who's been really bad and my site hasn't been updated for quite some time, and it's in the works. But my blog is Blog-omotives at:

http://blog-omotives.blogspot.com/

Doug:

Blog-Omotives?

Jeff:

Yes. It has really become a good marketing tool for my business.

Doug:

Well, listen Jeff, I really want to thank you for taking the time today to spend some time with us and share all your knowledge and expertise. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Jeff:

Well, thank you and hopefully we can do it again some time soon.

Doug:

Great, Jeff, I'll talk to you soon.

Jeff:

Okay, bye bye.