Plugging away, yet again

[snousle]

Photo in the style of bitterlawngnome


Lots of things keeping me busy lately. Following the Golden Gate Guards run, we had some women up from San Jose for dinner - our first paid guests, in some respects, but not officially. Then my father and his wife visited. They love to eat and drink, and it's always a bit of an extravaganza. Wednesday, my mother arrives.

Apparently, I suggested to my mother on the phone that we should go to French Laundry. Moral: Do not phone your mother after drinking. I would like to go some day, but that six or seven hundred bucks would really be hard to spend just now. In any case, getting a reservation is heroically difficult so it isn't going to happen this trip. Instead, Keller's other restaurant, Bouchon, looks like an excellent lunch destination for an excursion to Napa, so I made a reservation there and hopefully we won't be embarrassingly overdressed.

In the meanwhile, I'm trying to not be snowed by the sheer size of my to-do list. Once an idea lodges in my head, I find it very hard to let go of it. Lately, I've felt discouraged by the growing feeling that many of these ideas are simply out of reach for the foreseeable future. Individually, all are plausible, but collectively they are not. It makes me a bit grumpy when people cheerfully offer up yet more ideas for an already unmanageable agenda, as if they were doing me some favor by enlightening me with their brilliant uses for my obviously unlimited time. I think I shall only entertain ideas that result in less work.

We now have an operating permit for the kitchen, and a business license is merely a few paper-shuffles away. A little liability insurance and I'll be good to go. Which means I have to get off my butt and start marketing; for some reason trying to put the web site together terrifies me. Even choosing a font for a business card is full of agonizing ambivalence. Logo? Forget it, I haven't the faintest idea how to approach it.

Comments

[dorisduke.livejournal.com]

Boy you need to relax. If marketing and logos are such a conundrum hire someone who knows this stuff. But I have a feeling you can do it on your own. You have a creative mind.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

Nails with numbers. I think I remember those. They were driven into telephone poles I think.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

snickr

not a word of lie - I saw the top 2/3 of the photo for a second before I saw the caption, and thought "OMG what an awesome photo! I wish I had those metal thingies and that green glass mug to work with"

and then I scrolled down and LOLed

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Heh. I actually had that on my shelf (and the photo as well) some time before you started your series of hardware in jars, so it kind of tickled me that you saw the same interest. I can't look at that mug without thinking of blue-haired ladies at an old fashioned lunch counter. ;-)

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

PS tell me about your logo maybe I can help. There is a pretty standard design process to go through that will help you get your ideas together.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Mmm, there's lots to say with it. You know the situation pretty well. The logo should communicate the idea of fine dining as a combination of unpretentious luxury and communion with nature. There are some basic contradictions there, I realize... maybe my expectations are too high? Anyway, for the cards, I more or less took jpeace's suggestion, minus the fruit, and found it quite satisfactory.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Typographic is almost always the strongest solution where the "message" is very complex.

Step one would be to define your intended market. Age, sex, income level, geography, language, anything you can think of.

Then, where does it need to work. Size, medium, context.

What are you calling the catering part of the biz, BTW?

[jpeace.livejournal.com]

Helvetica, picture of some fruit you like. Done, next.

I'M HELPING!!

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Actually, that was very helpful. I omitted the fruit but otherwise the result is quite nice.

[beartech420.livejournal.com]

"for some reason trying to put the web site together terrifies me."

C'mon your a software guru a website should be TIT!

You could copy and download one you like. Use it as a template, replace your content save time writing code.

http://www.metaproducts.com/
has some free download software you may find helpful.
BestRegards,
Pete

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

We need to get really toasted and brainstorm.