Introduction
You may be a graphic designer or illustrator or video editor or any other designer, but tend to fail to land a job or internship due to poor personal branding.Your brand should speak for you, it should tell a story of what type of person you are, how creative are you and how other people know about you.
Personal Branding
Marketing yourself as an individual designer by telling a story that others share. Show your creativity as a designer by telling a story to be a fellow designer through your brand.
It can be your personal identity offline like on CV, portfolio, business cards, or online identity on social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Why do you need?
Your brand reflect on what type of work you love to do. This attracts the right type of opportunities.Take an example if you like to doodle. Then build a personal doodles for your brand that tells about who you are and what you like to do. This helps you land opportunities to build doodles for another brand and services.
If you feel difficult and feel stuck while creating your brand below are few questions you can ask for yourself.
- What area do you want to specialise in? Do you prefer logos? Illustration or packaging etc
- Why did you start as a designer? Maybe you always wanted to dray as a child and you discovered passion in doing that?
- What are your dream projects/clients?
- What are your strength and weaknesses as a designer?
- As your closest people what kind of person you are.
Brand elements to include:
Personal branding doesn't have to be sophisticated as a business branding; here are three elements to consider:
At the very core of your brand identity will be your primary Logo (this could also have an abbreviated version for social media, but it's up to you).
A colour palette ( ensure you know the hex, RGB and CMYK references, so you know they are always the same. )
A secondary typeface which you will use on documents for subtext such as your name, contact details on a business card or CV.
The Brand Guide
This brand yourself guide will provide you with a working method to help you develop the critical elements of your personal brand (Logo, colour palette, secondary typeface) and then give you a kick-start on the best way to use your beautiful new design identity!
Here's some inspiration to get you started. Be sure to check out the entire project!
Research is key
As with any creative project, you need to gather some research, find examples you love (and some you don't.) Look at a variety of styles from marque based logos, type-based Logo, Mascot logo etc.
Please pay attention to the colours people have used, how many design elements they produced and how they have applied the brand in a broader context.
Sketch Sketch Sketch
The sketching process will add clarity, save time and improves productivity in the branding project. When it comes to creating your Logo, start with 10-20 (or even 30) very rough sketches. The more ideas you have, the easier it will be to choose your favourites! (you can also ask friends/ families or other designers for feedback)
3. Experimentation - The fun bit!
- Have an idea of the colour palette you want to use and typeface's you like the style of before you start - this provides a solid starting point.
- Don't restrict yourself too much, try out many ideas and then develop the ones you like the most or even combine elements of them.
- Personal branding is super personal, so don't worry about getting it right straight away. Many designers will often refine and tweak their brand yearly as with time; their design style will also change and develop 🙂.
Refinement & Application
So you have a few designs you like, and you've experimented with colour palettes, fonts etc. Now you need to make the hard decision, which elements do you finalise to become your brand. A key rule to follow is to go with your instinct; after all, you are the designer and should have a good idea on what you like (and don't)
At this point, you should have: A logo, a colour palette and a secondary typeface to be used on business cards CV's, portfolio and websites.
Then we're straight back to the fun bit!
Start applying your Logo to business card designs, your CV, and professional Social Media profiles, Portfolios, Behance,Dribbble, etc. Make sure you stick to the colour palette and use your branded Typefaces.
Please note for websites such as Behance or Dribbble, and it may be hard to customise font so try to match it to your brand typeface as closely as possible
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed reading this guide, and are excited to improve your brand identity. Check out the tutorials below to help you build a consistent portfolio!
