Branding Yourself as an Artist

In creative industries, it is no longer enough to have an extensive and impressive resume and cover letter. Employers now hope to find sources of creativity in everything a candidate does, including their portfolio and one’s personal brand as reflected through social media accounts and professional websites. Through my honors research I will investigate what makes a strong personal brand and how to use social media to promote oneself as an artist. By conducting research on other artist’s personal brands I was able to create a list of strengths and weaknesses to consider in creating my own personal brand. I compared and contrasted multiple design and artist blogs’ for tips and techniques. In figuring out my own personal brand I reflected on what I wanted the brand to represent, what I thought other people would associate with the brand, and who my target audience would be. The main elements of my brand include my signature and hand icons represent my personality and my design philosophy. My philosophy is to build relationships with people, brands, and companies that have tremendous stories and then use my creativity to help them share their ideas, hard work, and experiences with the world in a captivating, relatable, and very visual way. My hands are my most important tool when it comes to creating and it was important to me to use my hands as a way to tell a story. The next phase of the project was to implicate all of the research and strategy. Once all the web domains were registered, I applied the brand elements and set brand guidelines. Through the use of social media I would showcase my work, build relationships with followers, and share sources of inspiration. Based off of my previous research and with these ideas in place, I created a calendar and then began to build a social media strategy using a company called Hootsuite. This allows me to keep up and continue building my personal brand in the future. The resources provided by Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook will allow me to continue to monitor the overall success of my strategy and in time will prove whether it’s been successful or not. The experience of building a personal brand will not only help me stand out to future employers but has also provided a deeper understanding to the marketing and business side of promoting myself as an artist.