Why Your Podiatry Practice Needs a Professional Style Guide

You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always with my trusty cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's everything going today?

I'm fantastic today, Big Jim. And if depending on when people are listening to this, this episode should be released on the January 1. Happy New Year to everyone if you're listening to this now on the first or in one of the days leading into the New Year. So we're recording this just before the New Year because you and I have a life, and we're not we're not gonna turn up here on New Year's Day and record it and just put it straight out there.

No. No. We we have got a busy holiday season in my house and I'm sure you do as well. So we we gotta get these out out the door so people have some some good reasons to get away from the family during the holidays. Listen for half an hour and you have a good excuse that they're, you know, working on their practice.

So no, I'm excited to to jump into today's topic, Tyson. So what are we gonna jump into today?

Okay. Today's topic is all about every podiatry practice needs to have what they call a style guide or it's like a corporate guideline. And it's pretty much a document that just sort of provides that you get from your graphic designer or graphic artist. I think they used be called graphic artists. Now they're graphic designers.

And and it specifies all the details about your logo and your business name. So it's it's a really really important document to have.

So we're not talking about fashion. Right? So we're not No. Be not not clothing or or style, that kind of style. Right?

That's a different We're

talking about the That's a different style guide that I have.

I mean, you look pretty good today. I mean, you got the button down, you're going you're looking the collared shirts, so looking good. But so, know, on this topic, it'll be a little serious, guess. The the branding and the the fonts and the logos, you know, where to get started with something like that with the with the graphic designer?

Well, the the main thing with the graphic designer is when they put the style guide together, it includes what fonts are actually in your logo. And a lot of people don't realize that when when it's actually put together, there are particular fonts that you use. And whatever fonts you're using should be carried through with everything that you're doing whether it's on your website, you're putting a brochure together. It should really blend and match with your logo. Unless your logo is funny running, writing, or something like that.

But still, if that's what it is, you need to know what that font name is. And that will actually be in the style guide. The style guide also gives you, and this is really important, your color codes. So for example, the main color that I use in nearly everything that I do outside of marketing is a is a red color. And if I just went to a a printer or something and said, here's here's my red, and I show them an example of my red, the amount of variations it could be, there'd be hundreds of them.

So the color code is a specific number that when you put that in so if I could be on Canva designing something, I have my color codes in Canva. So every time I'm doing a background, I can automatically say use my style use my style guide. So my color code, for example, is a c 2B37. Now I never remember that number. I don't know why.

Sounds like a robot from Star Wars, but but no, that that's a that's a really, really important thing, right, is to get those color codes and that kind of brand consistency. Because if you're just trying to eyeball it, and I think, you know, I don't know if anybody in audience has ever tried to do that, you know, as time goes on, you're gonna lose a little bit of that brand that brand consistency. So you wanna make sure you're using the color codes every time you create a graphic for your practice or like you talked about talking to a printer, your website designer, you want that consistency of your brand because if it's one shade or two shades off, it's gonna look really really bad.

Well, it's it's when you first if you're just looking at something that's being created, you might notice that it's a different slightly different color. But when you have multiple things done and they're all sitting there together, that's when you actually start to notice, oh, okay. There's a bit of inconsistency because especially a red because when we first pick the color, it was named Barcelona red. But if you then said to a print of Barcelona red, then all a sudden, there were these different variations of what they thought Barcelona red was. And if you add just the wrong color a little bit, that red turns into a pink, and that wasn't the color that I wanted.

Or if it was if they went the other way, all of sudden it'd go for it'd go to like a fire engine red, which is also not what I wanted. It was more of like a a blood red. So when I used to try and describe it, it used to be really difficult. When I eventually said, okay, I'm gonna see a a graphic designer, tell them what I wanted. Once I got that style guide down done, every time I did a new logo for something, so whether it was the, you know, the Podiatry Legends podcast, whether it was the Podiatry Business Owners Club, every one of those logos, people see there's usually the same red color, but I use a gray color as well in a lot of a lot of my artwork.

If I'm doing a webinar, if I'm doing a live presentation, all my slides have that gray color, and that red color is in in everything. It always turns up in everything that I do. And I try to also in my Instagram account. Every now and then, you'll see that that same color will just pop up on different posts to sort of just give a bit of uniformity of what you're posting.

Yes. That consistency of your branding. Right? You're not you're not jumping around between a bunch of different colors. People know that the Podiatry Legend Podcast and your Podiatry Spartans group, you know, in any kind of thing you do online, it's gonna be this red, white and gray.

So it makes people makes people feel familiar and they don't feel startled to be like, you know, why is he doing something in orange or why is he doing something in green? Is this I I do a similar thing with podiatry growth, right? It's kind of this darker blue color and, you know, I'll have some black and some white and maybe some grays thrown in there, but I'm not I'm not going to orange. I'm not going to, you know, fluorescent green with it. It's gonna be this consistency in the coloring, and then that just leads to consistency in the thoughts of the people that are looking at your brand and your your different types of whether it be your website or the places.

They get familiar with you, they get familiar with color, get familiar with your your logo and your business name.

So Yeah. And it's no different to a podiatry marketing. That that green color that we use is basically anytime we're doing anything, that same color is going to basically appear.

It sure is.

So the other part the other reason why you would use a graphic designer would be is looking at your logo in a different perspective. So sometimes you'll have your logo done horizontally, lengthwise, or you might have your logo stacked. So when I've whenever I had a logo done, the graphic designer will give me, this is what your logo looks like horizontal. This is what it looks like when it's stacked together. But also, because social media is so important, you want your logo to fit in a square and also fit into a circle.

So I've seen some logos where they're very horizontal. So when they put that into a square a square box or a a round circle, I can tell they don't have a graphic designer helping them out because it's just their horizontal logo stuck in a in a square or a round thing, and it's really hard to read. It's never been designed in a in a vertical sort of format as well, which then fits well in a square and also in a circle.

Yeah. I think that's a great point. It's you can have to have that balance between it looks good as a square and also looks good as something Yeah. Know, a little bit longer, whether it be text or an image of something. I think a good example is there in your background, your podiatry legends podcast Yeah.

You know, square. It's gonna look good as your icon on Instagram. It's gonna look good on LinkedIn. It's gonna look good in other places where you're confined by the constraints of these different websites. And, you know, are some opportunities to have something longer whether it be like the the cover image of your your YouTube or the cover image of your LinkedIn.

But then there's other other times when you really need to have something smaller, but still recognizable. And you know, working with a graphic designer can be a great way of making that happen.

Yeah. And that's the other part. You've gotta look, what does your logo look like when it's large? And sometimes people will design a logo and it's really fancy and intricate and looks beautiful. But when they shrink it down because you might be you might be sponsoring a a sports team or an event, and they've got 15 sponsors on the back of a brochure or, yeah, on the back of a t shirt.

And you see these sometimes really colorful logos when they're shrunk down, you're like, what? I can't. You can't read it. Or they might be, say, cutting costs that everything is being printed in black and white. So what does your logo look like taking it from a color to then making it black and white?

So no difference to the Podiatry Legends podcast logo. I have versions of it in white and gray, the gray color that is my gray, but I also have black and white versions and white and black versions depending on where I was potentially going to be using it over time. This is where a graphic artist should be packaging this all together for you in this particular style guide.

I like that because the when we talk about the sponsorships for advertising, right, if you only have a horizontal logo, it's really long but whoever's putting together that that document or that website or wherever you're have that that logo of yours on there, if you don't give them some options, you might be unpleasantly surprised when shrink your shrink your horizontal logo down to something that's completely in, you know, illegible versus if you'd had a square logo with, know, it would it'd be a bigger size. I know that I've resized logos and try to keep things equal, but it's always those really long horizontal logos that make it a little bit difficult because you don't want to give more visibility to someone just because they they couldn't turn it into a square if everyone else has a logo that fits in that way. So it is one of these things where be aware if you if you don't make your logo into some type of square or work with graphic designer do so, you might you know be unhappy you know might be unhappy with the way other people use your logo if you don't get kind of final say or an opportunity to kind of revise some of the documentation or revise some of the print advertising or sponsorships that you're being involved with.

Yeah. Well, I've seen some logos where they've got multiple. There's like five different colors. Looks fantastic in color. And and they weren't podiatry clinics.

It was a different business. But when it was shrunk down, the five different colors were then all of a sudden and it was in black and white, and the whole the logo looked awful. It looked like a peacock instead of what it was actually supposed to be. But it's also important too, like yourself. You do websites for people.

So you're if you're getting your website done by someone who is a professional, if you can hand them a style guide and say, here is my style guide, give it to an electronic version, they are gonna be very happy with you. Because straight away, you know what their color codes are. You know what fonts they're using. So you can use that to actually design a more professional looking website then go, okay. So what's your business name?

Oh, you don't have a logo? Okay. And then just trying to trying to make something out, and then it looks completely different to everything else that they've got actually in the clinic. And you're nodding your head so this has happened to you, hasn't it?

No. Mean like, you know, if someone has a, you know, a horrible logo or it's been it's 20 years old

Yeah.

And they're like, oh yeah, just do my website and they have a bad logo. It or they don't have a they don't have fonts, they don't have a color scheme that is, you know, really kind of portrays professionalism or helps build trust online. It's it's almost it's almost kind of a deal breaker from my perspective whether it's a good fit for me to work with someone or not because it becomes the point where it's it's a real hindrance to the practice and to the brand of that clinic. So Mhmm. You know, getting the style guide, you know, I always try to work with it.

If someone doesn't have a logo, I don't I'm not a logo designer. Right? So and you probably shouldn't let, you know, chat GPT or these AI image generators do a logo for you. You should talk to, you know yeah. I know that I work with professional graphic designers to make that square and horizontal logo because you're gonna need it for and the you know the fonts and all those kind of things.

When those things are in place, it makes building a website or an online presence just much much easier. And you know when you so it's really really important for people. One of the first steps into building kind of a better online presence is that logo, color guide, style guide like you're saying, to make sure that you have those building blocks in place to make the website go even faster, to make sure that it's getting out there and and building kind of a professional trustworthy brand.

Yeah. And and I've seen people where, well, my graphic designer, she's probably done about 14 different podiatrists that I know that I've referred to her, and I get a really nice Christmas card each year. I should be on commission, which should be even better, but I'm not. And and, like she every time she gets someone, she goes, yeah. Thank you for sending them.

Well, when I look at what they had, they needed help. They really need to put something together. Because sometimes someone might have designed something on Canva themselves. And when they've designed it, and then every time they go to give it to someone, they're doing a copy of a copy, and then the the quality of the it starts getting pixelated when it's too big. So it's I know.

It's so important. And the other part, the graphic designer will give it to you, will give you a logo and everything in different formats. So a printer, for example, might say, oh, can you give us an EPS copy of your logo? You're sitting there going, well, it's an EPS copy or or they want a PDF copy. If you've only got a a JPEG and you give it to them, they go, oh, no.

It's it's the it's the file size is not bigger. Can you give me a bigger file size? And then all of a sudden, you you start trying to create another one, and it looks different to the first one that you had. So and this is where things start looking unprofessional. And I know printers, sign writers, people doing websites, if you can give them a style guide, there's going to be less arguments in the end.

You're gonna be happier, they're gonna be happier, and there'll be less errors as you're going through the process. And in the end, having a style guide makes everything else cheaper when you're actually putting it together.

Coming back to that file format thing, like like you said, they're gonna give you a folder with, you know, five or six different things or different sizes, but those file format and the kind of the format of the whether it be a PNG or an SVG, you know, kind of getting a little bit more technical. Some some image files, they don't scale well. They don't, know, you can't go from a small little thing to a huge thing. Like I said, it gets pixelated, it gets weird looking. But if you have things like an SVG file and other files, that they have this kind of unlimited ability to just kind of scale or go up and down in size.

And what so if you're doing something that needs to be really big, having these this SVG and these different types of scalable files formats can be really really helpful. So you just need to keep it's like one of those things where you just keep it kind of in your Dropbox or on your computer or somewhere where you just kind of go back to that time and time again and you don't change it, don't change colors, you don't do anything, just leave that alone and when you know the printer or the website person is gonna do some work or maybe it's your person's doing social media, You kind of have that treasure trove of logos to kinda pull from in the future because it really kind of saves you a lot of time.

Yeah. And it's no different if you're getting a business card done or you're getting letterheads or you're getting a brochure done. The graphic designer can just they can show the printer if this is how it needs to be set up. And that will be part part of your style guide. It'll have all the dimensions on where it should be, the blade, all this other information.

And I can spot a podiatry clinic that has a graphic designer and a podiatry clinic that doesn't. It's it's it is so obvious. You just go and look through some of their information, and straight away, you can go, if I can pick that, then sometimes I think sometimes when patients are looking at your information, whether it's online or offline, it could be a brochure, sometimes they don't know why they don't particularly like you. And and it could be there's something about the your your marketing with your fonts and your colors that just doesn't make them feel comfortable. And you'd never see I'll tell you, you know, there's no big company in the world that would not have graphic designers and probably a bucket load of them that are working in the background, making sure everything is always on point.

And that's why franchises do well because a franchise will have this all done for the person.

Yeah. The consistency is hugely important to to build trust long term.

Yeah. And just couple of things. One, it's always important to note who owns the artwork. So my graphic designer, when they give it to me, I sign something that says it's mine, and they sign it to say it's mine. If you go to a printer, for example, and get a business card printed, or they do a brochure for you, most people don't realize you do not own the artwork.

You paid to have it done, but you don't own it. And a lot of people think they do own the artwork. So whenever if you're working with a printer to do something, just remember, get them to ask them to sign over the get them to sign something to make sure that you have ownership of that artwork. Because if you then take that artwork and give it to a different printer and get them to reproduce it, they can actually sue you. Now not that Yeah.

Not that people would do that. I don't think people would do that, but it depends where your company is now, where your business is now to what it becomes. And if they did if if a printer did all this work for you and then you decide to go to a different printer and they did $1,020,000 dollars worth of work for you over the next couple of years and they're looking and go, that was all the artwork that we designed for them, then there could be repercussions. And the other final point I wanna make is you get what you pay for. So there's a huge difference between a professional graphic designer and someone on Fiverr.

So if anyone here is using Fiverr at the moment, you will get what you pay for. And I remember going back seventy years ago when I was designing a logo for something, and I had someone on Fiverr do it for me. And after they did it, so so can you give it to me in this format? Oh, yeah. There'll be an extra oh, okay.

Can I get this? That'll be an extra. Can you give me that'll be an extra. So by the time they were telling me what all the extras were, it was actually starting to add up. And I'm like, you know what?

Stick it in your bum. I'm gonna find a and that's how I found my graphic design in the first place.

Now, I think that's a great point. I think what happens sometimes when you're working, you know, you see the fiber, it's like, it's $50 or it's $75. And like you said, it's gonna be these kind of add ons that are just gonna kinda make, you know, you're kind of going to someone for graphic design for their professionalism

Yeah.

For their expertise and also to save you a significant amount of time because, you know, you're a podiatrist, right? You don't, you know, obviously you have some business skills and those things, but it's not something where, you know, you went to art school and you know how to design these things. So if you're gonna have to be on top of somebody, you know, multiple revision I mean, there's revisions are part of the process of developing a logo just to make sure you're

Oh, yeah.

Creating a brand that you like. But if you're getting, you know, extra charge, it's taking a lot more time, how do you source sourcing somebody on some of these Fiverr platforms, you know, these kind of freelancer platforms can be quite difficult. So, you know, you're better off developing kind of a long term relationship with a graphic designer who knows your brand, who knows your clinic, and then it could kind of help you evolve your brand over time as opposed to just these kind of one off people that are a more more like a you know, a gun for hire who will kind of do everything in their scope. But if it goes out of scope or a couple more steps, they're not gonna be willing to help you out until you start paying up. So it is, in my mind as well, it is worth working and, you know, developing a solid working relationship with a professional graphic designer.

Yeah. Well, when I worked with my graphic designer, we had the first meeting, sort of gave him an idea of what I wanted. They then sent me some information and said, yeah, think about fonts and and some things to think about. Then they said, go and look at some logos inside and outside of podiatry. What what do you like about them and what don't you like?

So I compiled all this information, gave it to them, then they came back to me with, like, an outline of some ideas to to look at. And I looked through all those, like that, don't like that, like that, don't like that. Went through them all, gave it back. So it was a process. We went back three or four times before I finally took her to say, yes, that's what I like.

But the longer I've worked with her, the easier it's become because she now knows me. We've been working together, wow, over ten years. So so now when I want something done, I can just bang, send her an email, hey, I wanna get this done, and I'd give her a few ideas. It comes back to something so fast, and it ends up not being that expensive once they know who you are, what you like, what you don't like, and what it is you're trying to do with this new sort of graphic information or how you're gonna actually use it.

Yeah. Developing that long term relationship and that rapport between you two that just takes a little bit of time to develop. It might be a little bit it's gonna be a little bit more expensive than these kind of one off Fiverr graphic designers. But in the long term, it's it's well worth it. Like you said, just kind of developing that relationship over time, real can really provide benefits beyond, you know, the money you're paying.

Yeah. And it's funny. Yeah. Podiatrists want a patient to pay $5.06, $700 for a pair of orthotics, But then they they complain that, oh, I don't wanna pay anyone more than $50 to do a logo for me. You go, seriously.

You you like I said, you get what you pay for. No different to a patient going down to a a a chemist shop and buying a pair of art supports off the shelf. If you heard pay all your patients are doing that, you'd be going, no. You should see a professional. And it's no different to having a website done.

You can do it yourself. You can have your 14 year old son do it for you. And like I always warn people, even ugly babies look good to their parents. So if you're designing everything yourself, or you got your son designing it for you, you go, they look so good, it may not look as good to everybody else. So just be really, really aware of that.

That's a good point. I think getting a second opinion and talking to professional is is the way to go when it comes to graphic design.

Yeah. And family and friends will always tell you baby looks good no matter how hideous it looks. Fortunately

My aunt's up.

What was that?

No. I said like family members are the first always the first to like and like give you a lot of compliments no matter what you're doing in life. So sometimes you need some sobering truth about how things are going and what things actually look like, and getting that, you know, working with professional will give you that.

Yeah. Except my mom. My mom's brutally honest.

So she's good and bad, I guess.

Just brutally honest. And somebody's like, oh, geez, mom. Sometimes I wish you just lie and make me feel better. Why would I do that? Don't know.

But sometimes it's like I said, you you need to have people externally looking at some of the things that you're doing. So just to remind everyone, you get what you pay for. If you're providing a professional service to your patients, then use professional services to get stuff done. That's that's the bottom line of it all. So I think we've just about covered this.

Alright, Tyson. Well, that's been a great deep dive into style guides. I'm a little disappointed it's not about fashion and what's going on in Paris and Milan and all those fashion capitals in the world. But I think the podiatrists who listened today definitely got a lot of quality information about why you know considering a graphic designer to you know really kind of overhaul the brand of their their clinic can be really beneficial. So so thanks for that today.

Yeah. And anyone listening to this, like I said, I hope you're having a you had a fantastic New Year's Eve. You've got a great couple of days off still before you go back to work, and put this down as priority get done in 2024 is work on your style guide or your corporate guideline, and, yeah, just take that action step. So I will talk to you again next week, Jim.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. Bye. Bye now.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.