Could someone point me to where I can find a graphic designer/illustrator for my fledgling business please?

[Ryebreadandpickles654]

I want to create a logo to go on my website and all my merchandise.

It depicts an animal and a title within an oval shape.

Can anyone recommend someone who is reliable and a good illustrator with good taste/design sense? Can be in uk or eu.

I am an older entrepreneur so a total beginner at business and tech so this is all new to me, so I am very grateful for any advice.

Look at fiverr and peopleperhour, that's exactly the kind of brief that sites like that are great for. Good luck!

Fiverr.com is great as you can see peoples style and portfolio of work

Other options are upwork and 99designs.

Wow! You lot are quick workers! 😀😀👍

Thank you so much. I really appreciate every response and every recommendation.

This is one of the first steps in a very long journey!

Out of interest, if anyone can tell me, what tech skills should I acquire to run a small creative business largely involving creative workshops with a tiny bit of selling of actual merchandise related to the workshops alongside?

I have booked myself in to do an Excel course (dreading it)

Already have fairly good knowledge of Microsoft Word and Outlook

What else would be useful?

You should look at being able to use Canva. You'll need that a lot.

A booking platform

An email platform like mailerlite or mailchimp

If you want a website what will you do to build it? Wix, squarespace are quite easy platforms but if you don't have experience you'll need support. If you want a shop on there they have plug ins.

Social media like Facebook and instagram depending where your customers are.

If you want to see merchandise you'll need something like a sumup card machine.

Create a Google my Business profile - very helpful for local marketing.

Running a business now does need a lot of tech knowledge to be honest or you outsource it but that will always impact your profit.

I've just started a health coaching business, and these are the things I did as someone who had no clue!

1. Purchase Earnable, Remit Sethi's business course. I'm still working through this.
2. Purchase a website domain and create my site through SquareSpace. I've ended up going through them for everything, as it's all integrated (email marketing, scheduling, selling packages). I had no knowledge about websites, but managed to make a site that has got lots of compliments from friends.
3. Pay someone on Etsy to design my logo. She was amazing and did it really fast for me.
4. Use Canva to create social media posts.
5. Have a professional photo shoot done.

Good luck with it!

I used People Per Hour and found a really fabulous designer.

I don't like Fiverr as it hugely undervalues professional work. I paid about £80 for the initial design and £40 for the reworks I asked for. I was delighted with it.

This is really brilliant advice everyone; thank you so much!

I have already identified Wix as a contender platform; I think it fits my business slightly better than Squarespace but tbh I need to do a more in-depth comparison.

I haven’t heard of Canva before Doadeer but I’ll have a look!

Really appreciate you giving me hope that it is do-able SunUpSunDown thank you! And good luck with yours too!

I realise I will need help and someone to hold my hand tech-wise so will add finding them to to-do list, but equally want to try and learn and understand it as much as possible myself.

Thanks again to everyone who has responded!

You're more than welcome :-) I think one of my big takeaways from the whole process has been that for some things, it is better to pay someone who is an expert. They will do it better and faster. Also, it's worth paying for someone else to teach me the stuff that I don't know. So for you with the tech side, that sounds like a great plan to pay someone and learn at the same time.

Have fun, as it is a great creative process!

You're welcome. Feel free to ask more questions, I'm a Marketing Director and I run three businesses. 🙏

Thank you very much doadeer that’s v impressive and v kind of you.

And I will keep that in mind, sounds v wise, thank you again SunUpSunDown!

google Canva it’s free you can do your own logos. It’s a brilliant site

If you have not sorted this already I would be happy to do this, I offer a branding package to my clients or can do one off logo design DM me if you would like to chat about it xx