Get Rich Blogging. Zoe Griffin
might lead you to come up with names that are remarkably better than your first attempts.
The final step is to make sure you can own the name across the whole of the World Wide Web. There is no point in giving your vlog a name that someone else uses on social media, forcing you to use a different social media handle. Viewers will struggle to contact you, and you’ll damage brand recall as people won’t be hearing the name of your vlog as much. Check whether you can set up Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram accounts in the name you like. If you can’t, I’m afraid it’s back to the drawing board.
You should also check whether you can buy a website domain name. Eventually, you’ll be setting up a website or blog as an extra revenue stream, and you can only do this effectively if you can give the website the same name as your vlog. Your viewers will assume you are behind any website that uses your vlogging name. If that’s not the case, you’ll be giving the company that made the website a lot of your valuable traffic. Go to a reliable web host like GoDaddy (Godaddy.com) or Bluehost (bluehost.com), hold your breath and pray your name hasn’t been taken. Otherwise, another brainstorming session is needed, I’m afraid.
LOGO AND GRAPHICS
Logos serve as visual reminders to viewers. Your logo should be powerful enough to trigger people to think about the type of vlogs you make as soon as they see it. Think of Apple’s part-eaten apple, Audi’s four interlinked rings or the Nike swoosh. Everyone knows the apple is associated with fancy phones and computers, the rings are a sign of a luxury car, and the swoosh signifies sports gear. A logo will give your vlog a stronger sense of brand identity.
It’s worth taking the time to come up with a good logo as you’ll be using it often. Your logo will appear on promotional material like business cards and posters, and you may also choose to have it as one of the profile pictures for your social media accounts. There’s nothing worse than rushing a logo and then getting bored or embarrassed by it later down the line. You can’t expect others to like your logo if you don’t like it yourself.
When designing your logo, make sure the design sums up what your vlog is about. This is important for anyone with an online brand – bloggers and vloggers – as little visual clues are useful in helping people to remember your content. My blog Live Like a VIP has lots of stars in the design because ‘star’ is another term for ‘VIP’ in the celebrity world. Grab a thesaurus and look up words related to your vlogging theme. Do any of those words conjure up a strong visual image that you could incorporate into your logo?
Your logo will be the first thing viewers see when they visit your YouTube channel as it’s positioned at the top of the page, so it’s vital to make it look visually attractive. Flick through some magazines for cool images that relate to your vlog and create a mood board. You could do the same online by browsing websites and saving the images or ‘pinning’ them to a Pinterest Board. Hopefully, you will notice a recurring pattern or image running throughout your mood board. Focus on that type of image. Is there a way you can simplify it? YouTube doesn’t offer much space for a logo to be displayed, and a complicated design may struggle when it’s shrunk. Your viewers should be able to glance at your logo and understand the theme of your vlog and what image you’re trying to project.
It’s also a very good idea to look at other vloggers for inspiration. Don’t pay too much attention to the colours and fonts they’ve used as you want your logo to be as unique as possible. Instead, think about how they’ve designed something that reflects their brand. What have they used in their logo that sums up what their videos are about? If there are no images, how have they picked a text font that indicates the type of audience they’re aiming at?
With some vague ideas in mind, it’s almost time to put pen to paper. There are just four more design elements to consider – word-to-image ratio, colour, font and size.
WORD-TO-IMAGE RATIO
All logos can be divided into three types. The first is a symbol or an icon with no text, similar to the Nike swoosh or Apple’s apple. As soon as you see those symbols, you know what the brand is selling. It’s very hard to think of a unique symbol that will provide some brand association with your vlog, but one option would be to use your face. You could sketch your face or create a simple cartoon or caricature. Don’t worry if you can’t draw – childlike doodles are often hilarious. If your logo triggers an emotional reaction like a laugh, viewers are much more likely to remember it.
The second type of logo is a word or an abbreviation. Be creative with the lettering and aim for fancy fonts and colours but don’t make it over-complicated. It needs to be easy to reproduce for branded material like posters and flyers.
The third – and most common – logo is a combination of a word and an icon. Using a combination of lettering and symbols, users can look at a YouTube logo and recognise the symbol, but there’s a word to back it up and drive the brand association home. For example, Charlie McDonnell from charlieissocoollike (2.4 million subscribers) uses his face as the logo on his YouTube page. His face is instantly recognisable as we’ve seen it so many times in his videos. However, he’s also written his name in simple white capital letters next to his face, to reinforce the fact that it’s his channel.
COLOUR
Colours stick in people’s minds. You want to create a logo in a colour that’s associated with your brand, so that when people see that particular shade they think of your vlog. Think about Cadbury’s chocolate and its Dairy Milk bar. It’s a unique shade of purple, isn’t it? Often I end up craving chocolate if I see that purple colour. What colour do you want to represent your vlog? If you have a healthy eating or eco-campaigning vlog, you may want to use a particular shade of green. Fashion and beauty vlogs look great in pink or red text to appear both bold and girly.
FONT
Think about your target audience. If you’re aiming at a young, fun audience, you can be more creative and funky with your lettering. If you want to educate people with political commentary, you should look for a classic font that appears strong and professional. Above all else, make sure it’s readable when it’s blown up and shrunk down, so it looks good on huge banners as well as tiny profile pictures.
SIZE
YouTube recommends uploading images that are 800 by 800 px (pixels), so make sure you keep those specifications in mind when designing your logo. Don’t create something massive as it may not look so good at 800 by 800 px. The small circular icon on a YouTube channel is only 98 by 98 px, so make sure you keep it simple.
TIP: SHOP AROUND FOR A PROFESSIONAL DESIGNER
There are some great-value websites that allow you to get input from a professional designer. This is particularly helpful if you know what you want and lack the skills to draw it out on paper, or if you don’t know where to start and want an outside opinion to kick-start the creative process. My favourite is Fiverr (Fiverr.com). Search for ‘logo design’ and choose your favourite designer based on their portfolio. The basic services cost only $5! I’ve also used Freelancer (Freelancer.com), which has more skilled designers but tends to be slightly more expensive.
THEME TUNE
When you hear the Eastenders or Neighbours theme tunes, you know immediately what you’re going to see on screen following the opening credits. You may not be anywhere near a TV, but if you hear the theme tune played on the radio or in a bar it will still cause you to think of the show and its characters and storylines. Your goal is to create a catchy tune that sticks in people’s heads and makes them think of your vlog as soon as they hear it.
When it comes to music, you need