Who am I?

I had the name. Still no committment, no money spent. I could still back out. But, I thought I should have a logo designed just in case I decided to go forward.

A friend referred me to a woman who she really liked. The woman did all sorts of identity things for businesses - logos, web pages, hosting and so on. The logo she designed for my girlfriend was just exactly her. It showed her spirit, her goals and her attitutde. I figured I couldn't go wrong.

The woman met me at her house. It had flip charts, art, colors on the walls and a really big MAC. Being a PC person myself, I eyed the MAC suspiciously. Was this person really good? Then I remembered MACs do graphics well, so I thought my first impression might be wrong. She gave me a list of descriptive words in different categories. It was something like - attitude: optimistic, realistic and so on. I spent about 15 minutes choosing what I thought described me. She looked at the words and started describing what she felt I was as a whole. We did this process until we hit what I thought fit me. I'm one of those open, nurturing types who wants to help. My reason for opening the kitchen was more to help other culinary folks rather than make money, so all this fit.

From there I told her the name of the company. We found several pictures of magnolias on the web and I started pointing out colors I liked and shapes. With that I left her to her work and waited to see what she came up with. Several days later I got her first design in my email. Truly, I was disappointed. It didn't have the colors I thought we had agreed on, nor did she use the flower that I identified as my favorite. I sighed. She was expensive ($1,000) so I decided I was going to push the point. I drove back to her office and we worked for about 2 hours getting shapes, shades and placement right. I again left her alone to finish it up and again she sent it to me. Still not right. I was getting irritated but for that kind of money I wasn't willing to let it go until it was exactly what I wanted.

Back I went. By this time she was getting irritated at me. I wanted this little point taken out of the leaf, I wanted this green thing a different shade of green. It was finally done but I spent a lot more time working with it than I thought I would.

In the end, though, I had something that I normally wouldn't have chosen for myself. The colors are pink, red, green and purple. I'm not a pastel person but somehow this design and color combination worked for me. However, I knew I would not have her design my web page. I didn't have enough time to spend on that activity.

Remember, I still haven't committed. Yup, I spent $1000 but I still didn't feel like I was committed to opening the kitchen. I kept on going though.

Next was a web site...