Branding

This blog entry is here to serve two purposes. Foremost is an enormous thank you to the incredible Heath Howes, aka Warlock Macros Black who has helped me by creating new brand logos for this website and my YouTube series. His work is amazing and he was easy to work with completely exceeding my expectations. All of this, of course, dovetails into my secondary purpose today of showing you the new logos and providing a brief overview of my branding process as it sits currently. 

I benefited from classes on Hubspot and recommend them, especially if you're in a position to really make SEO optimization a priority. I only snagged pieces of what I wanted from those classes and I still think it gave me a huge boost/refresh in skills to help get this project moving. 

In March of last year, when a lot of us began to think about new life models, I started Dungeon Barkeep and TTRPG Pickup Con. This benefited from some of the essentials of the SEO process that Hubspot talked about. It also started the process of gelling a thought I've had for a while. 

What's the big idea? Unifying my production projects under one banner! This lets me promote them all more easily, communicate about them clearly and save money on web hosting. Yay! To do this, a brand needs identity. You need something about which you want to have "authority". Which is to say; something your posts could center on and that people will link back to your site about. In my case, The Indecisionist is about trying things and enjoying the process of finding out what works when the stakes are low so that when the stakes are high, I’m ready. 

I borrowed a term from the IT world to communicate this , "iterative development". Iterative development in web design and programming is a practice of releasing a version of a product with the understanding that you will continue to refine the work after that release. I’m using it to indicate that I am continuing to test multiple iterations of the same process for achieving results. For example, I have been iterating different live stream methodologies through the Dungeon Barkeep project with the intention of ensuring that I can confidently produce more polished streams for projects like Starlight Radio Dreams where patrons have paid for the experience and the burden of professionalism is higher. 

So, I've made slow steps towards this goal and thanks to the last little kick from the estimable Warlock Macros Black studio, I'm ready to take the big step. To reveal new logos and start sticking those logos in their relevant appropriate locations. This should also help to establish a difference between the projects I produce as distinct from the project where I am the producer in a larger team. So, To make a distinction the following projects are Indecisionist productions, TTRPG Pickup Con, The Dungeon Barkeep and Time 2 Party. I create Starlight Radio Dreams and the Shanty Shipwreck Show alongside amazing teams and those projects are featured on the Indecisionist website for cross promotional purposes. 

This brings us back to the big piece of business for this announcement, the logos. Heath went above and beyond in re-working the logo that Tabitha Burch originally created and I clumsily digitized. His elaboration on the existing piece is stunning, beautiful and clean. He achieved this with minimal direction and I am beyond pleased with his work.

Credit to Warlock Macros Black

He also built a logo from scratch for the Indecisionist brand. This will serve as a logo for the website as well as the brand mark for unifying the products I put forward. 

Again, with very little direction he created something so elegant yet unfathomable that I would not have even thought to ask for it. This logo combines three typographical marks in a calligraphy inspired style. The intention is to evoke a question mark, ampersand and exclamation point to stand in for “What And Wow”. While I focused on these marks and a pile of other symbols and cues envisioning some mess of symbology to try and communicate the breadth of this brand, his instincts took him in the perfect direction to create this moving and clear mark. I am thrilled. Please enjoy these and look for them to start cropping up all over the place. 

Credit to Warlock Macros Black

Please check out Warlock Macros Black the next time you need a logo, design or commission. I also happen to know that he can hook you up with a saddle, should that strike your fancy.
Check out his freelance profile on Twine: https://www.twine.net/MacrosBlack
His Portfolio website: https://www.heathhowes.com/logo-design.html
Follow him on Instagram @Warlock_Macros_Black.