Yet another step of the rebranding effort this year was to create a new set of business cards.  I’ve been using business cards from moo in the past and absolutely love the quality of their cards.  Plus with moo cards you can have a variety of different images on the back side of the card.  They are not the cheapest cards available but the quality of the card is top notch and having a mini portfolio in my pocket is worth the extra expense in my opinion.  For this round of cards I’m using my new logo on the front

with these images for the back to focus on my family portraiture side of the business.

Part of the business development plan this year is to rebrand the business.  One of the first steps for me was to create a new logo.  The current logo I personally created over a weekend  and didn’t give it a ton of thought.  The new logo has been a work in progress for well over a couple of months.  I also involved the help of a graphic artist Sandy Rafferty Vivian of Evolution Design.  Sandy and I have known each other since the mid 90′s and I helped her with maintaining her computers when she started her own small business well over 10 years ago.  With this project it felt like we had come up with hundreds of iterations on different logo designs.  When I would start narrowing down on an idea I would show some of my friends and colleagues and get a different response from every one of them.  Turns out it is really hard to create a new logo and brand.  Creating this logo was as difficult as naming my two kids because it is something I’m going to have to live with for a while.  In my kids example they have to be happy with the name that we gave them.  Funny thing when you name you kid.  Ever wonder why you have the name you have? The next step in the business development is a secret, however, with any luck will be revealed within the next couple of weeks.

My iStockPhoto collection has been a tiny little side of the business.  I’ve been adding to my stock portfolio as I have time and have finally reached the 250 downloads and 50% or greater acceptance rating required for exclusivity.  I’m actually at 70% acceptance and iStock has definitely made me a better shooter in terms of composition and quality.  Today I got this email:

Dear Mark:

Congratulations! The iStockphoto administrators have approved your exclusivity

application. We are pleased to begin this new, mutually beneficial and

professional relationship with you.

Thank you for your time and effort.

Best Regards,

iStockphoto LP

Yeah me! So what does this mean?  Well instead of the nickel I make off of a sale of an image I make 5 pennies.  :)  Actually, my royalties do start going up as I start selling more images since I’m exclusive with iStock and their Getty partner sites.  You can check out my stock portfolio here.

–
Mark Mortensen
Lakewood Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com