"Facets of Love" Book Cover Art

Renee is an Army solider and a Reiki Master came to Transcend Ideas looking for assistance on designing her book cover art. "Facets of Love: A Guide for Every Lost Woman Desperate for a Life of Full Authentic Embodiment" is Renee's guide/gift to the world through her own life experience. Through her on her own personal story of ending a nineteen-year marriage she offers women extra tools in processing their own relationship trauma.

This illustration of a silhouetted woman is an embodiment of Renee's journey back to her self-discovery. This journey is hers and we wanted to help amplify her journey by encouraging her to utilize this unique illustration she drew during her path to freedom.

The Advantages of Shopping Local

It's Halloween now, how did that happen?

You probably already notice Christmas ads sneaking in. The capital frenzy of holiday shopping is an all too familiar behavior in American culture. You have probably noticed that camp stove you bought online was backed up for months and just came in. That is 100% because of the chain supply shortage. So many of us consumers have leaned on these online sales especially during the pandemic for things that have provided comfort and convenience during the most inconvenient time. Local shops do rely on the chain supply for material and inventory, too however those handmade items they are less dependent. Especially those local artisans. The convenience of shopping chain stores can not replace the experience, the personality, the value, and the soul of the products of local shops.

Here are the advantages of shopping local:

5. Talk to a human being, not a hotline number speaking to an automation. Have a problem? Take it back to your local store.

4. Quality over quantity. More is not necessarily better here.

3. Word-of-mouth is golden, your friends and family are your most influential voices in your purchase choice.

2. Align with your values with where you shop. Spending your money locally helps funnel that money to charities that are doing good locally in your community. You have seen campaigns that kick 5-10% of sales to a local cause. Keep your eye out to those opportunities to give back when you purchase items this season.

1. You are supporting local people in your community.

Brands Need to Make Women Feel Seen

We just couldn't stop saying "yes, yes, yes" to this New York Times article from Mara Altman on "Yes, Marketing Is Still Sexist." We are fascinated by how brands have marketed to women for generations with not ever truly getting them. Being a mother it is even more apparent how brands have missed the mark on reaching us in a profound way. A way that we say out loud, "you get me!" Cunningham and Roberts beautifully illustrate how brands haven’t truly considered the audience they so strongly want to reach.

Women in 2021 want to feel seen and heard. The economic impact the pandemic has had on women has been devastating. Opportunities have halted for women, especially mothers. There has also been an epidemic of workers coming to the realization that work can look differently for them with remote working being normalized.

Women are working, they work from home, they go to school, they are raising their kids, they are without kids, they are coupled-up, they are also single, they delegate the cleaning or the laundry, they order-in, they cook, they build community, they have family nearby, they have a chosen family to lean into, they pay for daycare, they pay for nannies, they have furbabies too, they try to balance their self-care, they are constantly questioning themselves, they are confident, they are all different shapes, sizes, and shades, they "Google" when they don't know something. The point is women are a fluid group that makes up 51.1% of the world's population.

It's imperative that women get a seat at the table in creative decision making when it comes to marketing to women. After all, we are women and that's the most relatable as it gets. Relating directly with the consumer you want to reach is most ideal in messaging and creative direction. From our perspective, we believe that with empathy marketing there can be lasting "business to consumer" relationships formed with great care and consideration. Here's to more profound relatable brands that reach real women.

Women's Equality Day

Today we celebrate Women's Equality Day, this day is to commemorate the passing of the 19th Amendment in the United States that promised women the right to vote in 1920. This is a day to celebrate however not all women were free to vote nor were men. Millions of women and men were steered away from the polling places for decades. The fight over the amendment was not just about sex; it was also deeply entwined with race.

NPR: "Yes, Women Could Vote After The 19th Amendment — But Not All Women. Or Men" - Listen to Story (5 mins)

Even in 2021, voting rights are in jeopardy with new voting laws put in place in the more recent months. The fight for the right to vote is never over until ALL citizen's voices are heard at the ballot box.

Today is a day to celebrate but also an opportunity to look to the horizon at what true equality really looks like. There is so much work to do to create a more balanced and represented nation in order to form a more just and fair society.

Enneagram in Business

The Enneagram helps provide a framework for personalities that are quite useful in business. Small businesses and nonprofits around the world use the Enneagram as a breakthrough approach to leadership, team building, communication skills, and emotional intelligence. What’s your Enneagram?

My (Heather’s) Ennegram is a TWO.

Accessing your own personality type is helpful to understanding yourself. Being familiar with: how you work, what motivates you, and what setbacks you may challenge you is self-awareness. Self-awareness is an excellent place to begin in any avenue in life. “Making meaningful human connection” is our mantra and if we can move through the world with more self-awareness we can show up more authentically and have more profound, and productive relationships.

Empathic Marketing

The definition of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

When communicating your message to your customers it’s important to practice curiosity and compassion with empathy. Your customers want to feel they are understood and that the products and services they utilize are in alignment with them. With that being said empathy is a vital component of your messaging.

Top 5 Tips on Instagram

These tips for Instagram will hopefully allow you to reflect on how to post effectively. And these tips are not just exclusive to Instagram but every social media platform that you may engage in. The idea is to stay intentional in your postings and hopefully, these tips will help you refocus.

5/ Don’t overwhelm your audience.

Graphics, if used should be clean and easy to make out. Often posts can be overwhelming visually. Keep it simple. Use the caption to embellish more in detail and provide a call-to-action. Direct folks to your bio link, use any of these: Linktree, Linkbio, or the like.

4/ Focus on the intention of your posts.

What is your intent on your share? Focus is important no matter how we interact on social media. Otherwise, it can be confusing as to what you’re sharing and how your audience can relate and engage.

3/ Express curiosity with your audience.

Ask your audience questions. Your audience wants to feel connected to brands. They want to see humanness and see behind-the-scenes. Often brands tend to share polished photos of their offerings and never ask for insight from their consumers and that's a big misstep.

2/ Learn confidence in your voice & your messaging.

Entities are comprised of people. People have value and their unique perspective is important to share. Refine your tone and approach and keep that consistent throughout.

Reels: These short videos can be a fun way to thread simple statements together to get across to your audience with a little entertainment mixed in.

1/ Be consistent.

Stay consistent with your social media activity. Whether you are using Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, or Linkedin the same is true for them all, consistency is key. Be aware that you don’t need to use all the platforms. To pour into each account effectively you really need a full-time team to do so, otherwise, pick one or two to put energy into, you can always repurpose posts.

Consistent posts: Pick days of the week and particular days you want to correlate your message to. For example, Monday Motivation may be a motivational quote or tip you have to encourage your audience. Your audience may even count on that time you'll share and will be seeking out that information from you.

Find balance: I can not stress enough however to find a healthy balance between running your business and managing social media. Delegate this time if that'll best serve the business. Your number one asset is you and your time is invaluable. Click the “let's get coffee” link and let's set up q time to discuss further. I'm always ready to transcend ideas together.

Colors Have Meaning

A large component of brand identity and discovery is choosing the color palette. Colors have meaning and some that we gravitate towards are quite a subconscious choice.

For Transcend Ideas the colors we utilized; 

If you ask us, that is pretty spot-on.

We found some beautiful colors in nature that also tell a story of the energetic embodiment.

See the following link to describe Symbolism in colors

When we begin working with a client on brand identity we first enter into discovery, read more here. After discovery, you enter into the logo variations however we urge our clients not to enter into colors just yet because it could influence the choice of the logo itself. You may have heard the term “make it pop” and it’s quite literally what colors do is bring life and richness to the brand. 

If you like our approach signup for our newsletter or email hello@transcendideas.com for any questions on how we can help.

Top 5 Tips to Use Canva for Social Media

We wanted to share some best Canva practices that would be useful to any small business, nonprofit or life coach. This powerful design interface is utilized by billions of users worldwide and for good reason. This Top 5 Tips to Use Canva for Social Media centers on leveraging this tool to benefit your process and your feed.

5. Create a FREE Canva account. Even with limited knowledge of design, it’s wise to give it a whirl and/or hand it off to your creative team. The free version has plenty of bells and whistles. Nonprofit accounts are free for Canva Pro plan with proof of nonprofit status. The Canva Pro is only $12.99/mo with a ton of flexibility to make this tool even more powerful.

4. Create templates to match your brand. With Canva Pro you can utilize their “Brand Kit” where you can indicate colors and fonts you use. If you are using the free account, simply upload your logo and Canva will already detect your colors. Their eyedropper is pretty handy too to use those same colors throughout the design.

The templates on Canva are immense with the ability to move elements and apply colors. We like starting from Canva templates and then altering them enough that they are unique. Billions of users utilize them so let’s try our best to customize the templates to match or compliment your brand.

3. Graphics should be simple, concise, and unique. If you have a lot of content to share in multiple different digestible bit, usef graphics. The font you choose should be legible and the text shouldn’t be too small to make out. Also, the text should predominantly be in the caption of the post itself.

2. Use different sizes for all social media needs like Instagram, Facebook Cover, and Instagram Stories.

We copy and paste elements from different templates to keep the look and feel the same, for example for this blog post we exported an Instagram (square 1080x1080) graphic and have an Instagram Story graphic queued up to share when we published this post.

1. Access the Canva app on your phone and desktop. The desktop version has more flexibility with selecting, grouping, and alignment of elements. Using the app is best when we need to review on the go and/or post directly from your phone too.

Extra tip: Download your graphics on cloud storage (ie. Google Drive, Apple Cloud, Dropbox) that you can access on your desktop and phone, that way you can sync up with your team and/or social media manager making reviewing and posting simple.

Sign up for our newsletter for more tips or email hello@transcendideas.com for any questions on how we can help.

Brand Identity - Discovery

Discovery is simply that, discovering what your brand could become.

A vital component to discovery is the personality of the brand. Would you like their personality if the brand were a person? Would you be friends? Would you want to do business with them? Why?

Starting with a list of traits and action words helps narrow the scope to make you think a bit before diving into the name and the logo mark. 

For Transcend Ideas we went through a discovery as well and we certainly did not take it lightly. We brainstormed on words that conveyed growth and progression. We thought of words that went beyond ascension. 

Our words:

Hopefully this approach will give you some ideas on how you’d like to approach your brand identity journey. Read more about what your discovery entails and email hello@transcendideas.com for any questions on how we can help.

Case Study: Carving the Future

Carving the Future is a nonprofit that's mission is to empower youth through snowboarding and skateboarding. They were looking for a brand identity package to convey "cool" and confident. The logo variations include designs that can be applied to hoodies, stickers, and banners.

The snowboarder and skateboarder were both previously illustrated by Amy Dowell, a local artist, and then vectorized to utilize in the logo variations.

Designed with Gliffen Designs

Top 5 Best Tips on How to Use Clubhouse

We are a huge supporter of Clubhouse, a Drop-in Audio App that can be leveraged for so many meaningful purposes. It’s a fantastic way to get direct feedback and connect to people on very specific topics all over the world with a tap of a finger. See the following Top 5 Best Tips on How to Use Clubhouse and see if it aligns with your objectives whether it be for personal, business, or nonprofit motives.

5. Upload a photo and biography.

This is the way you present yourself on the app. Your biography gives onlookers a capture of who you are. Connect your Instagram and Twitter so they can DM you and connect.

You can also create “Listening & Learning” banners that appear across your profile photo if you can’t engage in the conversation but just want to listen.

4. Follow people that align with your objective.

The Hallways of Clubhouse is controlled by the interest groups you follow and the people you follow. If you notice that the hallways are not interesting simply look at who you follow and do an audit from time to time. It’s okay to unfollow people or unfollow clubs if you don’t like what you see. When you first join the app following does help build your network. But once you’ve decided what kind of experience and influence you want to have, build on that.

3. Limit your use, you can spend a lot of time on this app so reassess your activity and your primary objectives.

Don’t spend your time in rooms that don’t interest you. The “Leave Quietly” is the biggest button on the app for a reason, use it unapologetically.

2. Raise your hand.

Engage with the conversation. The best thing you can do on this app shares your story. Notice the name of the room, that’s the focal point. If you are going to share stay on topic and try to veer off too far. Also, be mindful that others may also be on stage behind you that haven’t shared yet so be mindful of the air time.

Some etiquette: Start every introduction with “Hi, this is Bob speaking.” That way both the visual and auditory can identify who is speaking and one thought from one person isn’t being strung into another person’s share. You also are advised to end in “This is Bob and I am finished speaking.”

Don’t feel like you have to go up and speak. So when someone invites you no need to cave if that’s not something you are ready to do yet. Join up that Introduction to Clubhouse rooms or simply listen in on rooms to get the hang of how it works.

1. Co-moderate your own rooms.

Co-moderating is fun!

It is a matter of finding people you really vibe well with and can share ideas alongside. Sky’s the limit on the subject of the room.

Pop-up rooms can be very lighthearted and fun. They are not as focused but still a great way to connect more casually.

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We can’t stress enough, no matter what platform you want to build a presence on, be sure it’s something that adds value and doesn’t veer you off course from your primary objective.

Top 5 Tools to Adopt for Staying on Task

We all know that adopting new behaviors is so difficult but when it comes to keeping on the task it does help to look to new tools to see if it resonates with you. I have a list of tools you might be interested in using that’ll keep you on task. And if it doesn’t resonate with you leave it behind and only take up what will serve you.

5. Notebook

A basic notebook that you can task out your goals for the day, week, month, and even year. The start of the week is the best way to begin here. I personally like making checkboxes on the left margin with sub-tasks below. I reflect on my Monday list throughout the week. I love using different colored pens to keep my notebook looking more motivational and even entitle items bolder.

4. Calendar

I personally use both Google Calendar and a physical Moleskine calendar. I love the reminder on my phone to “chime” into my day so I don’t forget meetings or tasks. I also love to utilize my colored pen in my physical calendar to keep it lively and give it that extra “pop” in my calendar.

3. Asana

I am very adamant with all my clients on how Asana can help task out work both internally to your team members and for external projects. You have the ability to assign and mention members and communicate directly task-by-task basis. You can set due dates and sync dates on your Google Calendar. You can attach designs, photos, and files to tasks so it’s easy to review on the go or on your desktop for download. This App can be utilized for both your smartphone and on your desktop. The App is free to use but also has a Premium package if you’d like more expansive features.

2. WIN Journal

Yes, another notebook or section of your notebook. Jot down your “wins” no matter the size. When we celebrate our wins we acknowledge achievements and that’s a healthy habit to get into. All too often we look at the big picture and spend less time recognizing the smaller yet important victories. I sketch alongside my wins and general use bullet points or write a short description like a normal journal with the date.

1. Someone to keep you Accountable

Who’s your accountability person? Like Meredith and Christina in Grey’s Anatomy, you need “your person.” This person will check in with you to see how far you’ve come with reaching your desired goals. Depending on the goal at hand a weekly or monthly meeting might be enough to keep the ball rolling.

That’s my list of Top 5 Tools to Adopt to Stay on Task and I hope you took away something useful. If it doesn’t serve you, leave it behind.

Case Study: Nikki Foster for Congress

Nikki Foster ran for Congress in Ohio District 1 in 2020 and needed a branding identity for her campaign. Her long career in the Air Force as a pilot helped inspire the creative direction of her campaign brand.

The color blue was the main color because she was running on a Democratic ticket coupled with red accents.

Eckhart Tolle packs so much wisdom in his spiritual teachings. Whether it is in the spiritual realm or the entrepreneurial the words resonate. When you know your WHY the rest falls into place. We help with the secondary reality of your business through branding and marketing.

See #4 on this recent post: “Top 5 Things to Think About Before Hiring A Creative Agency or Freelancer”

Case Study: Wyoming Coalition for Animal Protection

Wyoming Coalition for Animal Protection (WYCAP) was looking for a logo design that helped represent their nonprofit organization. WYCAP advocates for the species that can not speak for themselves.

Although there was debate on what species to include we did come to a compromise on which were represented from domestic, farm and wild animals. They landed on a triangle shape to help represent the trifecta of the categories of creatures they devote their advocacy to protect.

Designed with Gliffen Designs

Wayne Dyer is a favorite American author and philosopher of mine.

His look at the world within us makes one think non-linearly. As humans we are creators in all its interpretations. We are capable of more than we can ever imagine because we are infinite beings with extraordinary possibilities.