Exactly one year ago was the lowest point of my life. In December of 2011, I fell off a balcony and shattered my right elbow. On January 19th 2012, my car broke down and the cost of repair was too high in relation to the value of my car. Three days later, January 22nd, was the first NFC championship game for me as a grown Forty Niner fan. Despite some recent bad luck, I was really excited for that game. But at the house I was supposed to watch the game, a 130 pound dog bit me in the face, so instead I got to listen to my team lose from the emergency room as a doctor stitched up my face.

The following weeks were a mental battle for me. I would lay in bed and think about my tiny, atrophied arm, knowing I faced an uphill battle of physical therapy and uncertainty about whether I could comfortably throw a baseball to my kid one day. As for a vehicle, my Grandma stepped up and gave me her...

Most peoples’ lives are made almost entirely out of habits and routines. From simple routines like getting ready in the morning or reading Reddit, to larger ones that influence our social behaviors or employment positions. People spend their entire lives crafting routines and habits that make up who they are. These habits, routines, and actions become a part of our identity. This can be an amazing thing - or a terrible thing - depending on whether your habits support to your long-term goals.

As Jim Collins says in his book Good to Great, some habits are bad because they make us content with a “good” situation. Good makes us settle, reducing or halting our efforts towards greatness. “Good is, in essence, the enemy of Great”.

On November 29th, I discovered I had a great opportunity to work full-time on an early stage startup if my partner and I re-located to Chile for seven months. I...

I built the first version of my website about three years ago and it’s undergone a lot of changes in those three years. As my skills in HTML and CSS have improved along with my sense of design, I’ve constantly felt the need to refresh and improve the visual layout. Having a personal website has been fun little side hobby and this post is a chronicle of the changes I’ve made along the way.

Note: If you have not read Refreshed - Part 1: Quest for a Logo, you should read that first. It describes my struggle to find a visual identity and will help explain why my websites have looked the way they did.

Take 1

The first version of mikegranados.com was very simple (and boring). I had created my first logo specifically for this website which I wanted to try it out with some black and white contrast. It had a similar look to the original website of Dustin Curtis, a family friend who helped...

Since I became fascinated with branding in 2009, I’ve been highly conscious of the logos companies choose. People may not pay much attention to logos because a logo doesn’t have a direct effect on them. But to me, a logo can be the first part of a story. I’m obsessed with logos, especially when they are well-done, because a good logo can embody the purpose of a person, organization, or company. Logos are a face. They are the face that everyone sees first and you should want your face to reflect your attitude and purpose.

Coming up with a logo to represent yourself is very, very challenging. I’ve been trying to come up with my own logo for the past few years. This article is about my approach, the challenges I faced, and the outcomes of that process.

The first time I realized I needed a logo was in 2009 when I wanted to start my own video production business. I named it Red Hawk...