25. May Pérez on Her Story, Design, and Re-Designing the Immigrant Finance™ Logo

We are pleased to share with you the new Immigrant Finance™ logo, designed by the talented May Pérez, Designer, of @mujxrdluna and Member-Owner of @radiate_bayarea Radiate Consulting Bay Area, A Worker-Owned Cooperative! For us, the tree symbol means so much to what represents the Immigrant Finance™ community - growth, stability, balance, and aspirations. Our new logo symbolizes the work we are all doing to grow roots as well as a family legacy in our shared goals to build wealth. The branches reflect endless potential to abundantly thrive. Thank each of you who have supported the growth of this amazing community, empowered yourselves and others to learn about building wealth, and inspired us so much. This design is a reflection of the hope you have given us and others. As described in the episode, the logo design process was such a reflective and powerful experience to go through in terms of learning more about ourselves, our business, and our intuition. When we realized we wanted to have a tree in the logo, a few people we consulted with thought no one would “get” the tree symbolism, and we second guessed ourselves (well Adina did - Mau not so much, he is less influenced by others haha and the tree made total sense to him as an immigrant from Ecuador wanting to build roots and grow here in the U.S. :)). Then, we realized the couple initial people we had asked, though close family and friends whose opinion we trust, were not immigrants or family members of immigrants. They were allies but not actual members of our audience and community. We then asked several of our very best friends who are. Layla, a child of Lebanese immigrants, was immediately like “OF COURSE the tree makes sense!!!" Fernando, a Mexican immigrant, was like “Yes. This feels right.” Amy, a child of Taiwanese immigrants, had the idea to add a simple single dollar sign in one of the leaves to make the connection between the tree and our focus on finances and building wealth. This experience was a reminder of why it’s so important to listen to your instinct, and to talk to your actual audience to inform business decisions, two of the most important lessons as a business owner. A lot of the business journey is learning to distinguish between instinct and thoughts that are more second-guessing yourself. As one of our business mentors has taught us, one way to tell is how the thoughts are coming up. If there's a calmness and steadiness to the thought, it's intuition. If it's mental chatter, it's likely noise. We realize also that being a business owner is about learning to own your power and your decisions, not letting fear of judgment and people pleasing tendencies get in the way. While letting your audience guide you. We were so fortunate to get to work through all of this with such a professional to guide us through how this all plays out through design. Thank you to May for her patience, flexibility, and creativity throughout the emotional up and downs and business and personal self-reflection that comes with logo design! Who knew picking a new logo would be such a journey?! Adina & Mau Co-Creators, IMMIGRANT FINANCE™ -- Work with May Pérez: @mujxrdluna Email: [email protected] https://www.radiateconsulting.coop