Finding My Brand

I put together a brand board to represent myself and my brand. I have my logo, my colors, my patterns, motto, and a mood board. I feel that throughout my life I’ve always felt most connected with the groovy style. I love learning about the 1970’s and what came from it. I always preach to simply be yourself and to be free-spirited. I picked colors that I liked the most and ran with it. I feel that this is the most genuine representation of me.

The topic of discussion this week is branding. It is truly important to develop a brand for yourself. Future employers and people in general will get a better grasp of your personality and style through your branding. You want to tackle what vision you have for yourself and put it to paper(and screen). I did some research and stumbled upon an article titled, “Reinventing Your Personal Brand” by Dorie Clark on the Harvard Business Review team. They introduce the article by saying everyone works hard to build a solid reputation in life. That being said, people are also always trying to find ways to reinvent themselves and switch their narrative. Whether that be switching your brand to something more professional, or fully changing your style. 

Rebranding can be huge or be subtle, but it’s important to do it in a presentable way. The first advice given in the article is to Define your Destination. Dorie claims that if you don’t fully plan out how you plan to rebrand or create your brand, you can end up confusing yourself and others. The best plan is to determine where you want to invest your energy. Do the research, figure out what you need to know for your desired industry. Next is to Leverage Your Points of Difference which entails discovering what makes you different to others. How are you unique in this world? It isn’t an easy question to answer, but it’s important to know what to do. A possible bullet-point list can really come in favor and also empower you by keeping in check of why you’re unique. The other advice titles within this article are: Develop a Narrative, Reintroduce Yourself, and Prove Your Worth. All very important with branding, I am going to switch gears towards honing in specifically on graphic design. 

On January 22, 2022 an article by Robert Half came out titled, “10 Ways to Brand Yourself as a Graphic Designer”. It’s important to focus on the brand identity of clients you will receive in the working world, but in order to get there you have to create a brand for yourself. It’s a great way to showcase what you’re capable of and how you strategically think. Clients want to see your potential and what makes you stand out to others in this career. I will be discussing the list of 10 aspects. 

“When you brand yourself effectively, you're not only representing yourself well but also giving prospective clients and employers an idea of your level of professionalism and the confidence they need to hire you.”

-Robert Half

1.Treat Yourself as a Client: It will get you in a headspace to keep yourself as a priority as you would for a paying client. 2.Study the Brands you Aspire: Explore what successful branding looks like and observe what these brands are doing right. 3.Start With Words, Not Images: This one I disagree with because it is important to showcase your work and your logo. You can display what makes you you in statements to come along with the images. 4.Find your Unique Offering: Consider your competition and push yourself to have a unique style that can be enjoyed by an audience. 5.Make it Authentic: You want to design to your style so you are comfortable with presenting yourself to clients. Don’t want to design something that isn’t fully you. 6.Craft Your Story: Write a professional bio to simply represent you. 7. Draft an Elevator Pitch: Crunch down a statement to effectively display your brand premise. This way it’s easy to present to future employers. 8. Translate your words to Images: Sketch and create designs to represent yourself. This is what I did and I will further do when making my resume, business cards, and thank you cards. 9. Pay Attention to all of your Marketing Materials: Brand yourself with a full set of different platforms with a cohesive style. 10. Refine Your Brand: “your personal brand is a living thing, and it should evolve as your graphic design career does”. I believe that quote from Robert Half perfectly describes how I should treat my portfolio. I want to keep it up to date and make sure it remains my style as I grow.

Sources:

https://hbr.org/2011/03/reinventing-your-personal-brand 

https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/salaries-and-skills/10-ways-to-brand-yourself-as-a-graphic-designer