The Ultimate Squarespace Website Launch Checklist (10 min read) So, you’re ready to take the plunge and create a website for your business, but have no idea how to plan a website? No stress. I’m here to help!  Here’s the simple formula that you want to keep in mind as you are planning and writing your website. The Formula for Success: AGC Audience The first step in creating a valuable website is understanding who you are creating it for, how to attract them to your site, and how to achieve your desired goals.  Goals Every site has one primary goal: to convince your ..read more

   Let’s Talk Type Pre-recorded Live Q&A (1 hour 15 min recording) Do you struggle with typesetting clean, professional documents for your business? Have you always wanted to know the tricks that designers use to make things looks so darn good? Watch this pre-recorded Q&A where we talked all about typography. I’m going to share the basics of typesetting and how you can start to implement it in your work. I guarantee you will start to see type differently and finally understand why professional layouts look so clean. Topics Covered: * The difference between Adobe Fonts, Googl ..read more

   When should you hire a professional to brand or rebrand your business? (5 min read) Why go to the trouble and expense of branding or rebranding at all? The landscape is always changing, and you can’t afford to be left behind. New competitors, evolving customers, disruptive + new technologies and many other factors are forever evolving the marketplace. Often if we fail to adapt, we lose. Most of us entrepreneurs are so busy doing our work that we don’t have the time to monitor changing market conditions. That means overtime any of us could find our business out of sync with the ma ..read more

Image via Unsplash.com by Jeremy Thomas @jeremythomasphoto    What is your brand’s North Star? (3 min read) Your brand’s North Star is the promise you are making to your customers. Not sure what your brand’s promise is? Sounds like you need to invest some time and money into a proper brand strategy session. Clear brand strategy is a powerful tool. One that gives everyone a quick and easy-to-grasp concept of what your brand’s purpose and mission is. When everyone is aligned on the brands position, everyone start moving in the same direction. Everyone starts looking at the same North ..read more

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash   I specialize in helping service-oriented businesses identify their value, understand what makes them different and how to better communicate this through their brand. Every new client relationship always starts with me recommending these 3 books. So, I figured it was a good idea to write it down and share them with you here. Let’s face it, most of us that have our own business know we aren’t good at everything related to running our business. We are good at providing the services we offer, we might be good at talking about those services — but most of ..read more

  Photo Credit: @carlheyerdahl via Unsplash Simple SEO Tips to Improve Your Website Traffic (5 min read) Ever get those emails from companies talking about how they can help you increase your SEO for X amount of dollars? Ever wonder why the heck you website is on the 15th page of a google search? Ever wonder how those other guys are owning the top positions on google? If the answer is yes — this is the starting place for you! Let’s start with the definition of SEO: Search Engine Optimization (according to mozz.com) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your ..read more

    (10 min read + free PDF download) When it comes to preparing my final logo packages, I like to send a robust folder that includes every file you might need. But which formats do you need and why? For someone that doesn’t work with these formats everyday, it can be like reading a different language when looking at all the file names. This is why I’ve created my Logo File Types Cheat Sheet. Let’s keep things simple! Logo Files & Usage All the logo files can be categorized as either one of two file types: Vector or Raster. Vector files have mathematically precise points that m ..read more

  How to use Creative Thinking to Solve Problems (5 min read) Photo Credit: @momentsbygabriel via Unsplash Every time I sit down with a new client, I walk them through my creative process. It helps us align on what to expect at each phase of our project and often takes the fear out of something that can be a bit unknown. In preparation for writing about the creative process I came across this incredible write up by James Clear. In his article Clear speaks about the creative process in relation to a short guide, written by an advertising executive named James Webb Young. In 1940 Youn ..read more

  Put Your Purpose Foot Forward (5 min read) Photo Credit: @goian via Unsplash As a designer I am obsessed with purpose. Design is all about purpose. Design is caring about others and what they want. It’s not self indulgent. It’s about having empathy. It means putting others first. It’s about listening first. Stepping outside of what you think you know and coming at it from a new perspective. Being in their shoes. This is the same when a business is building a brand and trying to connect with it’s audience. What is your brands purpose? Beyond making money, why does it exist? Every s ..read more

  Photo Credit: @tateisimikito via Unsplash First Step: Start (2 min read) “You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.” ― Brian Tracy Hello there. Welcome to the new M81 Creative Blog. This is my first entry and really just an introduction of the intentions. I’ve wanted to start this blog process for a number of years now. Today, after jumping into a new year I’ve decided in order to do so, I really just need to get start. So, here we go… I'm Marlo Biasutti, an entrepreneur, graphic designer, teacher, brand strategist, project manager, problem solver, desi ..read more