“After 5 years it wasn’t the people who were that talented who ended up being the best…”

Danka

Post by Natalia Kalife

How do you keep uniqueness in your 🎨 design?

• Inspiration is so important
• Don’t just follow the trends, “keeping at the core who you are and always make sure that whatever you do goes back to that.”
• “Trying to find what makes you tick and then visualizing that.”
• You can’t copy another designer, “you have to find your own voice.”

Finding what makes you tick 💭 

• Stop and go into your brain and see what truly makes you happy
• What genuinely makes you happy 
• A few hours of sitting down and writing down everything you love to do and makes you happy

Turning your passion 🩵 into a business

• If you are very passionate about something, you can turn anything into a business
• You have to find what really makes you happy

➡️ Before starting your agency or going freelance

• Make your time at an agency
• You have to learn first
• “You bring that inexperience to your clients, and they ultimately pay the price for you not knowing what you are doing.”
• When you start, “you need to build up your portfolio of work that you’ve done by yourself and not for agencies”

Working with people who inspire you ✨ and you can trust

• “I usually don’t do a big project, to begin with, I always say let’s just start small, let’s do a little project together, let’s see how we enjoy working together first.”
• Choosing who you work with 
  • If after a small project, you don’t enjoy working together, then you can go your separate ways, and each person can find someone who is a better fit
  • Based on the output you will choose what and how much to deal with

Starting out as a freelancer / solo entrepreneur 👩🏻‍💻

• The first client can give you the push 
• “If I can get one client, I can get more clients”
• “Always I think as an entrepreneur, you’re always a little bit worried about where your clients are gonna come from… even when you are super established.”
• “You start from scratch as an entrepreneur you don’t start from scratch as a designer.”
• “With every little project, you learn something.”
• You learn, and you become better at what you do
• “I think we women have this thing where we want to appease everyone. We wanna make sure that everyone around us is happy, so we will work harder than necessary.”
• “Really putting boundaries in place quite early on is a good idea, being very specific about what you will get for what kind of thing… don’t leave anything to chance…everything has to be really spelled out.”
• “Not being afraid to ask.”

🚀 Biggest fear or challenge when you started

• “I think the most challenging thing was really to value yourself.”
• “I think especially we women just have the habit of slightly devaluing ourselves and not fully believing in our capabilities.”
• “If I know that I have done a great job, then even if the client says, ‘well I don’t like it’ at least I know that I have done everything to make it as good as it could possibly be.”

Entrepreneurship as a 👩🏻‍🎨 designer 

• “A lot of people, I think, are not really educated in the design space. We have got this idea that Photoshop you press one button, and things just happen.” 
• It’s important to educate clients first on everything that is needed to move the project
• “Not being afraid to having those conversations quite early on and being really honest with people, also valuing your time.”
• “Setting that boundaries quite early on is really helpful.”

Keys to success 🎯

• Valuing your time
• Going above and beyond “I really will not stop until I’m super happy with what I’ve done.”
• “Picking the right clients that you like working with so you can genuinely like working with them and want to go on.”
• “Doing a really good job and really working hard and making sure that whatever you put in front of your clients is something that you are proud of.”
• “They come to me because they know that I will always just give them the absolute best that I can.”

🆕 Starting a brand from scratch 

1. Decide what your budget is
2. Will you be working with a professional or whether you have to do it yourself?
   • You can use different tools available. “Just don’t be too creative. If you’re not a designer, don’t try to do it yourself. In a sense of get this crazy idea for a logo and try to visualize it. Just don’t do it. It’s usually really obvious that its not professional and it’s not been done well.”
   • Use some fonts, keep it simple. Get inspired on Pinterest, that’s all you need
3. Think about what the branding is for
   • Be smart about how you are spending your money
   • Test your product before spending heavily on branding
     • “You don’t have to go all out on your branding. It’s great if you can, absolutely. But I think the most important thing is to test your product before you invest any money into branding…test your product…don’t go crazy with spending thousands and thousands of dollars on branding for a product that might not work.”
   • After testing you can be more confident about spending more on doing things right
   • “People will buy the product because of the product not because of the brand”
     • In the beginning, where should you invest your money?
       • On the product
       • On marketing is more important than the branding
4. Working with an agency or find a really good person to work with
   • It will depend on your budget 
5. Finding a really good designer / person to work with
   • A professional will do a much better job, they will think of so much more than just making it pretty.

Branding is NOT 🚫

• “A pretty color and few colors. It’s really determining what makes YOU truly YOU.”
• What makes you different. A good designer will help you find this and spell that message through different elements.
• Branding can’t sell a product that’s just not great.
  • You need a product that works and a point of difference.
  • Customers are savvy and won’t buy a product just because of the branding.

🌳 Sustainable Packaging

• Packaging has a repercussion in the environment.
  • Always choosing packaging that is environment friendly.
  • “Work with people who make that smarter decisions.”
• “Unless you are sorting a problem or offering something really different, chances are you actually are creating just lots of stuff that will end up in a land field.”
• Always choosing packaging that is environment friendly. 
• “We all need to do our part.”
• Younger generations are more aware: “it’s threatening their future so much more.”

Where do the best ideas 💡 come from?

• Watch the full episode to find out
• Not inspiration
• Spend time learning about the product “and really understanding the consumer that’s gonna buy that product.”

Talent 💥

• It’s “all about training.”
• “After 5 years it wasn’t the people who were that talented who ended up being the best it was the people who worked the hardest and it was the people who really…” [watch full episode to find out 😉]

🧠 Creativity

• “I think we’ve all got some creativity in us.”
• “We all have the capability to be creative.”