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In this episode of Resourceful Designer, I'm joined by special guest Ian Paget of LogoGeek, author of the new book How To Make A Living Designing Logos. Ian shares the story behind writing his book and how it can benefit anyone in the design space, even if you don't design logos. I was granted a sneak peek of the book and I can assure you that it's as good, if not better than we make it out to be during the interview.
Ian also shares a heartwarming story of wanting to teach his four-year-old daughter what he does and how this led to a second book for toddlers, My First Little Logo Book.
Enjoy the interview and be sure to back Ian's Kickstarter campaign and get a special edition of his book, only available for backers.
Links that are mentioned in the episode.
Ian's Blog Post: How I Wrote My First Logo Design Book.
Kickstarter Campaign for Make A Living Designing Logos
Children's Book: My First Little Logo Book
Transcript of the episode audio.
Below is the transcript of the audio recording. It was produced using AI Tools and may contain errors and inaccuracies in transcribing. For full understanding, it's best to listen to the audio.
Mark Des Cotes: Ian, welcome to Resourceful Designer.
Ian Paget: Hey, Mark, it's a real honour to be on here. I've been following your podcast for years, listening to it for years. So, it's really cool to be friends with you, but to also be on the show, it's really cool.
Mark Des Cotes: Thank you very much. Now, Ian, as most of my listeners or any long-time listener of my show knows, it's not an interview-based podcast. I don't usually do interviews. In fact, you are only the eighth guest I've ever had on the show. And considering this is episode 317 that we're recording right now, people know that I don't bring somebody onto the show unless I think there's a very good reason. And you and I have known each other for a long time. We've been friends.
Ian Paget: We have.
Mark Des Cotes: I know what's happening in your life and all that right now. And there is something that I thought I needed to share with my audience because this is very exciting. Ian, you've just written a book.
Ian Paget: I have, and it's been a lot of work and something that I've wanted to do pretty much half my life. I think every time I speak to other graphic designers, it's their goal to also write a book. But having gone through the process from start to finish, it is so hard to write a proper book, a proper meaty book. If you can imagine that, I can't remember where I heard this, but a relatively thin book, it's around 50,000 words. That's the equivalent of writing a thousand-word blog post every single week for an entire year, but with the caveat that they have to run simultaneously altogether in one go, and you can't repeat the same thing. It's a really big job, and I did it.
Mark Des Cotes: You did it, and The book is called Make A Living Designing Logos.
Ian Paget: That's correct.
Mark Des Cotes: Very apropos for the Self-proclaimed logo geek that you are. I've known you for a long time. Just a side story here, I was trying to figure out where you and I first connected, and I don't know if I first discovered you, it must have been through a blog post or something because I was looking back on Twitter, because I know I first connected with you on Twitter. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you kind of got your start as, I know you don't like the term influencer, but that's what you are, and you got your start building up your personality and all that on Twitter. Is that correct?
Ian Paget: Pretty much. Yeah, that's where the bulk of my audience Came from was through posting on Twitter.
Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, and I look back, you started your Twitter account in March of 2012. And I started my Twitter account three months after that. And the funny thing is, if anybody signs up for a Twitter account when they sign up, they always ask you to follow five people. Well, the first four people I followed were clients of mine, and the fifth was LogoGeek.
Ian Paget: Oh, really? That's really cool to know that, you know, after such a short period of time, My Twitter account had that much influence.
Mark Des Cotes: I wasn't on Twitter, so I must have met you someplace, I must have seen you, you were doing articles and blog posts and all that prior to Twitter, so I must have heard about you somewhere before that for me to say, “Okay, let me follow LogoGeek.” Anyways, all of that to say that you and I have connected for a long time, we're in some private groups together, so we're friends. And I know that you've been talking about this book for a long time, and I know that it's been a long process. You just said it's a lot of work doing it. But did you anticipate, like when you sat down on day one, how long it would take you to put this book out?
Ian Paget: Okay, so I wouldn't really say that there was necessarily a day one, when I sat down and said, I'm going to start writing a book and went through that. It's been more a gradual process. You want me to talk through it? Because it really has been a very gradual process.
Mark Des Cotes: I know you wrote a very in-depth blog post on your website and I'll link to that in the show notes.
Ian Paget: So you've seen that?
Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, I've read through that. You went through all the details. And if anybody is interested, the blog post is called “How I wrote my first logo design book,” and he goes from start to finish the whole thing, all the ups, the downs, the delays. So we don't have to go in through all of that. If anybody wants to read it, I'll include a link to it. But just give us the point form of your journey.
Ian Paget: Yeah so I'll go through kind of high-level step by step. So step number one, I wanted to write a book. It didn't matter what book. So originally it was the idea of doing some kind of illustrated science fiction kind of Star Wars kind of thing. And then when I started to work on Logo Geek and focus specifically on logos.
I was reading lots and lots of different books and resources and materials, so it felt right then to kind of collate everything that I was learning and put it into some kind of, I don't know, logo design bible of some kind. Like the ultimate guide to logo design. Because I found every book I read that was something different. I've read so many, and even today, that still continues now. So that kind of sowed the idea that I wanted to write a book.
I can't remember if I wrote it in that blog or not, it's something that's just come to mind talking through it now, but I registered a domain like learnlogodesign, and I thought that would be a really cool book, to do a book about Learn Logo Design. So that was the original idea and then from there I started to plan out what I wanted to do and I was thinking, a really nice way of gradually building this content out would be to just blog. So, take one of the chapter ideas and do a blog about that. And at that time I was thinking, yeah, if I could do one of these a month, then I'll eventually get there. But, as I said, a thin book is around 50,000 words. A single blog, you're probably talking to 2,000 words or so, doing one blog a month is just not enough. You have to do a lot more. So I actually found it really hard to blog as regularly as I wanted to, and it ended up being more like a blog every two to three months than every month. So, that particular way of working was just not really feasible, and I think every year, if you listen to my podcast, I normally have a summary of the year and my goals for the new year and the top of the list has always been to write a book for a long, long time. And I just got to a point a couple of years back where it's like, I have to do this now. And this was at the point where I handed in my notice at my full-time position, so I was going to be independent.
And from a reputation point of view, there's all these different things that you can do to kind of establish yourself as somebody that knows about a certain topic, and you can obviously do podcasts, podcast guests, writing, blogging, stuff like that, but the ultimate thing is to write a book, that really pins everything down. So I really felt like I needed to do that. I was also thinking about how can I pull everything together that I was doing because I've treated logo geek as a hobby, and it still is a little bit, but I've been dabbling in all these different things, and there's never really been this uniform goal or purpose across everything. So I got the community, podcast, blogs, got ideas for products and all these, like there's all these different things I've been working on. But what is the common theme? Not only did I make my mind up that I need to write this book, but it also helped me to level everything out and work out what I wanted to do. And this book became central to everything, the idea of making a living designing logos. So, anyone that listens to my podcast, there was a point where I changed the instruction to something like, “Welcome to the LogoGeek podcast, the podcast created to help you make a living design logos.” Whenever I started doing that was when I came up with this idea of bridging it all together.
So in order to pull it all together, I had to write this book. It was just something that, not only was it something I really wanted to do, it's like a bucket list thing. People were asking questions and I'm like, “Everyone's asking the same questions over and over again.” and I needed it to help people, I needed it from a commercial point of view, I needed it to bridge everything all into one. So there became that day when it's just like, I have to commit to this. And that's when it became a point where I accepted that this was a big challenge, this is going to be a lot of work, and in order to do that, I had to make a routine and I had to write every single day for a long period of time and just burn through it. So that's what I ended up doing.
So when I got to that point, because of the blogging and because of the years that went by and accepting the volume of work, I did become very aware that it was going to be a lot of work. So when I did sit down to start working on it daily, it took a month or two just to do a first draft and then there's obviously been lots of iterations and changes and other stuff.
Did I think from that moment that it was going to take me a couple of years to actually finish it? Now I thought it would take a few months, but here we are. And I'm at a point where it's finished, and I can go into any more of that stuff that I just kind of rush through in more detail if needed.
Mark Des Cotes: All the details, as I said, are in that blog post that you wrote. Very in-depth. If anybody wants to know more about that.
I'm just going to throw this out there in case anybody doesn't know you, Ian. I've known you for so long, and for some reason, to me, you've become kind of one of, I won't say the, but one of the figureheads in the logo design space. You know, you're up there with a lot of other famous people, while LogoGeek is known among them.
I mean, you've been judge for logo design contests or challenges and all sorts of stuff like that. But this book, as you said, creates the authority to bring you to that next level. I mean, you've got a Twitter following. You said you started on Twitter. You've got when I checked just the other day, You have over 95,000 followers on Twitter. You have a Facebook group for LogoGeek that has over 10,000 members in it. You've done a podcast that has, I think, 140+ episodes. You've been writing blog posts dating back, as you said, you started with the blog post. This goes back to 2012 or 2011 somewhere. You started with your blog posts and all this stuff. So this accumulates to, you already had the authority, But this kind of gives you the proof. Like a lot of people say, once you've written a book, that's what a lot of people kind of view as the benchmark that yes, you are the authority once you have a book on the subject.
So even though you had all this other stuff that put you there, now, finally, you have this book out there, and it's doing that. It's gonna put you on the map. And again, maybe I'm just a friend saying this, but I anticipate that this is gonna give you that extra push to be an authority in the logo space.
Ian Paget: It will be interesting what happens because, being completely honest, I've done this almost entirely because I wanted to. Obviously, I want to help people and for it to do well, but as I've mentioned, it's been a bucket list thing. I wanted to do this for me. So I've done what I wanted, literally, I am just happy. I've got a copy in my hand now on my shelf. If nobody bought a copy, I would be happy because I did what I wanted to do, even though I put loads of work into it. This isn't about, not really about making money or building authority. It's more that will be a benefit of it, like the authority building especially. But it's more that it's a goal that I set out to do.
When I was at college, I think I got a D in English and never was that good at writing. Career advisors said that I could never do what I'm doing, and I'm doing it. It's more like a summary of everything that's happened for me over the last 10 years and put it all into a book. So, for entirely selfish reasons, I've finished it. But I know it will help people, and something that I really tried to do with the book, and I think it's worth explaining this to you.
So the original concept was to basically create an ultimate guide to logo design. But through reading loads of books and articles and literally everything that's come out about logo design, I've probably seen it shared or spoken about it in some capacity either through posting on Twitter or the Facebook group or on my podcast. So while I was writing I actually found it really hard to write an ultimate guide. So what I started doing quite early on with the writing was sharing my personal experiences. And once I started doing that, not only was it a lot easier to write, but everything was just flowing out of me when I was writing in that way. I actually think it would be more helpful for people because of the idea of what I'm doing.
So this is the book, it's called Make a Living Designing Logos, and this is how I made a Living Designer Logos. This isn't me telling you how you should do it. It's more like this is what worked for me. This is what's been effective for me. Nobody can question or doubt it because it worked.
Whether you disagree with my approach, I'm actually open to that because something that I want to do is build an ecosystem around this concept of making a living designing logos. So in one of the early pages right at the beginning, It actually says I want to help you make a living designing logos but there's not a single way to do this. So I'm sharing in the book what I did, what worked for me, what I think is the best way of doing it, and then with the podcast I can find out how other people make a living designing logos.
I can learn from other people that maybe disagree with something that I'm doing or disagree with a guest or learn from some marketing expert on a topic that I know nothing about.
And then the idea is that we're building up this system where this is what's worked for me, this is what I know here today, that's my story. And then I can build on that and create this whole system that encourages people to find their own way and to just be inspired by that.
And I think that's a much better way of doing it because these how-to books that are literally dictating how you should be doing everything, that's just what worked for them. And it's quite arrogant actually to kind of write a book like that.
So I've tried to do it very much in a very real, raw, honest way. So to share what worked for me, what didn't, what I would do differently, and all that sort of stuff. And I hope by doing that, it should be a much more valuable book for people. And I think it will hopefully inspire people, that no matter what their background or where they came from, whether they are self-taught or they are learning through university, their own journey is theirs. And they can take the lessons or the principles of things that I've done in order to make a living designing logos, but just apply it to their stuff and learn from everybody. That's what I'm trying to do.
So it's not really just a book, It's an introduction to an entire ecosystem that I will be dedicating probably the rest of my life to.
Mark Des Cotes: That's great. And for anybody interested in the podcast that Ian's talking about, just look up LogoGeek podcast, I know I've mentioned it many times before on the podcast, but if you're not familiar with it, LogoGeek, it's available anywhere that you can listen to podcasts.
Now, Ian, I look around my office, and I probably have just over a dozen books on logo design here, not counting all the ones I have stored away in boxes in my basement.
Right now, as we're recording this, we're on video and I can see your shelf behind you. You've got dozens and dozens of books, and I'm sure the majority of them are about logo design. So what do you say to people who say, “Well, I already have a whole bunch of logo design books.” What's the encouragement for them? I know you've talked a lot about your journey and all that, but, what's in it for the people, for them to want to pick up this book if they already have a whole bunch of other books on logo design?
Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. So I've very much taken this into consideration because, like I said, the original idea that I had, there's literally a thousand books like that. So something that I've tried to do, and I briefly mentioned this already, is to share the processes and the approach that I've taken to my thinking behind logo design, how I work with clients, my process, the reason why I've decided that process, how I work out prices, how I built up a reputation, all of that sort of stuff. So it's a lot of stuff that I haven't necessarily gone into detail on my podcast, but the idea is that this isn't really primarily a book about logos, because that's been done a thousand times.
If you want to learn the process for logo design, there are literally a thousand books out there. Yes, you can learn this from this book, but that's not the main thing. The main sort of topics are getting clients, getting leads, turning those leads into sales, building authority, building reputation, being able to continue things on the go and growing that business, stuff like that. And as I mentioned, it's all from my personal perspective.
So I've been fortunate with my career that I've worked in-house with teams. I've then became a creative director for a company for around 11 years. And on the side of that, I started building something for fun. I didn't think it would become anything. Now I still find it so weird that people like yourself see me as an influencer. It's really strange because you can do all of these things, and I speak about this in the book, and it builds up this credibility and this reputation and you kind of build up this name for yourself, this entity that's kind of almost bigger than you.
And I talk a lot about that in my book, and I know this is a book that nobody else could write. There is not a single person on the entire planet that can write this book because the idea is that it is very specific and very unique to me, and I'm sharing what I did, what's worked for me, and I've been as honest as possible. I've spoken about things that did work, things that didn't work, things that didn't go well and all that sort of stuff.
For starters, it's completely different to any other logo book that's out there. Also, the title suggests it's more focused on making a living as a logo designer rather than trying to become a millionaire or something like that because I've been really fortunate that I've built almost a lifestyle thing because I'm in this really good position. I’m really lucky that I'm able to do this, but I spend half of my time with my daughter, and I don't pay for child care or use a nurse or anything like that. I literally spend half of my time with her, and I'm able to watch her grow. I was able to see her first steps. I haven't missed anything from my daughter growing up. And unless you're in the position where you have built your own brand and built a company, whether that be logo design or whatever, that's stuff that I'm explaining in this book that I've been able to do. And not many people are in the position to do that, but I believe that anyone can do that.
So even though it's specifically about logo design, I think anyone else that's doing even web design or any other area of graphic design or even business, they can probably learn a lot from this because only maybe one-third of it is logo design and then the rest of it is pretty much building a business in the way that I did it. Whether that's the right way or not, I'm not saying it's the right way. I’m not saying this is the way to do it. It's more this is what worked for me, and hopefully, by reading, that you might be able to take some lessons away and make a living designing logos for yourself.
Mark Des Cotes: That is wonderful, Ian. And as listeners of Resourceful Designer know, that's exactly what I've been doing with this podcast. I share my experiences, my stories, what I've done, my successes, my failures, because I want people, my listeners, the whole point of Resourceful Designer is to help people start and run a successful design business. And whether that's graphic design, web design, logo design, I've got listeners that do trade show design, there's some that are animators, there's some that are illustrator, all across the board, but we're all in that creative niche.
Ian was kind enough to give me an advanced copy. The book is not actually available right now. We're going to get to that in a little bit. It is available to support on Kickstarter, and we'll get to that in a minute. But Ian was nice enough to give me an advanced copy of the book for me to look through. And I can tell you that this book covers so much more than many of the other logo design books that I have.
Because as Ian pointed out, he does touch on logo design. He talks about his process. He talks about the tool he uses and how he goes about it, and what's important, what's not important things to look for in logo and even some things that most logo designers don't even think of, like the nuances of making a logo, taking a logo from good to exceptional. That's all covered in this book, but there's also so much more about going beyond the process of the logos, to as he said, attracting clients. You talk about contracts, you talk about proposals, you talk about presenting to the client, you talk about winning clients over, and networking. It's so much more than just logos. As the title states, it's how to make a living designing logos.
And you mentioned earlier when we were talking about a thin book, this is not a thin book. This is 330 pages. And it's not just 330 pages of fluff. I have some books that are beautiful, beautiful logo design books, but the majority of the book is comprised of images. These are not images. You put a few images here and there to explain a point, but most of it is just you explaining to people your process, how it worked for you and how they can incorporate it into their lives in order to build a successful business.
Now this book is beautiful in its layout, it's interspersed with some amazing original logo designs done by you Ian. Some stuff I've seen in past, some I hadn't seen before.
Ian Paget: Some of it I've never shared previously.
Mark Des Cotes: It’s some beautiful work. But as you're going through the book and you see these pages and you go, “Wow, what a beautiful logo!” And at the bottom of the page, each one of them says designed by Ian. I just think this is something that anybody, whether they're an exclusive logo designer or anybody who's starting a design business in any form, as you said, I think it's valuable for them. It can give them some great information, and it's definitely worth picking up.
Now with that said, I did tease about the Kickstarter. Why don't you explain why you decided to go that route?
Ian Paget: Sure. Okay, so everything that I'm doing is entirely independent. I'm not using a publisher. You tend to find that most graphic designers that are releasing books are invited by a publisher who will then distribute, edit, and all that sort of stuff. I've done this entirely myself. Throughout the last two, or three years or so, not only have I been writing a book, but I've also been looking into how can I get this out there. And something that really excited me and one of the reasons why I really started pushing is because there is, and I'll talk through this on the assumption that people don't know about it, but there is something called print on demand.
So a lot of books through websites like Amazon, when you buy a book, it doesn't exist. There is no stock. It’s not on the shelf. It’s not stored anywhere. Basically, what happens is Amazon will print that, make the book and then send it to you. And this is print-on-demand. So there are no upfront print costs or anything like that, which is kind of revolutionary really.
I mean this has been around for a long time but the more traditional way of publishing used to be very expensive because the average person would write it then they would need to hire a graphic designer, an editor, and then they would need a publisher. They would have to pre-pay for bulk orders and then distribute it and everything like that.
But now print on demand, it's literally all free, you create the files, you stick it on a website, and I'll talk through those shortly, and then if somebody orders it, they fulfill it all, and they give you a percentage of the profits. So this is all great, this is all exciting, and there were two companies that I ended up looking at.
There is Amazon KDP, so KDP is Kindle Direct Publishing, so that's publishing directly with Amazon and then the other one I was looking at was IngramSpark, and at the time of doing my research and this has actually changed now, at the time of doing my research if you wanted a hardback book KDP couldn't do that two years ago, they can now. Also, IngramSpark, if you want your book to be in book shops, libraries and all that sort of stuff, if you were to go through Amazon KDP and I think this has changed again now, you could only ever sell it on Amazon directly if you went through Amazon KDP.
So originally I was looking at IngramSpark because they sold it through Amazon still, but then they also allowed you to distribute it to bookshops and stuff like that. So I was looking at these two, and at the point of nearly finishing it, I ended up getting samples.
So I think all graphic designers are the same, they're slightly impatient and they just want to see a physical book. So as soon as I finished creating it, even though it hadn't been proofread and stuff like that, I wanted a real copy. So as soon as I could order one I did, so I ended up getting a copy from IngramSpark and a copy from Amazon. And that was very exciting. In that blog that you mentioned there's a video of me, I literally just got home with my daughter, she'd unwrapped a load of presents, and I had those two parcels I really want to open, but I feel only right that I record it, so I just chuck down my phone on the side and unwrap them, and I think you can see my excitement in the video if you go through that.
But yeah, so the downside to print on demand, having seen the samples, and there are quite a few, first of all, the quality is satisfactory. It's not the most amazing print quality. I would say that of the two, Amazon is actually better quality than IngramSpark. There's a couple of pages that are slightly blurry, and if you're a graphic designer, and there's going to be graphic designers reading this, those blurry pages, I would send that back. But do you know what happens when you order a print-on-demand book and you send it back? It gets thrown away, and the person that wrote the book has to pay for it. It gets taken out of their profit. So literally it's a really awful system from that point of view.
So I'm not happy with the quality from IngramSpark. I think Amazon is fine. But then also, from a pricing point of view, it's impossible to compete with any of the books from publishers because if you can imagine publishers are printing, I don't know how many, hundreds or thousands, probably hundreds realistically. So they're able to bring the price down to £20-25 for a book, but in order to make even 50p profit, I have to sell it at over £30 just to make 50p per copy sold. And that's just because the print costs are high, and these companies obviously take a big chunk out of it, and you get this tiny amount.
Like I said, I haven't done this for money, so that doesn't really matter to me. So the main concern for me is just quality and the only real way that I can get around this is to either work with a publisher or to get a bulk lot ordered. So I started to get quotes from companies and say if I was to order up 100 copies, not only will it be better quality, but I can actually make them cheaper too. Cheaper for me, but cheaper for people that want a copy too.
Rather than selling it for £35 or whatever it would need to be on Amazon, I can sell it for £30 and make a little bit of profit on that as well. So it's just much better. So what I thought I would do is, because I know that there's a lot of people that wanted a copy that wanted to support it, that are friends, family, people that have been following me for a long time, they really wanted a copy. And it'd be really nice if I can get them a proper copy that feels like a proper graphic design book, that's got embossing on the cover. For me again, selfish reasons, I want to write a book, and I want it to look like all the other graphic design books that are done properly, but also, I want to be able to give people that actually buy a book a decent copy that's not blurry or anything like that.
So I looked into the cost, and literally after finding it out, I just sat down and created a Kickstarter campaign. There was no thinking about it. I sat down, it was 10pm, I was really tired, but I'm like I have to do this now because I don't have any time because as I said, at the moment I juggle my time between half my time looking after my daughter, who never goes to bed on time by the way so I don't have time even after she's gone to bed, and then the rest of the time I need to do my client work. So it's either dedicate time to making money or dedicate time to care for my daughter. So anything like writing a book or writing a blog, building my website, promoting any of my own stuff, podcasting, none of that makes any money. I mean, not directly. You have to do a load of work to get any income from it. So once I decided I want to do it, like I said, it was about 10 o'clock, I just sat down and did it. I just sat down and wrote. I got pictures, put it all together. I know that you're supposed to have a nice fancy video. I just literally took my phone, put it on a tripod and recorded something. I recorded it 10 times and then edited that out. I just put it out there and did it that way.
Now I've added a couple of other benefits, so not only can you get the book, but if you want a signed copy, which I still find strange that people want a signed copy, but if you want a signed copy you can get them because obviously I'm ordering bulk I'm going to be handling each one so if you want it signed that's an extra thing that you can add on. Something that you can do when you launch a Kickstarter campaign is that you have your initial goal, and I was really lucky that in 12 hours I hit that goal.
But something I've been working towards is stretch goals. Because obviously, the more people that buy books, the cheaper, in theory, they will be to order. So I can justify adding on extras. You know, this isn't about making money. This is about getting out the best quality version of the book. So the more people that back the campaign, the more value each backer of a hard copy of the book will get. So, I’m not far away from hitting the goal to do a little pin badge and bookmark. And there's another goal where I'll do an audiobook version. That doesn't currently exist, but I think that would be fun to do.
So if I hit a certain goal, then not only do you get a book, but you get a pin badge, bookmark and an audiobook version. And I stress this is cheaper, with the exception of postage which people have to pay, that and I can't compete with Amazon. With the exception of postage, this is all cheaper than it would have been for a copy on Amazon.
So it's just really nice that you get a better quality offer for more value. For me, it's an absolute no-brainer to launch it on Kickstarter even though I miss out on the vanity metrics of getting a bestseller. Because based on the volume of sales through Kickstarter, this book would be a number one bestseller in the logo design category. But I'm not able to say that because it hasn't done that.
Mark Des Cotes: Well, at the time that we're recording this right now, I just opened up the Kickstarter page. You have 108 backers, and you almost quadruple your initial goal. You're about 350 pounds away from that goal with the pin, and I really want that because I'm a backer, and I've been eyeing those LogoGeek pins for a long time, I want one LOL.
Ian Paget: I’ll probably get some new ones made up. I don't think I have quite enough to fulfill that many.
Mark Des Cotes: You're approaching that goal, and at the time that this episode released, there's still going to be just over 40 days left of the campaign, so if anybody listening wants to get, as Ian said, a better copy because Ian, after this initial Kickstarter, then the book will be available on Amazon at that point, correct? And that will be print on demand. So if you want the better quality version of this book, as he mentioned, with embossed cover and the whole bit then you want to get this through Kickstarter, which will probably cost you less money than if you wait and buy it on Amazon. I'm going to include a link to the Kickstarter in the show notes. But if you want to get it you can just visit resourcefuldesigner.com/designinglogos. That'll take you to the page, and if by chance you're listening to this in the future and the Kickstarter campaign is over, I'll just redirect that so you can get the book through Amazon. But yeah, you're doing very well.
Now, for the Kickstarter campaign, as I mentioned, there's still 40 plus days to go. You've almost quadrupled your goal, but it took off right out of the gate, didn't it?
Ian Paget: It did. It did. I was hoping for that. So being honest, I set myself a fairly low target, and I was pretty sure that I would reach that goal within the time that I've given it. I did not think that would happen in 12 hours.
Because printing books isn't that expensive. It is if you order one, but if you order 20 copies or something, it's a lot more affordable than print-on-demand, that's for sure. So something I did was set a goal, if I hit it, then I can get some nicer copies printed up. But having hit the £3,000 mark and bearing in mind that funding, something I didn't know about Kickstarter, they include shipping costs within the funding rather than separating it out. I know that might sound obvious to some people, but I was expecting that shipping would be separate from the funding you wanted. I was originally aiming for £1,000 pound, and that would have covered the order of maybe 30 fairly decent copies, and if I was to get more, then obviously I can get it even nicer. Even where we are right now, I've found companies that can do embossing and really nice stuff.
Mark Des Cotes: Well, hopefully the Resourceful Designer listeners will give you another little boost because I'm sure a lot of people that listen to my show will be interested in this book.
Just a question. This just popped into my head. You mentioned the possibility of an audiobook, depending if you reach that goal.?
Ian Paget: That will happen anyway. Whether I do it or somebody else does is the question. Because one of the things is, and I still need to look into it, in order to actually get something on Audible, it has to be to a certain quality and read in a certain way and all this sort of stuff, to my understanding anyway. But I like being able to read things in the way that I would read it and put emphasis on certain things that I would want to say. So I kind of want to do my own version. Whether that will ever be on Amazon is another question. So the idea of releasing an audio version that I've done myself, I don't know if that would be exclusive. I have to look into it.
So yeah, I don't want to say it would be exclusive because I might be able to release it on Audible, but that's happening anyway because something that I was very conscious of.
I've been interested in audiobooks for a long time. I used to listen to them walking into work and on the train and all that sort of stuff. I don't do that so much now that I work myself. But there are hardly any proper graphic design books. So I wrote this book in a way that it could be turned into an audio version. Whether I do that or somebody else, that will happen. There will be an audio version of this book at some point in the future.
Mark Des Cotes: As somebody who consumes most books via audiobook, I do appreciate you taking the time to write it in that way. And for the record, I did purchase a signed copy.
Ian Paget: Oh, thank you. I still find that really weird that people are paying extra. Because I go to Comic Con, I'm a big geek, like I'm a proper nerd, and I get autographs all the time, and it's really strange that people are paying extra for me to sign it. Which is really cool. Thank you so much to everybody that has. Just, you know, for me, I find it really strange.
Mark Des Cotes: I will definitely be purchasing the audiobook because, as I said, I consume most of my books that way.
Ian, I'm just thinking something here. You've written this book to help people make a living designing logos. So, in essence, you wrote a book to train your competition.
Ian Paget: Yes, I am creating an infrastructure to compete against myself, but at the same time, there is a benefit to that because it's not something I'm concerned about. But then also, I wouldn't be where I am now career-wise if it wasn't for the generosity of other people. So I have this mindset where if you learn something, you should pass on that knowledge in whatever shape or form. And the absolute best way of doing that is in a book because it's kind of permanently set in stone, and it gets passed down through history. It's the most permanent way of sharing that knowledge.
So personally, I just think it's healthier for the world if everybody just shares everything that they know, that they've learned. And as I've said, it's not a step-by-step guide on making a living designer logos. This is what I did. Take away the lessons from here and apply them to your own journey. I'm not concerned and if somebody does actually genuinely want to make a living designing logos, I am more than happy to help them.
Mark Des Cotes: I couldn't agree more Ian. As 317 issues of Resourceful Designer show, I'm right in there with you.
Now Ian, before we go, I do have to touch on this. Make A Living Designing Logos is not the only book you're putting out. Why don't you tell us briefly about this other book that you're publishing.
Ian Paget: So I made these little videos for my daughter. As I implied earlier that when I have a free day to myself, my little one, she wants my attention whenever I'm with her, so when I've got free time, I need to get my work done. So doing little promotional videos for my book, I get my little one to help me with it because it's a fun little activity for me. She wants to do it, she's having fun with it too.
So we did this little puppet show thing, we do that anyway, and on this one episode that we started making, which is called the Mr. Muffles and Evie show, which is a little puppet and her, this wasn't my idea. She decided she wanted to do one about my book, so I just went along with it and there was a point where I asked my daughter what's a logo. She's only four, obviously she doesn't know what a logo is. She looked really confused when I asked, but she knows the word and she knows my book is about logos, but she doesn't know what a logo is.
So I was thinking this is quite interesting, how would you teach a child logo design, and I don't mean a 10-year-old or somebody that might start getting into graphic design. I mean toddlers, can you teach them something like logo design, graphic design, branding? And I think you can.
My daughter, she can't read yet, but she learns stuff really quickly and I think, taught in the right way, she could pick this up.
So there's a series of books that she's had since she was a baby that are science books. There are books on quantum mechanics and evolution. They are complex ideas, but they are taught in a way where you open a page, and it's this is a ball. Literally, it explains complex ideas around the concept of a ball.
So I've had this idea for a few months thinking, how could I write this, thinking about it? And I was talking to a mutual friend, Caz, the other day, saying I'll probably start doing this book next. And I started explaining the idea a little bit more. I think he's probably one of the first people that I kind of mentioned the idea.
After that call, I had a ChatGPT tab open, and I thought, I'm just going to type this in and ask it, can you write a book for a toddler to teach them logo design? And it came up with some really great ideas. Then I started thinking, I wonder if I can make images that go with this in Midjourney. I dabbled with Midjourney a little bit, and I thought I'd put some prompts in it to create these really great images that would go with it. And within the space of probably 12 hours, I literally had the whole concept.
So I had the content, I had the images, all this sort of stuff, and I shared this on LinkedIn and my private Facebook account. And it's just mental. I just wanted to make this for my daughter. But a couple of people have been asking about it. So I know how to do print-on-demand. So literally earlier, and I mentioned it to you earlier, because it was something that I was doing, I signed into Amazon KDP and literally within the space of days, I've come up with this idea, My First Little Logo Book and wrote the content. Created all the images, and pretty much it's nearly at a point where it's ready to roll. So probably, this time next week, it would probably be available to purchase, just a little paperback version.
Yeah, just it's a little logo book to help teach toddlers logo design. I read it to my daughter on my phone, and what really surprised me, she understood it. She's like, there's a part in it where we do this ‘let's find logos, and she was walking around pointing them all out on her toys on things in the kitchen and all this sort of stuff, and understanding the concept of what a logo is. Which really amazed me. And it's kind of fun that my daughter now understands what I do as a job, and it's just fun.
Mark Des Cotes: Well, if anybody listening right now does have young kids, and you want to explain what logos are to them, I'll include a link where you can actually get this book on Amazon once it's available, just visit resourcefuldesigner.com/firstlogobook. And the title of that book is My First Little Logo Book.
Ian Paget: You know what's gonna happen, Mark? I spent half my life working on Make A Living Designing Logos. And then I spent a day on this other little book that AI's done. I reckon it might be more successful. (laughing)
Mark Des Cotes: What you created there, even though, as you said, it was mostly done through AI, is visually stunning. And I think young kids would get a kick out of it. They'd really like the book because it's so colourful. And it could help designers to explain to their young kids what they do. Even if they do more than just logos, it could explain that one little bit to them. So it'll be helpful in that way. So come on, people, get out there and let's make this one a bestseller. (laughing) –
Ian Paget: It would be a really good stocking filler.
Mark Des Cotes: I think this is a good stopping point for the podcast. I want to thank you for being on. As I mentioned at the beginning, I don't have a lot of guests, but I think this was very valuable, and I'm sure a lot of my listeners are gonna be interested in this book.
So you listening right now, if you wanna get the better copy. If you want to get the more professional-looking one, you better get over to Kickstarter and support before the campaign is over. And if you're listening to this right at the beginning, you have just over 40 days left to get that done.
So Ian, thank you once again and congratulations. And I know this is gonna be a big success. I look forward to seeing what you do next.
Ian Paget: Thank you, Mark. It's been really good to spend time with somebody to talk about this because it's something I've been working on for a long time. Not many people have seen what I've done, and nobody is really aware of these stories. So this is the first time that I've really gone into detail about the book. So thank you very much for the opportunity.
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