Hello, welcome to another episode of Flash Briefing February. I'm Peter Stewart. And together with Susan Cooper, we are here every day during the month of February to give you more hints and tips, advice, for the skill set the mindset and the marketing to build a better briefing. You know what, there is no other course like this anywhere around, we bring it all together for you. So by the 28th day of the month, you will know much more about Flash Briefings, the production, the presentation and so on, then you did on day one now yesterday, we were talking about creating your Flash Briefing logo or design or cover art, whatever it happens to be. So this is what we're going to be continuing with for today. And then tomorrow we'll move on to another subject, but there are various things to tell you about. First of all, I think perhaps one of the most important things is don't steal someone else's design, because if you steal someone else's design, then you're going to have solicitors letter, very likely coming through either on the post or through into your email box because there are various bots, which chase around the internet trying to find and trying to match different designs or different pictures, which are the same as their clients. So if you haven't bought a particular design, you haven't bought a particular clipart or photograph or whatever you could, frankly, to use the vernacular be done. Now, having said that, that as a proviso to begin with. That's kind of number one priority. I'll hand over to Suze's to introduce herself won't give Suze such an authority to talk about designing things. Let's find out.

Hi, there. Yeah, I'm Susan Cooper. I'm a broadcaster. And I also have my very own Flash Briefing. So I've been through all of this myself trying to decide what logo to have, how to put it all together, what I can use, what colours to use, what picture to use, all of those things. So yeah, that's kind of my credentials, I guess you would say So yeah, I would absolutely guarantee totally backing up what Peter said they're not using anything that even looks slightly similar to a trademark logo or anything like that. And also, you know, all of these great online libraries, they're really, really cool kind of unsplash, all those pixabay, all of those free photo libraries out there a great, but there are only very few images that kind of relate to smart speakers. And they've been around the block a few times as well. So if you want your Flash Briefing, to stand out in the skill store, and really say shout that it's you rather than somebody else, and the best thing you can really do is to create your own now, don't Don't cry, it's okay. You don't have to be the most creative person in the entire world. You really, really don't. There are some fantastic online tools that are totally free that you can use to create your very own logo with your own font and your own colours and all of those kind of things really, really simply and the one that I used in the one that Absolutely suggest you have a look at two is Canva. Now all the links are going to be in the notes for for the show. But if you go along to Canva and basically sign up there for a free account, you will find a very simple and intuitive way to design your logo, you'll be able to put in sentence sizes that you might need to use to create your logo, you'll also be able to choose very specific colours, if you've already got brand colours and you you know what the hex codes are for those, then you'll be able to input those there and make it exactly the same as all of your other branding. And you can choose various pictures, icons, and different graphics and things it does have a paid for to where you can use other graphics and things as all of these things do. But to be quite honest, the stuff that's on there for free pizza is not so bad, is it?

Absolutely. And you may have to pay perhaps a pound or $1 or something for one of those but make sure that you are One of my tips with Canvas is you have a have a play around, but don't play too much. Yeah, because it's really easy to get sidetracked and really easy to think, oh, I'll just change this. And I'll change that. And I'll change something else. And I'll change that as well. And then it ends up looking a bit of a dog's dinner, you know what I mean? So because they have professional designers that put together hundreds and hundreds of templates, kind of essentially go with what they suggest, just change the picture, or change the colour or something like that. But don't keep changing all the different fonts because you don't want different fonts or too many different colours in your design, because otherwise, you'll look at it and you'll go looks a bit wrong. don't quite know why. And it looks a bit wrong because it is a lot wrong. That's the that's the that's the point. And it looks as I say, like a dog's dinner rather than the dogs. Something else. And if you're in the UK, and you know UK vernacular, you'll know what I mean by that. So if you're really creative, you're really really lucky. So there's Canva to help There are other techniques and other platforms as well, which will list in the show notes, snapper and get stencil and design as well. So all sorts of different things you can use. But if you want to perhaps get a photograph as soon as we're saying a little bit earlier on from somewhere else, pixels on splash unsplash and pixabay. Do make sure that you read all the terms and conditions. I know they're a bit tedious, but sometimes they don't allow you to use their photos unless you have given them a credit and you don't allow them to they don't allow you to use their photos for for professional works and things like that, and certainly no on selling it. So be aware of that you don't want to fall afoul of those particular rules or you find someone else to do it for you on Fiverr or Upwork or something like that. You cannot pitch to them. And do make sure that you check their portfolio to Make sure that you're getting some really quality work because you know what, even though it says fiver, you will end up paying much more than that I've been caught out a couple of times by people who've said they can do something and then it doesn't quite look very good. And also, there's always going to be an upgrade. If you want an HD version of something. Or if you want a JPEG rather than the PNG or something like that, they will charge you more. So do be aware that it's not just going to be five pounds, don't lose it euros. However, it is worthwhile spending a few quid or a few hours putting something together because a quality image reflects on your brand is very, very important to make sure that it's high quality resolution. That is really clear. It's simple. It's straightforward. It follows your own brand design guidelines for your brand, as in the typeface, the font, the colour, and things like that as soon as we're saying a few moments ago with the with the hexes and also do bear in mind a couple of other things about us. size because when you upload your logo to, to Amazon to your developer account, it's going to want your design in a couple of different sizes. So be aware that you should be able to provide those. Now there is a service called promo.com that which will resize your logo. And by that, I don't mean it'll crop it, it will just change the actual actual pixelation will keep the same design, but change the actual size of it, which is really, really helpful. If you're going to then upload your Flash Briefing to Apple as a podcast days, surprise, surprise, wants a slightly different size as well. So again, be aware of that. And also be aware and Susan, I'll throw this back to you that when you upload something to Amazon for your design, it's actually going to appear as a circular design rather than square design. So make sure that you've got everything in the centre Have your square design so that when it's circularise Yeah, when the top and bottom corners are shaved off, or you don't lose any of the words. Yeah,

absolutely exactly what you said there. I mean, they do give you when you're on the developers console, it gives you kind of the ratio that you need to create it, but you do need to remember that they are going to make it circular to put into that little icon that's on the skills store that looks like a speech bubble. So yeah, nothing that kind of goes edge to edge. And you don't want to be losing the edge of your wording, side to side either. So you need to really be aware, perhaps even create it in the custom dimensions that it gives you as a square. But then draw a circle using camber in the middle and make sure all of the really important stuff that's needed fits inside the circle because it does just just kind of condense it and collapse it into that kind of tiny area. Now talking about it being so small, of course you want it to be eye catching and justice. Pete was saying earlier, it's a really good reason not to load it with all the things, you know, keep it really, really simple, really eye catching something that people when they're scrolling are going to be able to see recognise that it's you. And it doesn't need to be really, really complicated. And yeah, the templates that are in Canva, there are an awful lot of them that you can choose from, and kind of all different styles to kind of relate to and represent your brand and your Flash Briefing. So I think that's kind of it summing up for today, all on logos will be back again tomorrow with another Flash Briefing, February episode. So do join us then.

Bye for now. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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