Ep# 137: Why design matters with Lauren Felter

In today's episode, we are talking all about why design matters with Lauren Felter 

Lauren is a design educator for non-designers and a former ladder climber. She spent the first decade of her career overseeing marketing, operations, and technical systems for a university admissions office, while also teaching design as adjunct faculty.

After following the path to traditional success but only finding intense burnout and an identity crisis at the top, she blew it all up in January 2020 to do it her own way.

She turned her highly sought-after university design course into one specifically for non-designers who find designing an inevitable part of their regular to-do list. She prides herself on a no-shame, no-shade approach to her web design, branding, and design education.

Where  to find Lauren:
Website: https://felterunfiltered.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/felter.unfiltered/

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Transcript

1:38

Welcome back to another episode of the Hello CS Dorsey podcast. I have Lauren on the show today. Hi Lauren. How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. So tell everyone who you are and what you do. Hey y'all. My name is Lauren Felter. I am the owner of Felter Unfiltered, and I am a design educator for non-designers. Oh, I love it. I'm so happy about this topic. Let's talk about the inspiration behind you starting your business. What was it like for you? Yes. So like many a long winding journey. I initially started my career working in university admissions. I thought that I would be a director of admissions one day, Started out doing marketing, communications, operations, technical systems, like, you know, wearing a lot of hats. And then also I was teaching a course at the university to first or second year communications students that was essentially designed for non-designers. So like how to make a flyer, how to make a quick little video, you know, all that good stuff. And so, I left working at that university after six years, did a quick stint in corporate consulting, realized that wasn't for me, and in January of 2020, right before the pandemic, I decided that I wanted to go out on my own and work for myself. It was really like a calling that I had, that I wanted more freedom, more flexibility. I felt like, you know, I had a ton of skills that I could do it, and I also had a desire. To travel. I knew that I wanted to move somewhere else in the US but I wasn't quite sure where, so I was like, oh, you know, I'll become a professional speaker. That was the first iteration of what I was going to do as a business owner, and I'll just, you know, book these different gigs and travel around and stay in Airbnbs and go to all these different cities and figure out where I wanna live. Well, I'm sure that, you know, when I said January, 2020, everybody's like, oh, we know what happened a couple months later. So I'd quit my job and I'd sold my house and speaking gigs, you know, obviously canceled. Nothing was happening. I ended up living with my parents for a few months and you know, cobbled together several part-time jobs to kind of. Do different things and then continued teaching at the university. So I was teaching online and then I started working with a career coach because I was like, you know, I didn't quit my job to have three part-time jobs. Like I quit my job because I wanted to like be a business owner. I wanted to like do the thing and I don't feel like I'm doing the thing. And you know, my ultimate goal is I wanna help people like I want to, I. Make them feel like, you know, they're, they're better because of something that I do. I wanna be creative and I wanna do something that I'm good at. And she helped me realize, hey, like this course that you're teaching to university students, this could benefit. Business owners and nine to fivers and freelancers and, you know, all these different people. And so over a year ago pivoted to, I launched my course, create with Confidence, and then I also do done for you branding and web design. So that is my very long answer of how I got to where I am today. No, this is really good because I love how you stated that you left your job and then boom, something happened and then you had to like quickly shift and even though you did not shift into what you initially started out, you didn't give up. You kind of like. Pivot and then you follow through with what you initially set out to do. And I'm so happy that you brought that out because life happens, something will happen to where as though it will derail you in a different direction. And like us humans, what do we do? Oh, This is what's happening, therefore this can't happen. But that's not it. You know, is this happened? Okay. How are we gonna work through this? And then how are we gonna get to what we initially set out to do? So I love it. And I am an Enneagram three, which is the achiever. So that means that I need people to see me as successful. And so I'm sure you can imagine it was very difficult for me to, you know, go from, I'm quitting my job and selling my house and I'm gonna, you know, do great things to like, I'm living with my parents and doing all these different side hustles and that was a really difficult time for me. Mentally and emotionally because I just, I felt like such a failure in so many different ways, but therapy and career coaches kind of helped me through it. Can you remember a time in your business or starting out where you had a hello moment? Yes. So I think that in business there are like, Hello moments constantly, like multiple times per year. But one that I had recently was I was working with a business coach and she, well, she was helping me with like my offer suite and I had launched a course that didn't sell a single one. And you know, launching a new. Product or whatever it is, a huge investment of your time. And then not to mention just like such a mental defeat when you sell zero of them. And so she was like, well, what I want you to do is identify, you know, eight to 10 of who you believe are your target people, like your ideal client, and ask them if you can talk to them for 30 minutes. And just ask them, you know, a few questions about what are your biggest struggles with design and have you ever paid someone to do design before? You know, basic market research, like five or six questions. And from those calls, it was so inherently clear that the course that I had launched was not at all. What my ideal clients needed and that what they needed was a service that I wasn't currently offering, but decided midway through the calls that I was going to offer and actually sold two of them. Like, you know, booked two clients from that just by doing those market research calls. And so I think the really big takeaway is like, Sometimes we can be really prideful of like, I know my ideal person, I know my target audience and that can almost blind us to, and I always tell people, like my peers and you know, mastermind groups and whatever, I'm like, you gotta get on the phone with your ideal person. Like you have to ask them like, is this what you actually want? Because sometimes we think that we know them so well and like we actually don't. That is like, Me 100%. You have no idea how many things I've launched. And I'm like, what in the world? Even. But see, the the thing of it is even when I'm like, okay, what is it that you guys want? And then they say, oh, I want this. And it says, I'm like, okay, great. And I give it to them and they're like, It's like crickets. And I'm like, but this is what you wanted. But you know what, I had to take a step back and say, no, Hannah, this is what they wanted, but you created this with you and mine. Mm-hmm. So it's so funny that you mentioned that cuz I'm like, oh my gosh. I, I thought I was the only one that at that actually happened to, so it's good to hear because it's a great learning lesson. So I'm happy you brought that up. It's so awesome. So let's talk about why design matters. So, Yeah, so. An exercise that I love to do in, you know, live workshops that I host is I will put sets of colors on the screen and I will say, okay, you know, when you see these colors, how would you describe this business? And so I don't reveal the logos right away, but typically it's the colors for like, I. Facebook, Instagram, and you know, maybe TikTok. And they'll see the blue and white for Facebook and they'll say, and again, they don't know that you know what the brand is yet. And they'll say, oh, it's, you know, boring. It's plain, it's ordinary. Run of the mill. They'll see Instagram and they'll say, fun, creative, youthful. And then I'll show the logos and everyone's like, oh my gosh, you know this. Wow, I didn't realize this. And so, The key takeaway there is that every single font, color and shape that you use is communicating something to the person looking at it before they read a single word. So before anyone ever reads your Instagram bio, the name of your business, your eye help statement, your problem, and then your solution, they are. Assessing or you know, assuming things about you based off of the fonts, colors, and shapes that they see. You know, if they see hot pink versus light pink, if they see angled shapes versus soft curvy lines or you know, times new Roman versus aerial. Those are just two basic font examples I can use. So it's really important that we make. Design decisions with intention so that we are attracting our ideal person and they already know what we're all about based off of the design that we're using. That is so true, and I, while you were saying that I can't remember where I heard it from, but if you notice, mostly, I won't say all the fast food, but you, if you notice, most fast food places have at least two colors in mine. And that's red and yellow. Yes. And when you see the red and yellow, you're like, oh, I'm hungry. You know? It's like a trigger, you know? Mm-hmm. How did you notice that? Yes, that's actually part of my color lesson in Create With Confidence, and I specifically talk about red and yellow and then two restaurants that I highlight outside of that. The first is Subway, which is yellow and green. Green being cuz they're trying to, you know, convey like healthy and like, Lettuce like greens, and then Taco Bell, which is purple because Taco Bell is very different, very unique. Not your, you know, burger and fries kind of place. But yes, like the, almost every fast food is going to be some version of red and yellow. That's crazy. And I wonder if that's, I guess that's intentional because that's that. Probably will trigger something in someone's mind. The reason why that they choose those colors and it's not, I won't say every fast food, but the majority of the big chain fast food have some sort of red in it. It's crazy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It, I mean it's all, it's color psychology, it's shape psychology. It's, yeah, it's all very intentional. So are there any last minute advice that you have for our listeners out there? So in terms of design, this is what I teach in my course as well as what I do with my done for you clients is that before you pick a font, pick a color, whatever it is, you need to write down what are five words that you would want your ideal person to use to describe your brand when they see any of your stuff. And so then from those five words, you're going to pick two to three fonts. Six to eight colors, three to four different design elements, like shapes and things like that. And that is going to be your brand suite. And then from there, it makes making design decisions so much easier because you don't have to feel like you're starting from scratch every time. And you have, you know, kind of this infrastructure that you can go from. And then in terms of business the advice that I always give is that pivoting is not failure. No matter whether you told everyone you were going to do this thing, or you have expensive education to do a certain thing, or you've always done a certain thing, if what you're currently doing is not serving you, you're allowed to change your mind, you're allowed to pivot. You're allowed to pivot again. I pivoted like 19 times in a year and a half trying a bunch of different things. I knew what the ultimate thing I was trying to get to was, and that was obviously making money doing something that I enjoyed and having time freedom. But the, you know, the path to get there was very windy and honestly, it's still winding. And so I think a lot of times, like we get really hung up on. Oh, but like I, I got the new job or I said I was gonna do this thing, or, but my degree is this, or you know, whatever. And it's like, okay. But if you don't like it, find something else that you like better. I like that. I really do. And I wanna thank you so much for giving the audience permission to try different things and to say that it's okay to pivot. You know, I think it's not, it's not. Spoke of or is not heard of, especially in the online space. In the online community, entrepreneurship is not talked about enough about, you know, it's okay to try different things and there are like a lot of big people out there that always say, oh, do one thing and stick with it. It's like not really because, you know, I've done podcasting and I love my podcast, but I've taught podcasting for like two years and it's like really like gone. So, I wouldn't say it's not gone anywhere. You know, a lot of people do know me as Candace, you know, podcast or whatever. But as far as like turning it into like a full fledge business or income where I could say, yes, now I can quit my nine to five. I was stuck in this loop to kind of like, oh, you have to stay in one thing, but oftentimes that one thing just do not work, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, and I'm in a peer led mastermind and one of the gals in the group recently was saying that she, so she launched a new offer at the start of the year, and then from sales calls with that offer, she kind of determined that she needed to launch an additional one, or, you know, another level of service than what. She had launched initially, but she was saying, you know, oh, I just, I feel like it looks so wishy-washy. Like my audience is gonna think that I don't have my stuff together because like, I launched this one a couple months ago and now, oh, I'm launching this other one. And you know what we kind of told her was number one, people aren't paying as much attention to you as you are paying to you. So like no one is, Looking at every post, no one is looking at every story. They don't know the, the ins and the outs of your day. Like some people may not even know about the first offer. So that's thing number one. And then thing number two is it's all in how you. Position it and how you introduce it. If you say, Hey, I've sold so many of this offer that I just launched, that now I am going to have a second offer so that I can accommodate more people. That creates fomo. That shows that you're successful. That's, you know, social proof, like people wanna be a part of, like the fun party. Nobody wants to go to the party that no one's at. And so, I think sometimes it's, you know, it's a lot of mindset and for me, having that peer led mastermind is very valuable and that is another bit of advice that I would give to people is, you know, find other people who are in the same place as you that you can bounce ideas off of and collaborate with regularly. So where can everyone find you? So the best place to find me is my Instagram, it's filter dot unfiltered, and I share lots of tips and tricks about design and branding. Awesome. And we'll definitely link those up in the show notes. So Lauren, I thank you so much for being on the show today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. You're welcome.