🎨 Creatives we can't overlook Branding anymore
Some thoughts for my younger self within design, brand spotlight & cool links
👋 Hello brand enthusiast, how are you doing today?
I thought of this letter as a note to my younger self. How can I share with her the importance of finding her evolving voice and building from there? All with intention.
I witness many creatives that have mastery over Branding. They have such ease and confidence to speak their truth and solutions. This brings at the appointed time the support (people, funding, partnerships) they need to fulfil what they envision.
They have a clear positioning to craft their space within the market or create their market. From that decision lies possibilities, growth, obstacle, shifts and challenges.
It is a daring path to want to build your own, especially when you know it’s a bumpy ride. Still, everything leads to that positioning. All those daring decisions speak about your branding. They speak about ''You'' and what you can offer to the world through that journey.
Being a creative is a gift and a superpower that uncovers many responsibilities.
What is Branding for early creatives? a portfolio, pictures on social media and trying to get your work into the world. I was there and understood it was not enough. Not only do we dwell on our craft for ourselves but also for clients or employers, but we can also forget our WHY and try to create solely following trends.
The ''aha moment'' in Branding happens when you see yourself and your work in a 360 picture. You are not only a creative, you are a multi-skilled builder. Thus, you have to start leveraging business and leadership concepts to grow.
Your work encourages you to experiment, learn, fail and try again.
You are not one project. You are a collection of projects and positionings you have gathered until this date. In that lens, your branding is constantly evolving. That brings enormous value to your speech as a tool: to speak about those stretches.
💪 Confidence is a must in Branding
I created a program to empower your confidence
For me, Brand(ing) is your storytelling in motion. It revolves around the action of telling your story. That positioning demands a level of confidence even if it’s uncomfortable. Funny enough Branding and vulnerability are deeply connected.
In this program, I shared a personal framework that helped me raise my confidence.
Did I think of Branding when I was building it?
Not really, at first, I was focused on ‘‘bringing out the material’’. This program is an expression of who I am as a creative and how I bounce back to keep positioning myself to speak. My use and exercise of Branding were infused into my process, without me thinking about it. Because you don't really learn branding you do it. It led me to create an experience using a lot of my experience and set of skills.
When facing challenges and obstacles, choosing confidence even if it doesn’t feel like it, in our businesses, projects and life events is a claim for vision and hope.
💡 Visual identity spotlight: The Bible Project
Faith in Branding!
The Bible project was created by Timothy Mackie and Jonathan Collins (long-time friends). It is a nonprofit, crowdfunded organization that produces 100% free content to present complex biblical themes in a way that is relatable and comforting to a wide audience. They achieved a ‘‘coup de maître’’ in reaching believers and non-believers thanks to their uniqueness.
I discovered them through their motion power. They have mastery in storytelling the essence of stories within the Bible in a modern and innovative way. Each extract is crafted as an invitation to be curious. They portray characters from the Bible with a strong art direction aligned with their empowering dialogues.
What makes their branding so powerful?
The subject matters. It is rare to develop companies and projects within the faith realm that expands the ‘‘perception’’ of the world.
Education is a boulevard of possibilities to play. By decoding, they insert in their designs, animations and cinematography a meaningful use of explaining through playfulness.
Their visual identity supports and complements speech and purpose.
Magic combinations: it is of high quality, it is free and it has substance.
They bridge the gap between perceptions of faith and ‘‘the encounter’’ with The Book.
An invested and passionate team that celebrates their faith in an inspiring way.
It is an experience of the Bible that is approachable, engaging and transformative.
Cool links to click on
Packioli is innovative (artichoke leaves and peapods for packaging)
Feats (build projects and brands together)
Crowdcube (sleek and fun branding for investors)
Dropbox blog (work in progress is super cool)
Girlboss (that is a model of branding power)
Highrise (short marketing news and actionable strategies)
🎈 Fun Brand(ING) prompt / 003
What is the meaning of your ‘‘silent’’ Branding?
Video, words, illustration, animation… you choose. Short and sweet.
There is no branding if there is no investing in your growth.
Yours creatively,
Keva.