Demand Shift - Current

Logan Lyles: Did I lose you?

Chris LaFay: Every so often my Google Chrome decides it just wants to go to sleep and it literally just is like, I'm done shutting down, can't do this anymore. I, I'm actually thinking I might need. I've been doing a lot more like higher intensity work that actually requires like computer like computing resources. Whereas like the last two years I was basically like living in Google Docs and that was it. So I'm actually thinking about over the next month or two trading in my Mac mini and my MacBook Air and leveling those up some because I basically bought the base models of both of those like three years ago. So they're still good computers, they're great. But when I have AI things running 247 and web servers and Figma files and all this stuff running, it's, it's, it's a bit, it's a bit much. I'm a bit much at the end of the day.

Logan Lyles: Here we are.

Chris LaFay: So we are still recording. Yes. Fantastic. So I realized after I sent you an email today, I went back and like looked through notes, some of the, some of the call recordings and also the LinkedIn messages. What brand name are we working on? Not Demand Shift.

Logan Lyles: No, we are.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, but I heard. But there was Vital written in a couple of places. Vital like V I D A L. No, I, because I, because I. When I was like, because I was testing something out of like going from proposal documentation into a project management system and what we're doing here is very simple and I was like let's just, let's just test this out. I'm not going to use it. But it pulled in Vital. So like went into like my like meeting notes and all the stuff that we've sent over and some of the voice attack stuff that I did and it called this project Vital. And I'm like wait a minute, what. So anyway, I have no idea why that's the case, but no, you, you sent me a LinkedIn message. Here's what I'm thinking. I'm needing for the vital brand identity. V I D A L let me

Logan Lyles: know that was probably just a voice

Chris LaFay: to text mist transcription because that's a thing. I'm still getting used to that. That being a thing. I'm called Christ a lot now that, that I have realized the voice detector. I'm a lot more powerful than I am. So that is definitely helpful.

Logan Lyles: Yeah, you bet. One second. I think we're are getting coffee delivered because our coffee pot went out and we can't, can't have A day without coffee. And I think they just showed up. But now it says your order was canceled. Even they were right outside.

Chris LaFay: Go. Go figure. Go figure it out. Go figure it out.

Logan Lyles: I'm just frustrated. That's okay, bud. All right. Sorry about that.

Chris LaFay: You are all good. No stress. So where I want to start, obviously, I know a bit about your company we've talked a little bit about before. We did a whole podcast together. Talk to me a little bit about the. The. Not the new direction that you want to go and that you want to take this, but kind of focus in on, like, I know what it is that you do. What is the. If you're going to be updating your home page, which I know we're not going to design out the homepage and develop that up, but what, what would you be thinking in terms of messaging throughout that homepage when somebody actually lands there? That'll be a good starting point for us.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. So actually the. The homepage is going to be more designed for.

Chris LaFay: For

Logan Lyles: audience members landing there to consume B2B marketing content, as opposed to it being leading with marketers coming there looking for our webinars as a service. Because instead of just positioning Demand Shift as a service provider and an agency, the shift is positioning Demand Shift as a media company that also has a services arm. So kind of my current homepage that talks all about the problem that we solve and how we solve it with our webinar fasttrack service is actually going to become the main services page. So it shifts the audience a little bit. But primarily the target audience is going to be people I want to draw there to consume B2B marketing content. So that can be in house B2B marketers from, you know, various levels, although kind of targeting kind of manager to CMO levels more so than kind of entry level, just because that's who my clients want to reach. So that's who I want to attract up the seniority ladder if I can. Also, agencies that are consuming B2B marketing content, and so that can be founders or other people on the team. Pretty much everybody in agency land is always, if they're a marketing agency of any kind, then they're consuming very similar content to what their clients are consuming. So those are kind of the two distinct but overlapping Personas. And I want them coming there to see, hey, this is a hub of content. We have a. Eventually a weekly or more frequent daily show, a newsletter you can access. You can access content like the primary CTA will probably be like email subscription, something to drive Email subscription, you know, right away. Kind of like, have some examples from an aesthetic standpoint. But this is also good to share just from like you're saying the. The homepage piece, maybe not necessarily all these reviews, but like this messaging of, you know, with creator science from Jay Clouse, become a Smarter creator in 10 minutes per week. You know, something around becoming a better marketer or more successful or driving more pipeline as a marketer, something that is like, get the education and the perspectives that you need. Um, and I want to encourage them to subscribe because my main goal is building my email list, not necessarily of just folks who can buy Demand Shift services, but to build the audience so that my services have a bigger audience. My services clients have a bigger audience for me to market their webinars to. And if that's 10 times more than you wanted, just let me know and I can.

Chris LaFay: No, I. I am.

Logan Lyles: Now they're telling me I'm on a monologue, but maybe that'll just be. Be the case in this call.

Chris LaFay: Not a. I am a. I'm an external processor, and I really enjoy when other people externally process. And so it makes life a lot easier. Okay, so that all makes sense. The content, the modes and methods of content drops that you're going to be doing from Demand Shift. Talk to me a little bit about what those currently are and what will become new or updated in a way.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. Like what formats, what channels are we sharing content?

Chris LaFay: Yeah. Yes.

Logan Lyles: Yep. So right now, it is multiple live webinars each month from each of our clients, or ones that I'm just putting on as Demand Shift and bringing in outside speakers. What I, What I want to do is kind of bring those all under one banner, where Demand Shift, kind of like creator science, is just the media property. So it's demand shift on LinkedIn Live. It's demand Shift is the podcast, the newsletter, the YouTube channel.

Chris LaFay: So I don't think I'm. I don't think I'm connecting these dots correctly, but I just want to make sure. So obviously you have clients, and the fly. This flywheel that you've created is the audience that you're curating for. Demand Shift has a lot of through lines between the audience that your clients also want. So if you get, you can then tap into your audience to help your customers grow their webinars or their surveys and whatnot. So the flywheel is great there. What I want to have clarity on is that if. Let's say that I come to you and say, hey, I want to be a client I build websites. I want to grow this thing. I think the network that you're creating would be extraordinarily powerful to help me grow. Are you saying that when you're thinking about doing multiple, like multiple live webinars and having Demand Shift be under one banner, are you thinking that the show that you create for me, not the show that you create, but like the webinar series or whatever that series, the series is insert name of Classic City, whatever. Part of the Demand Shift family.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. And actually even tied together more than that. Like, like HubSpot has their like podcast network.

Chris LaFay: No, exactly.

Logan Lyles: And then you have like the Hustle and this and that. I actually am envisioning that each client series is going to be like a series or a segment within the Demand Shift show. I'm not going to necessarily call it the Demand Shift show, but like right now, all of my clients series, like if you came to me and you're like, logan, I want to reach in house marketers that are concerned about their website and their branding, yada yada yada. Like because of the way that I've set up my funnel and the automations and all of that sort of stuff, we have the landing page, the funnel, all the flows running on the Demand Shift website. Right. But it's just kind of like spin up a landing page and we have this funnel that's sitting off by itself. What I. So the clients are already like not, I'm not doing it. Kind of like we did at Sweetfish where each client comes to us and we're building a podcast and we're doing it all on their site where we're distributing it and everything, I'm. I'm already putting it on my site. What I want to do is aside from some clients that come to me and are they're doing a series with a different target audience, say they're trying to reach it or HR or someone like that. I will just kind of do what I've been doing. I run their funnels. It's on my site, but it's not very prominent. It's not in the navigation. It's just these random landing pages that I'm spinning up. What I want to do is all of my clients that are trying to reach this core audience of in house B2B marketers and agencies who are concerned about B2B marketing as well as is have one central media property that is called Demand Shift. And then once a month my client Gunder, who does direct mail, they're doing episodes on Demand Shift will at Common Mind is maybe the. If Gunder is the second Tuesday of the month, Common Mind is the third Tuesday of the month. Right. And they're all just episodes on Demand shift on my YouTube channel on. We'll, we'll start doing the webinars on Riverside, which will stream to LinkedIn Live, publish it as a podcast, and then also that content will go out via the newsletter as well. And so there kind of won't be any distinction between like my clients content and the content that I'm putting out under this same media property as Demand Shift. And that's kind of by design. Right. Because then it feels less like sponsored content. Even though my clients are, they're not paying sponsorship to get access to my audience, but they're paying for like, it's almost kind of like advertorial a little bit. But it's, it's educational to where it's not just, you know, promoting them foreign.

Chris LaFay: You're. I just, I've never found anybody that has such a honed in Flywheel for building community, making legit money. And then the more each of those things go hand in hand, it all of it just expand like it's so freaking tight and I love it, I love it, I love it. I, I, Yeah, anyway, okay, okay, so that'll make sense. So you're basically becoming HubSpot's network of all these shows under the same channel. Whereas HubSpot, I know how each of them have their own things. I get that.

Logan Lyles: Right.

Chris LaFay: You are the one, you are the, the network. You are the thing. You're kind of, in 1990s terms, you're kind of creating your own TV station. Right. Obviously with different mediums and stuff along those lines. Right.

Logan Lyles: Which to your point about the Flywheel of adding more audience, having clients paying also creates that Flywheel generates the opportunity to create other sorts of revenue with sponsors where I'm doing my own content and now the audience is big enough I can just sell sponsor packages in addition to my done for you client service packages of hey, I'm going to run your, you know, you basically be a featured series on Demand Shift.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, okay, I got you, I got you. That'll make sense. Okay, so this is basically from a content output perspective. You're these are going to be, when I say podcasts, it's both video and audio. More, more traditional, not traditional, but webinars where there's like, you know, group settings and discussions sort of thing. What other Obviously growing the email list is very important. And then segmenting all that kind of stuff as well too. You post on your personal LinkedIn is there going to be. I know for a while you were basically posting and I haven't really been on LinkedIn for the last month or so of like this is why traditional webinars suck. Here's how I think about it differently is what type of is I'm assuming personal LinkedIn still going to be important and what is the, the general angle that you're taking there from a story perspective?

Logan Lyles: Yeah, that's interesting. That part I don't know if I'm as tight on like I, I'm basically think that my I could go one of two directions. My personal LinkedIn could become a mixture of two things kind of broad, broader B2B marketing. As I'm like the show Demand Shift goes broader because I'll have different series, different segments on these different topics from webinars to AI visibility to direct mail to website design to CRO or abm. Right. But then my own personal like mix that broader B2B marketing content with my niche specialization in running webinars and live shows or I continue to focus my personal on running webinars and live shows and make the Demand Shift company page the hub of the broader content. I've typically historically been opposed to spending too much time, money and effort on growing a company page. However, my goal in shifting to a media company is definitely aiming at this is something that could be more sellable and set me up for an acquisition versus an agency. And the more that I do separate my personal brand a bit and build the brand of the of Demand Shift more that there's probably value in that. And I've seen like marketing Millennials is another media property that that was sold or it was kind of an Aqua Hire sort of thing with Daniel Murray and they did lean into the company page on LinkedIn really hard. So that I'm still, still trying to figure out. But I think the LinkedIn company page will be more important than what I've treated LinkedIn company pages in the past.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, I've seen some. Not many, but I've seen some success. You have to put a lot of time and effort and intentionality behind it to make it not seem like a freaking logo spam. When you're like using it to comment on stuff, it's like, oh cool. Logan just comments with his company all the time on everything. Oh, that's just him. And so I, yeah, I totally get that. Okay, this, this all makes sense. So I'm gonna go ahead and pivot us now because we spent about half of our time on story. I'm gonna move us over into design, except I'm gonna actually start us before I get into your three or four items that you have.

Logan Lyles: So, like things I like, things I don't like. Yeah, exactly.

Chris LaFay: So did you have a chance to look for like, a few, like, different brands that you like or do not like this past week?

Logan Lyles: Yes. Yeah. And I've got maybe too many tabs pulled open, but I, I, I, I think I have a few and I have some very specific notes on each. So.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, perfect. So I'm going to start with mine because mine will not take that long, and then we'll dive in kind of the rest of the time onto your side. So what I'm about to show you, and this is just an echoing of the email that I sent you earlier, is I have a collection of about 15 to 20 different art pieces. These are not things that I really think that you're going to be like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. The goal here is because they are so stark and different from one another and they're not website designs, they're not graphic designs, they're just art. The goal here is to very clearly define, to more clearly define, oh, I like this tiny little thing, or I dislike this tiny little thing. And so what I have found when doing website design is when you showcase other website design, people are just like, I like the general feel like that doesn't help help. And they don't say anything about what they dislike. And I find by showing very stark things, people are like, I like this little bit. So in reality, out of these 15 or 20 different things that I have here, if you have only feelings about one or two of them and the rest you're like, eh, don't care, that's fine. That's actually kind of the point as well too. So does that sound good?

Logan Lyles: Yep. One more question about the, the process.

Chris LaFay: Yes.

Logan Lyles: Is, do you like at the, is there, is there basically a mood board stage between like this and first iteration of the, the first set to like. I know with like when we were doing podcast cover art, for instance, at Sweet Fish, we would do like mood board three options, like pick a direction after kind of a discovery like this so that we know like, okay, we're, we're on this path or what does that look like? And I'm, I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but just.

Chris LaFay: No, you're good. This is the mood boarding. So basically what, what I've, what I've noticed over the last five years is that when we do sessions like this, I don't know the percentage, but I cannot remember the last time somebody was like, I absolutely hate the first design and I think it's terrible. And so we, I just don't. This is, this basically replaces that. So you kind of come to the table with design ideas that are more directly associated with what we're doing, which is, you know, websites and branding of creators and those types of things. I come to the table with really off the wall stuff. You put both of those together, there's enough information there to move forward. And so cut out a step of doing a Pinterest mood. Not Pinterest, but a Pinterest mood board. And we're able to cut to the chase a heck of a lot faster that way too.

Logan Lyles: Okay, cool.

Chris LaFay: So.

Logan Lyles: Yep.

Chris LaFay: Awesome. So let's get rolling here. And I'm not going to give any context to these. So really just one pro, one con, or if you just want to say move on. Say move on.

Logan Lyles: One pro is it kind of gives me a little bit of retro feeling which I've been thinking about. I feel like that 80 this is a little more 80s retro specifically, which is like, I feel like we're kind of hitting the phase where 80s retro is kind of like, like Stranger Things and all that. Like we've done it so much.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Logan Lyles: Because. But the, it's interesting that this came up because it kind of gave me those vibes and I was just telling my wife this morning, like, what's interesting to me, I'm an older millennial. I'll be 40 this year. I think a lot of my audience is similar stage and I think like some 90s nostalgia vibes could actually work with this audience. Not so much like the, like the eight bit like video game piece like I've seen you do though. I, I like that. I don't know if that's the right move for me, but please hold while

Chris LaFay: your call is getting connected. Oh, no, it's not. Oh, dang it. Okay. Dang it. Okay. All right. You'll there. Yeah, we're gonna vibe on something in a second. Go ahead.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. What I didn't like about that was the pink. I don't think that'll like, I, I definitely think like blue is gonna be like one of the primary that I, I probably want to see. Okay.

Chris LaFay: Awesome.

Logan Lyles: It's funny we were talking about Dune last night. I still haven't watched this and want to watch both of them. Yeah, I, I, I don't like it to me, I don't like the, I don't like the dark, the font. I, I don't love. Like, I see what it's doing and I think it accomplishes what it's doing, but the aesthetic is, is not my vibe. Yeah, perfect. Great.

Chris LaFay: Great. 90s go.

Logan Lyles: This is fun. Yeah. It's funny when I mentioned that to my wife, she's like, you know, saved by the bell, a little bit inspiration. And this is kind of giving me those vibes again. I don't think I would want to go like as heavy on the, the pink here or maybe as on the nose as this. Maybe. But I think, and I have an example of not necessarily like the, the color scheme and these sort of shapes, but some other ways that I've seen creator science, like, have a little bit of tie into like 90s retro that I like too.

Chris LaFay: Glorious. I've been wanting to design something in the 90s kind of vibe recently, and so this, this excites me greatly. Okay.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. I mean, I, I like the, the retro feel to it. Obviously it's not 90s. You're going further back here. I wouldn't see necessarily using, you know, any of those sorts of font, like the cursive, like, I get what they're going for there. It gives me like, I dream of genie bewitched sort of vibes, but not, not anything that stands out to me there that I particularly like.

Chris LaFay: Awesome.

Logan Lyles: I like this. I like the color palette. I like kind of the, the texture. Yeah, I like the, the texture and the color palette. Awesome. This is fun. Some. Some nostalgia there. I, I like sometimes where I've seen like in your reviews section or your testimonials or quotes where something. It's not just kind of this like perfect grid, but, but you have kind of this repeatable template that looks like it's a screenshot or looks like it's a piece of paper or a sticky note or something like that. So I like that. I also like the hand drawn piece of this as well. Yeah. Yeah. Lots to like about that. This feels more Brady Bunch to me. Don't. Don't love it. Don't love the color scheme. No, I don't. Don't like the darkness of, of this or the, the stretched out font. It's kind of fun. But. Yeah, not really me. Kind of. This feels a little bit like it might be like corporate SaaS background in a, in a section on a website that's a little too, like it might be in line with like the SaaS marketers. That I'm serving and are in my audience, but not necessarily the vibes, because I see Demand Shift being more like, okay, sometimes, like, they have to, like, stay within these lines within their larger company, but they want a fresh place to get fresh perspectives. This feels more like the former than the latter.

Chris LaFay: And that's exactly why I have just simple gradient in here to be like. I love soft gradients. My. Great. Your traditional B2B. SAS. Great. Fantastic. Love it. Know that wholeheartedly.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. Now don't really like it here. Kind of, like, makes me think of, like, the Jetsons for some reason. Something about, like, the curves and things like that. Futuristic, but from the 70s futuristic thing.

Chris LaFay: Like, 100%. Oh, yeah, totally Disney.

Logan Lyles: And it's like, my kids are like. This doesn't feel futuristic. It feels like the seventies. This is interesting. You know, I. I kind of like it, but I feel like it's been. It's been done a lot. Like, Dale Dupree sales Rebellion kind of really leaned into this, like, futuristic retro. And I kind of did that for the Demand Shift summit just because I needed some direction that I could give Gemini Nano Banana to create something. So while I. It, um. I don't see myself doing kind of the deeper, darker purples and the, like, you know, 80s retro futuristic. I want to go, you know, a little bit definitely lighter and kind of lighter. Not. I hesitate to say airy, because I don't like. I'll show you kind of in some of the fonts that I like. Versus. I don't. I think you'll know what I'm talking about.

Chris LaFay: Perfect.

Logan Lyles: Now again. I mean, it feels like the. The time period that it's supposed to be from and don't love it.

Chris LaFay: This is probably gonna be the same thing for that. Yeah, I'm actually going to. So I actually. We're. We're actually good here. I. I have a fairly good idea, stylistically, what. Where you're at.

Logan Lyles: Okay.

Chris LaFay: So I'm going to pass the ball over to you and let you talk for about 10 or 15 minutes, and I'll interject Bot. Thank you for playing my game with me. Yeah, it was actually very enlightening. People always are weird out. Like, you're doing, like, I do this with websites too people. Like, how are you getting design inspiration from these things? Like, this is what makes it textured and different and unique and not the same, so. Yeah.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. And, you know, I'm one of those, like, left brain and right brain. Like, I. I cannot design, but I have had enough exposure to it and being on the other side of like working with designers through like podcast cover art creation and stuff like that. I know a little bit of hopefully to. To give better than just like I like it or I don't like it. Okay. Are you seeing this terrible podcast?

Chris LaFay: Thank you. I'm so glad you led with. Are you seeing this terrible image? Thank you.

Logan Lyles: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Wonderful.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. Examples of stuff. I don't like this. This is not good. Obviously. I'll just leave that at that. Like I mentioned with Creator Science 1, I could see a header with something very similar here. Probably diving more into content options than necessarily reviews, but I actually have been gathering like audience feedback as much as I've been getting client testimonials. So I see. I picture doing that in, in the website, but I like these bold but not overstated sans serif fonts in this headline as an example. I do like the blue. I think you could do a blue without, you know, going so, so dark here and obviously like potentially a complementary color palette that kind of hits that 90s vibe, but with more white than. Than black. I'm a big fan of kind of just softening things with the. The rounded corners, those sorts of things. I do like the site was just very clean. Although I don't think overall I necessarily love the layout. So it's more of those specific things that I'm pulling out.

Chris LaFay: That's great. That's.

Logan Lyles: This was another this. So this is the podcast cover art for Creator Science and kind of another. This is kind of what I was thinking too with like, there's different ways than just like the. On the nose straight, like pink and blue 90s to get 90s vibes. Because this gave me a little bit of that with. Because it looks like you're watching a VHS or looking through the viewfinder of an old camcorder. Right. With. With the way the timestamp is the recording, the play, you know, I don't mind kind of the film graininess a little bit too. So that's kind of fun. So this to me was kind of like, ooh, that's kind of in the same direction again, kind of. This blue works on a. On a lighter background too, that sort of stuff. So that's kind of what I'll call out there as, yeah, feel free to stop me at any point.

Chris LaFay: So what I. What I'm hearing is relatively simple font selection, not an over the top font selection. Something that's. That's easy to consume and looks fairly straightforward. Obviously not going to use Helvetica. Or Arial here. That's not what I'm suggesting. Slight textures. So, like. Like. Because Obviously, like, that 90s palette has very interesting text, like, confetti textures and zigzag chevrons and stuff like that. Like, that's very, like, 90s style. So what I'm hearing is you're not opposed to applying subtle textures that will help tie that decade style in. But I'm also not seeing loud textures here either.

Logan Lyles: Right.

Chris LaFay: So they're finding some sort of a mix of that 90s style and texture, but just done at 25 rather than 100.

Logan Lyles: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: By the bells. 100, right?

Logan Lyles: Yeah, exactly.

Chris LaFay: Exactly. Okay, cool.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. Like, can I. Can I get that feeling without it being, like, so on the nose of, like. But could we bring it in with some other, like, you know, textures and. And things like that? Yeah. So just on the font. So flip side. Like the font in the header of Creator Science. Sweet fish. I. I don't like. You know, this kind of would be the. The opposite for me. And this serif font, that's a little more like. I see what they're going for there, but I. I don't really like that.

Chris LaFay: Good to know.

Logan Lyles: Exit 5.

Chris LaFay: Again, I have a random question for you. Are you a part of exit 5?

Logan Lyles: I'm not right now. I have been. I was thinking about rejoining. Why do you ask?

Chris LaFay: I gotta. I got a lead from a construction company in Texas. I'm in Georgia, and the guy was like, so I don't get cold leads. Just don't. I would love to, but I don't. And I asked all my friends. I was like, anybody know this random construction company? They're like, no, no, no. He told me he's in Exit five, and somebody, when he posted about it, said, you should go talk to Classic City. And so I hit up the, like, two people that I know in Exit 5, which is Garrett justice and Chris Dubois. I'm like, did you guys.

Logan Lyles: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Drop it? No. And I'm like, okay. Anyway, so I'm on this mission to figure out who I should say thank you to. Anyway, I digress. Yeah. So exit 5.

Logan Lyles: Couple of things I like here. I. I do, like, occasionally like the, you know, inverted font on kind of like a highlighter. You know, sharp background a little bit. Whereas for the most part, I'm. I'm kind of into more rounded corners, kind of like, I. I like these. I like the use of faces. Obviously, they're promoting a community, so that's even more so. But, like, I think you've probably seen some of the thumbnails for my webinars that I've been doing that are more YouTube style because it's essentially a YouTube thumbnail designer that I have working on them. So I'm picturing some of that. This is a little, a little plainer, but again, not terrible with big, you know, easy to read, sans serif font. I don't like the background here. This kind of gives me the, a little bit of corporate SaaS vibes, which is surprising when I landed here on Exit 5 with this background because it feels a little bit more like. And I don't know, maybe they're appealing to more just straight the CMOs and the higher tiers. So I didn't necessarily love that or the, the how dark this feels. So. But like this is the sort of thing I was talking about of like screenshots of actual comments and those sorts of things. Like how. And I know you're not designing a whole website or even homepage for me, but like those sorts of things. If there are ways that I can do that with templates or things like, things like that, I think that's fun.

Chris LaFay: One, one thing that I pulled from these couple here, obviously dynamic agency will be a little bit different, but they're monochromatic for the most part. And one of the things that personally drives me nuts and is that in monochromatic sites like this, the green is overused. Meaning. I agree, my, my preferred state in a monochromatic architecture is that when the color is used, it's clickable. It is the action item. So it's the subscribe button, it's the become a member button. It's not used in big swath. So like in the. Yeah, like these, like these. Because those make me think clickable. And like what do you get with an Exit 5 member? Like that's big and bold and green. Like I'm good to use that color. Like in the checklist down on the left hand side there. Yeah, like that's fine to use there. So my question, my core question here is are you open? Blue is a very base color, is used very well in backgrounds. Text pops on it very easily and because of that it's kind of an overlooked color sometimes. So are you open to adding in like a CTA color that complements your blue and. Yeah, the CTA color and having blue kind of be the base color, if you will.

Logan Lyles: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, I don't think I want to go with like this full monochromatic direction like this.

Chris LaFay: Awesome.

Logan Lyles: Great.

Chris LaFay: Okay.

Logan Lyles: It was More some of the details in this one, as opposed to, like, I really like this home page because I actually don't necessarily love it. I think the. The layout and the flow is good. But, yeah, I have some of the same thoughts about the monochromatic love. It's. Why. So I know you. You helped him with this, right? So this is.

Chris LaFay: So you have to be nice. Is basically at the end.

Logan Lyles: I don't know. The things that I don't like are just things that would be my preference. Right. Like, I don't think the kind of. More giving me foresty green makes sense, but obviously, like, hey, he's in Vermont or wherever, way up in the Northeast. But I do like the. The big, bold sans serif font again. I like a little bit of the kind of the handwriting textures that. That go with it. I did like some of some of that and kind of similar to what we were talking about with, like, the Napoleon Dynamite piece. Like, some of the. Though some of these kind of are along the same lines of just like some of the accent pieces and some of the little. Not necessarily texture pieces, but images and things like that I could see kind of working in my own color scheme and stuff like that. I don't love kind of the beige background, but obviously he's going. Different color scheme. But those were some of the things that. That stood out to me. Maybe not as much like the handwritten font here, but those were some of the things that I was like, oh, I could see some of these things carrying over to a style that would work for me too.

Chris LaFay: Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.

Logan Lyles: Is that helpful?

Chris LaFay: No. 1? Yeah. 10 out of 10. Yes. Okay.

Logan Lyles: I was looking at B2B SaaS brands, and all of them were. Were way too boring and the same for me. So I really didn't have too much to. Too much to say there. Oh, oh, you mentioned book covers. And I was like, oh, I think a few book covers that were actually, like, stood out to me. And I don't know. This is off the wall, and I don't know if there will be any way to incorporate this idea, but I thought that it was interesting that two book covers came to mind and they both had something in common. This one is called Revealing Revelation. So it's like a book on Revelation from the Bible. And I thought that this, like, it was subtle enough of, like, going from. From out of focus to in focus. And that's literally the name of the book is Revealing Revelation. So it's one of those that's, like, almost on the nose, but, like, a little subtle with what. What they were going for, where the meaning was implied by the design. So that was cool. And then. I will not tell you how long I. I had this book, the Air We Breathe, before I realized that the text and the white space form across because I'm a little slow on the uptake. But that's the.

Chris LaFay: I didn't see it either.

Logan Lyles: I did not see it, but that's the whole thing. This is a book about, like, how Christianity has shaped our ethics and values in the west. So much so that people don't even realize where they come from. So it, like, literally, the subtitle is How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress and Equality. The title is the Air We Breathe. But then, like, the cross is just all of a sudden it's like, oh, it's there in the background. But again, that's the point of the book, is that, like, the air we breathe is like, all around us, but we don't notice it, but it is the environment that we live in. And they accomplish that with the book cover, too. And so I'm just like, those were. It was interesting to me that the two book covers I had kind of had this, like, interplay between design and meaning that were interesting. So it might be. Or it might just be a fun conversation between you and I talking creatively.

Chris LaFay: No, this is. Yeah, I have no idea if I'll be able to pull these, but, like, that's a really. I understand what you're saying with that. So I. I like that. I'm actually, actually this topic, this idea, this concept of, like, how much is Christianity actually impacted, like, the morals of the US Overall and whatnot. Like, I was actually thinking about that recently. I was like, there's a lot of stuff in. In law and whatnot that kind of is, you know, derived from the Ten Commandments and stuff along those lines.

Logan Lyles: This is. This is a really good book and it's a, like, a fairly easy, easy read compared to, I. I think the author, Glenn Scribner, there was a real academic book called Dominion that's actually written by an atheist or agnostic who studied the history of Christianity and. And the West. And this is basically like kind of the popular level version of that more heavy academic version or book that. That came out. So, yeah, if you're thinking about that, this is definitely the first read I would recommend on that topic.

Chris LaFay: Is that Tom Holland, the quote at the top, like the Spider Man Marvel? Tom Holland?

Logan Lyles: No. Okay.

Chris LaFay: I was gonna say this doesn't I don't.

Logan Lyles: Every time I've heard this guy speak on podcasts and he references Tom Holland, he's like, not Spider man, another Tom Holland, but he's a historian.

Chris LaFay: Uber Christian vibes from Spider Man. Tom Holland. Like, I'm not here to judge by any searching the imagination, but I was like, that's also kind of a common name. So I have a buddy named Tim Smith, and I'm like, I feel so sorry for you, Tim. That's okay. I got you.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. But this is basically how the Christian revolution remade the world. So it goes broader into, like, Western civilization and. And the influence. Let's see. Marketing millennials. Again, dark. I don't see going like neon completely or this much pink. Although, like, I don't know. I. I know I mentioned the. The no pink thing, but again, I do think I do want to tie in some. Some 90s stuff. I like that outline. I like this texture. Again, kind of the Napoleon Dynamite thing kind of gave me, you know, thinking of that. I don't necessarily love this animation. This feels a little bit like the big body, small head, overdone animation in B2B SAS that everybody has done with the cartoon. But again, can I take over here?

Chris LaFay: I thought of something that I want to show you.

Logan Lyles: Okay.

Chris LaFay: That is. He's actually one of my favorite designers. He's been around for a long time, and as you showed me the cutout, it made me like, oh, why didn't I include this? So I'm curious what your thoughts are here with this guy named Jack. So I'm actually. This is his website, Obviously. Different target clients here in target client. Like, this isn't going to be the same, like, structure by any stretch of the imagination, but very 90s style, but

Logan Lyles: also a lot I like about that. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, like. Yeah, so. So, yeah, talk to me a little bit out. So I want to do the slow scroll first. So go ahead. I'm going to slow scroll and then

Logan Lyles: stop me wherever you can stop right there. Like, I like the cutout, maybe with the circle and the multiple cutouts is a little busy. And I think the font is. Is fun and it's big, sans serif, but it's maybe a little too. A little too cutesy. But. And obviously again, I. I keep saying, like, want lighter overall theme than darker, so that stands out here. But I like the arrows as well. Yeah, we can keep going.

Chris LaFay: Do you like the swoosh?

Logan Lyles: Yeah, actually, I do. And I kind of like the. Like, obviously we could play with a lot of complementary tones to whatever kind of the primary blue is. And this, this like this blue kind of feels like hey, you could work this sort of thing in and get those 90s vibes without it being like orange Nickelodeon or 100, you know, something you know, right on the nose. Not necessarily the animals. I wasn't wild about those. Yeah, keep going. For me, I like the, I like the, I like the colors there. I don't necessarily love the, the font.

Chris LaFay: Okay.

Logan Lyles: And kind of the like the. That gives me a little bit too much of like I'm designing back in Microsoft Word with The like the 3D font

Chris LaFay: man. Word art.

Logan Lyles: Uhhuh.

Chris LaFay: Yes sir.

Logan Lyles: I think that font real small but again the like going inverted you know in the right ways. Like I like, I like that use of that again kind of the circles and the arrows with a little bit of like hand drawn vibes are fun. And some of the off kilter photos that aren't. Yeah, just straight up and down or like that.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. Okay.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. I mean the textures down there, like the textures there aren't bad. They're maybe a little too playful. But I was just mentioning like Nickelodeon slime. Saved by the Bell, like on the nose. But like this is kind of in the neighborhood though with like it's kind of what we were talking about earlier. So.

Chris LaFay: Okay. Awesome. The last thing I'm going to show you here and this is going to be too dark for you. So I clicked on his radical design course and it's a very different feel to it. So like here we actually have. It's going to be hard to tell on a screen share but we have some like paper textures in the background that actually kind of work as you scroll. He does a lot of the. Not clip art but the cutout images with that like duotone texture. But then also does very basic things as well too. Absolutely. 90s style. Little like.

Logan Lyles: Yeah, I actually I, I like that.

Chris LaFay: Which, which part of that?

Logan Lyles: The like the, the repeating text there. The, the inversion. The how the bottom isn't like. It's not like glitchy but it kind of a little bit like. And then that also. What was that? It's not reading rainbow but it, it gave me memories of like some opening or closing where it's like.

Chris LaFay: I know what you're talking about sort of thing. I know what you're talking about but I don't remember.

Logan Lyles: Yeah, like.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Logan Lyles: That I like a lot more than the what felt like word art. And obviously you got the sketched S's. Like that's that's a flame 90s, early 2000s sort of vibe. That's. That's kind of cool.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. Again, I like the cutouts, but not, like, the huge arms are a little weird for me. Totally. I like that quote card. That's cool. I'm not Jamaican.

Chris LaFay: He definitely has. He definitely has, like, a tone to what he does, so kind of also.

Logan Lyles: And I like the. Yeah, again, I kind of like the. It's. It's clean, but not. Not perfect in the way this list is. Like, I don't think sometimes, like, fun design and that sort of thing gets in the way of comprehension. This is. This is a good balance there, I think.

Chris LaFay: So That's a really, really good way to put that. I like that. So we have about five minutes, because I do have a. I. I got the joy of back to back to back to backs today, so this was fantastic. This is exactly what I was hoping to get out of all this. Like, 10 out of 10, actually. I'll even say 11 out of a 10. This was. I have a lot of really good ideas that are bouncing around in my head now. So next steps are going to be, we're going to define fonts in color palette, which when we define fonts, we'll obviously define kind of the core font for Demand Shift as well, too. I will say that when we look at those, I want to hold. We're going to not going to get you to lock and load, approve them 100%. I'm going to get you to basically say it's a good direction, because when actual design happens, stuff might change when these things are viewed in context with other pieces. So we're not going to lock and load on those. But I at least want to know that directionally, we feel like these. These colors and these fonts could probably play well together. But let's see what they look like in tandem. Just so that we're not. I'm not shooting, you know, far to the left when you're thinking.

Logan Lyles: Right.

Chris LaFay: So that's gonna be the next step. I'm gonna work on that over the next couple of days. And so my goal here is to have this whole thing wrapped up in about two weeks. It might be closer to two and a half or three, because with the timing of when we started, I have a trip next week, and I have a big discovery happening at the beginning of next week as well, too, so probably be closer to line of two and a half or three just for just complete openness about that.

Logan Lyles: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And so this is going to My goal here is to give you a lot of toys to play with at the end of the day. So whereas, like, my palette that I have is basically a couple of boxes, colors, and how to utilize them, my thinking here is if I can give you a handful of textures and things to play play with that can all kind of be kind of merged together in a lot of different ways, that's going to be what helps you long term. And because of this aesthetic that you go with, there's a lot to play around with it in here.

Logan Lyles: Yeah. And so, yeah, because I do think that, like, we were talking about, like, on the website, I, I do think for structuring the, the homepage and, and the site going forward, I'm probably going to stick with high level for now. And so it's going to be a, a lot of, like, very simple kind of drag and drop. But if I have better Legos to, to build it, even though it's very simple, it's, it's going to be better, so.

Chris LaFay: Yes, exactly. That all sounds good. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for the time today, sir. And I'll be getting back with you in a couple of days. I'll probably, I will probably end up just shooting you a loom video for this first set and letting you just drop comments within the loom video. It's not that I don't want to talk to you. I just think that this first step is going to be fairly straightforward and I don't think we need to have.

Logan Lyles: No, that sounds good. And I was asking about next steps in Mood board as well, because both my kids and my wife are actually probably better designers than me and, and more creative thinking. And they were like, please let us weigh in on what you're, what you're doing. And so that's actually perfect because then we could watch that and I can show them some things and get their input and comments as well. But I was, I asked my oldest, I was like, hey, I'm jumping on a call. Do you, do you want to join? He's like, ah, no, but show me, like, include us in the process.

Chris LaFay: So there you go. Hey, it's a whole family jam band right here. Love it, sir. Awesome, man. Well, enjoy the rest of your day. I hope you get coffee and don't die because of lack of caffeine.

Logan Lyles: So appreciate it, man. Enjoy all the back to backs. Hope they go well.

Chris LaFay: Will do. Who?

Logan Lyles: Bye.