Tosten Marketing GearsI can admit it: We’ve had a bit of a personality conflict internally about what our logo should represent. I’ve always told clients that their logo should be able to speak for itself, but this is something we ourselves have struggled to portray.

So, let me give you a little background about where this all originated from: Since I was a little kid I’ve always been infatuated with the way mechanical objects work. I once took apart an old pocket watch and removed all of the gears because I was curious how it worked. It was amazing to me how all of the tiny, delicate cogs worked together to run a hand that was so much larger and heavier.

As a journalism student at Western Washington University I had the opportunity to interview and write a story that was published in a magazine called Klipsun about a local artist named Kathy Bastow. Kathy was way ahead of the Steampunk movement and reused old gears, bolts and even metalic odds and ends to make incredible lamps and clocks. What struck me at this time was these gears were being used for a greater good to create something from individual pieces that by themselves did nothing, but together created beautiful pieces of art.

Their websites should act as the driving engine while their newsletters, blogs and social media should be the gears that run together to establish the final product – turn the hands of the clock if you will.

As I pondered what we should do with our logo, I wanted it to be meaningful and send a message about our program and processes. That always brought me back to gears or cogs and how they all worked together towards a greater good. None of the pieces individually do much, but when they’re combined, they can make incredibly precise instruments.

When looking at our business and think about our message, we explain to customers almost on a daily basis that their marketing campaigns should work like fine-tuned gears running together in unison. Their websites should act as the driving engine while their newsletters, blogs and social media should be the gears that run together to establish the final product – turn the hands of the clock if you will. Since the beginning, we’ve believed that to be successful at marketing an insurance agency, you can’t do just one thing; you must do  multiple things that run together in harmony. This always brings me back to the industrial image of relating insurance marketing to gears and cogs.

We know logos may not be that important to some, but for us, we’ve finally found one that makes sense for our business and that we feel cannot only stand the test of time, but stand alone by itself to explain our ideology as a company.