Create your own Professional Brand - For Creatives and Artists

1. Create your own Brand: Introduction: Hey, friends and creative people. Yes, I'm talking to, you know alot view music makers, graphic artists, illustrators, photographers, video creators, crafters and all other creative artists. You are in luck now because I am going to teach you how you can create your own professional brand. Imagine having your own brand that will benefit you incredibly much on your creative journey. As an artist, having a professionally designed and consistent brand can help you build connections as a professional, grow your business, get you more freelancing jobs and open all kinds of doors to amazing opportunities. Sounds pretty good, right? So what is branding? It's essentially everything people can recognize and remember you by Now let me dive deeper and explain to you what branding really is and why you will benefit from creating your own brand. In the corporate world, you think about Vogel types and brand colors. But branding is so much more than that. And I'm here to tell you that branding might be even more important for you as a creative person and content creator than the actual content itself, because you have to fight crazy high competition from millions of other creative artists in the world. It is not enough to make amazing and high quality content. You need to have a professional brand as well. Let me give you a practical example. Let's say you are a music maker and artist, and let's say you want to go from a bedroom musician to a future career in music. Then you need to package everything in a professional manner when you present it to music publishers, licensing companies and potential clients. Etcetera and branding is one off the best ways to be seen as a professional. It is one of the core factors that will differentiate you from the millions off bedroom music makers out there. And it's the same way if you're a graphic artist, an illustrator, a photographer, a video creator or any type of creative artist. If you have your own brand, consumers, piers, industry people and someone will see you as a professional, and your audience will remember and recognise you everywhere they see your work. Basically, your brand will work for you as a leverage and growth factor for your career. In fact, if you take the branding concept further, you can even say that every person in the world is a brand, a personal brand, the way you dress, the where you walk, the way you act and the way you talk, the small little things you do without realizing it. But your friends do, because everything that you do consistently for a pattern that basically is your personal brand and personal branding have become more and more important online as a way to build a stronger connection with people. So now is your chance to learn all the essential steps to develop both your professional brand as well as your personal brand s a creative and an artist. I will give you a practical view on every single brand element that I use personally and that I recommend you to incorporate when you design your own brand. In the end, you will also get a special bonus gift, a practical action step pdf that you can follow to build your brand from scratch. Now let me briefly introduce myself before we dive deeper. My name is Mike, and I am a music audio and video creator, true nerd and coffee addict. I love sharing my knowledge and experience to inspire and empower creative people like you all right. Get ready. Because I will give you a complete step by step guard to build your own professional brand . So pay attention, take notes and start learning because you rock, my friend. 2. Mike's Graphic Design Tips: Designing your own brand is not an easy task. And since it is critical that your brand looks and feels professional to your audience, I would advise you to outsource some off the graphical design work like the local type. For example, perhaps you have a friend who is good at the sign. However, if you do have design skills and think you can create most ports of your branding yourself , I'm now going to share my top design tips for creating your own brand tip. One less is more. Don't try to add too much to do the sign work you do. Using a few elements not only gives more clarity to the audience, but it also looks and feels more professional in most cases. Have a look here at my current YouTube channel banner, so my YouTube graphics include an image off myself, since I use my personal branding in everything I do. Personal branding is super powerful, and you should take advantage of being truly unique in the world because we all are, and people connect best with other people. All right, so next it also has my logo. Type. A lower type is the single most essential branding element because it is the graphical representation of your professional brand, Then I have included a cool to action to subscribe to my channel, which is the main focus. Anything you would like to focus attention to should be bigger, bolder and contrast everything else which I do here with the red background for the call to action text. And finally, I have included a reason to subscribe, which is using my catchphrase to spice up the call to action and make people more interested in subscribing to my channel. So as you can see the overall, this sign off my YouTube channel graphics is very simple, with few elements deep to always designed for high resolution. When I make images, graphics or any kind of pixel based design, I always do at least double the resolution compared to what I intend to use it for. So let's say I am going to design a graphic banner for a Facebook page. Then I take the with and hide in pixels that Facebook says the banner in it should be and double those values. Why do I recommend this? Because you never know if they changed the format, which means you will have to update it or if you want to use the same banner design. Some were ills where higher resolution is necessary. Tip. Three Used text sparingly If you're going to use text in your graphic designs like your video thumbnails, social media banners, etcetera, you should do so sparingly. Fewer words with the bigger and bolder formed will grab more attention, plus still be readable on a smaller screen like a mobile phone tip. Four. Always use your brand colder theme. It's super important to stay consistent with the cooler theme you have designed for your brand. I will teach you how to actually make your own brand color theme in another video. And after you have your color theme finished, you should use it consistently in all your designs. So when designing graphics, images and any other visual element, remember to use your color theme as a starting point. Consistency is the whole point of creating your own brand. Take a look here at my colder theme. Now let me show you some examples of graphically signs I have made. You can see here that I use the colors from my brands color theme in my designs. This make mighty signs look consistent. My brand mawr recognised and remembered, and my whole brand will be perceived as very professional by the people who will come across it. Tip. Five Design with purpose in mind How do you design anything will reflect on emotion, a vibe, a character even off your complete brand as well as your individual products. What do I mean by this? Well consider 80 sign often epic space movie poster with big spaceships. Flying Robles with laser cannons. That design might look really cool, at least if you are a true nerd like me. But would it really suit the purpose off showcasing your let's say music album with relaxing music or your printed artwork with flower motives? You're created content, your art, your products. They have a purpose, a target audience on inbound emotional character, and that character should go hand in hand with all this sign work you do in relation to it . As a music composer, I know these by heart. I love epic soundtrack music with big drums and large orchestra, but still I would not dream of creating such music for any type of end use because the product and the design should be like one. Amazing. Now you have learned my top essential design tips that I follow every day. And you should do. I might teaching you how to think when designing your own brand because you rock my friends . 3. Build your Design Toolkit: Now, before you start designing all the visual elements of your brand and then continue to design images and graphics for your products, marketing, etcetera, you need to get good design tools first. And I want to share my top list off design tools with you in this video. You can then pick and choose which ever tools you prefer, and that suits your personal workflow. Designed to one high end image editor, my main designed to is a high end graphic and image editor on my computer. I personally use a sulfur cold affinity photo for most of my graphic design work, such as photos, video, farm nails, social media, graphics and so on. It is a Mac only software that is similar to Adobe Photo Shop, which I also highly recommend. Basically, what you want is a high end graphic and image editing suffer that has layers blending modes , effects, adjustment layers and so on. Here's an example of a design I made in a high end image editor like affinity photo designed to to cloud based design software. I have personally used a service called Canberra. A lot of times it is a great design and layout software that runs in the cloud, so either on your computer using your Web browser or you can use your iPad if you install there. There are more products like this, but Canada works great and is easy to use, even for beginners off graphical design because they have pre made templates for many things. Here is an example of a design I made in a cloud based It's signed app like Canada, designed to three quick design smartphone apps. I like being able to design super quickly with image plus text for social media posts, etcetera. I have a couple of laps I go to for these, for example, word swag and peak Kulash. They both worked great and our superfast to learn and use words. Wag is even connected to pick Sabei so you can easily search and find free images to use for quick decides and peak collage. Have lots of cool options like adding borders, effects and stickers to your designs, and you can even add elements as layers and push them to the front or the back of your design. Here's an example of a design I made inwards wag, and this one I made in peak collage. I made both of these super quickly on my dad. And finally, I often use an app for quick publishing and editing off photos. There are so many photo editing APS for smartphones these days. I have personal used a lot off them and only one stuck with me, which is snap seed made by Google. It's super fast and easy to add a spotlight vignette. Ing filters adjust these shadows and highlights, and so one. All right, so those all my top design tools, I recommend. Some of you might say I missed to mention one type of graphic design to which is a vector based graphic software like Adobe Illustrator. But personally, I don't create my own vector graphics. I simply find vector graphics to use and then import into affinity photo for using in my designs. If you don't know what Victor based graphics is, basically, it is a mathematical calculations off curves and lines that build up the graphic. This means you can scale it up as much as you like, and you still won't see any picks. Elation. These works great for local types. I comes buttons, etcetera. So to recap, my top three essential designed to types or one high end image and graphic editor to cloud based design software and three quick designs. More phone taps. Great. Now do some research of your own. Check out my suggestions and find the tools that will become your designed to kids, because when you have your own brand, you will be making a lot off the sign work. Every video needs a thumbnail. Every social media posts need an image and so on. I might sharing my top design tools off my personal graphic design to kids because you rock my friends. 4. Define your Brand: The main purpose of your brand is to be a unique Avital for people to remember so that they can recognize your brand and your products every time they see, hear or read any content you made with your brand. Now remember this. Before you design your brand, you need to define your brand. And in this video I'm going to teach you the action steps I recommend to define your own brand. Imagine that your brand is like a personality like yourself. You have a unique way of talking, including the words you say and how you say them. You dress in your personal style. You have your own body language. You have your hobbies and passions in life. Favorite books and movies. Listen to your own mix of music styles and so on. You are unique, and your personality will come across in anything you do. It is the same for your brand, so when you design your brand, think of it like a person defined the character and personality off your brand, and all this sign work will come naturally afterwards. Now let me give you the action steps that I recommend you to go through when defining your overall brand thing. Step one, your brand character. Make a list of tags that defines the character of your brand. It's almost like describing the character of a person. Let's say you would describe your character to a person on the Internet that have never seen, heard or met you before. But instead of complete sentences, you use tags. I will give you a practical example by describing myself and my character as a person in tags. Positive, energetic, friendly, nerdy, technological, funny, dynamic and so on. So these are tags that define your character as a person, not the way you look. Now take this practical example and apply the same strategy for defining your brands character with Tex, for example, Here are some of my brand character takes, high quality, friendly, nerdy, welcoming story, journey motivating, inspiring. These are also worse, are used to describe myself, and this will add the personality and character to my brand. And I also used them often when I communicated people in text, in videos and in audio. So take some time to truly think about what words you want to associate your brand with and what words you feel natural for your brand to use in your communication. Step to your brand appearance. Now make a list of tags that defines the visual appearance of your brand. Let's take the analogy. Orb a person again. I always like practical examples, So let me define my own visual appearance as a person tool. Slim, bold, smiling jeans, casual and so on. And when I apply the same strategy to define the visual appearance off my brand, I came up with tags like Yellow, Black, Blue, Divine, Magical and Premium. I then used all these words as a baseline when designing the visual parts of my brand. So then I can use it consistently with new designs for video thumbnails, social media, graphics, etcetera. After all, that's what branding is four. So what tags can you come up with to define the visual appearance you want your brand to have Step three. Your brand language now define a bank off words that you intend to use continuously in your brand communication. These words can be casual when looked upon one by one, but as a mix, you will have your unique style to base your brand language on again practical example time , but this time it's not me. Think off the brand Coca Cola words I often hear them using in their communication or happiness, fun party, friends and excitement. When you put those words together and use them often you get a unique blend off communication that no, says Coca Cola, because that is how they have chosen to brand themselves with the language they choose to use. And now it's your turn making list of words that you won't associate your brand with and that you can use often and consistently in all your communications. Great. Now that you have defined your brand, you have taken the very first and super important step to actually create your own professional brand. Let's continue with more practical steps now, like design tips, tools and specific branding elements. You need to design I, Mike guiding you to build your own professional brand because you look my friends 5. Your Brand Name: So you have your brand definition ready, right? The brand tags that you will use as a foundation for your complete breading profile and all this sign, work and communication you will do in the future. Well, now let's talk about your brand name. How do you choose a good name for your brand? It might seem impossible to find a name that represents your brand vision and isn't trademarked or otherwise taken by another brand. Already, I am a huge believer in finding a unique brand name that will make you stand out by merely having an original name. And actually, I don't think it has to be so obvious. What products, services or content you create when you just look at the brand name, Just think about many of the famous brands in the world. Most of them are actually simply just unique names many or derived from the personal aim off the founder like Ford Phillips and Ben and Jerry's. I mean, you can't see from the name that food makes course. Phillips makes consumer electron ICS and Ben and Jerry's make ice cream. And here in Sweden, the brand I Kia was founded by Inver Kamprad and he named the company off through his initials, plus the first letter off the two places he grew up in. Nothing in the names suggested furniture or home design. Well, those brands and brand names were created in another time. Today we have another aspect to think about which they never had to consider. I am, of course, talking about the Internet and specifically website domain names and social media profiles . So how did I come up with my brand name? Peak 11. Well, I brainstorm for some time, came up with lots of different ideas and then checked on Google by writing the brand name idea in quotation marks to see what came up. If I found another brand using the name, I crossed it out from the idealist and moved on. I also used websites that makes you able to check a brand name spelled in one word for social media profile accounts as well as domain names, because I wanted to make sure I could add my brand name as the profile name for all the most important places, like a dot com Web address, Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter, instagram and so on. One such website for checking your brand name. Ideal is named checker dot com. It looks like this, and if I write my brand name, Peak 11 here you will see that my name is taken on a lot of these places because I made sure to do that as soon as I had decided on a brand name. And it is very important that you do the same to as fast as possible. Otherwise, someone else might grab your profile name on a platform you want to be on now to get specific. I came up with the idea for Peak 11 because my lucky number is 11. Also, it is a reference to put in max effort like 110%. And at the same time, it's also reference to push the levels beyond the ordinary maximum level on most systems, like guitar amplifiers, for example, which is tell. So you might say that my brand name represents pushing your limits, aiming for the stores or something like that. All right, now it's time for you to take action. Step one brainstorm brand names. You can look at all your tags for your brand definition as a starting point to get ideas from Step two, make it least of all ideas and then use a to like name checker dot com to see if any of them are available on all the important channels. Step three. Create all accounts As soon as you have made your final decision for a brand name, make sure to buy the domain name and create accounts with your brand name on all social media platforms. Do you think you might use great? Your professional brand will start with an idea and a name I might guiding you on your branding journey because you look my friends. 6. Your Color Theme: the first visual part of your brand issue design is your color theme. Why? Because it will set the tone and foundation for basically every visual element you will create. So, first, what is the brand colder theme? Well, basically, it is a pallet off course that you use as a foundation for all graphic This sign you do with your brand. Let me give you a practical example. My own brand color theme. So this is my brand color theme for my brand peak 11. I even named my different coolers in my brand color theme because I find that it adds an emotional factor and makes it more clear how I want to use these colors to represent my brand well, right. Still, the main coolers are used or blue and yellow, so I have to variations of those one more saturated version and one lighter version. Then I have added complete black and full white as well, because I use those a lot instead of grey scales. I also have a strong red color in my brand color theme, which I use as an action colder, which is great for directing viewer's attention, since it will highly contrast against blacks and beside boo or yellow elements, check out this example off my current YouTube video image. Thumbnails. Here you can see how about used my brand color theme in practice. My local type is designed with the blue and light yellow. As a base, I use a lot of black as background. In most of mighty signs. I have this strong yellow from my color theme to use as an accent against black backgrounds and finally, the teaser words for the video thumbnail or white on my action color, which is strong red. So how do you design your own brand color theme? Well, a great resource for inspiration is adobe cooler. It's a way beside where you can create your own core palette and also explore color themes other people have already created. You go to color, don't adobe don't come, and here you can design your own color palette. The only downside is that it's restricted to five colors per theme here, So if you want more, you need to create two separate color themes. After you have created a color theme that looks and feels good and that you think represents your brand visually make sure to save all different colors so that you can use them in your designs. You need to take the hex value and or the RGB values and say them on your computer, preferably in more than one location in case something goes wrong. I have them in my iCloud in the notes app on my iPhone, which I can also access on my Mac computer on Mac computers. You can also create and save Kohler themes in most native APS that use colors like, for example, here in keynote, open up a new document, click on any object just so you can access the color. I come here and here you can see that I have saved several Kohler themes, and if you want to create a new one, simply click these gear. Choose new, then design your color here with your RGB values or hex code. Then you go back to the theme you created and drag and drop the new color into your color theme. Then you can simply double quick to rename it on a PC. There is no native color palette that I know of, but I know you can create your own small tress in, for example, Adobe Photo Shop, which basically is a color theme. And finally, when you had created and saved your brand color theme, do a final test by watching your color theme in a hole and see if you truly feel it will represent the definition of your brand that you did earlier. Do those tags match the visual style you created with your brand color theme? Amazing. You are on your way to creating your own professional brand now the brand definition and cooler theme or, in my opinion, mawr important than everything else. These are things you should be very careful to change later on, because they will form the foundation. The very cool off your brand I Mike, helping you at the colors of your brand to match with your brand definition because you rock my 7. Your Logotype: all right. Now it's time for the most classic branding element off the mole. And for good reason. Your logo type loga type of your brand is the single most important visual element you need to create because it will represent your brand everywhere in your email signature in your videos on your website. Social media channels, printed material like business cores, flyers, ads and so, basically, in every form of visual communication, your logo top should be there. People will soon become, so use it that they will instantly recognize your content just by seeing your local type. If you think of your brand as a person, your local type is the face off this person, so your local type is the face of your brand. So how do you design a good local type that represents your brand? I have to tell you that this is not an easy task. That's why designers can make good money creating a good low type for a brand. I strongly recommend that you outsource the actual design work to a good graphic designer if you don't have the skills yourself and be honest to yourself because your Loga type is so important. For example, I got help from a friend with higher education in graphic illustration and design to create my local type, but you still have to tell the designer what you want. So let me tell you how to get started with the creation off your own local time. Define your local type with tags. Start by going through your brand definition tags. They all the cool of your entire brand and should always work as a foundation for all the sign work. You do next come up with a new list of tags that should describe your local type to a graphical designer and yourself. It does not have to be alone. Visual tags. Emotional tags were great, too. They're going to be used as a guide for the designing process off your local time. Let me share my exact workflow for creating and designing my log, a type which looks like this. I started by going through my brand definition tags, and then I used them to define tags for my logo type. These were some of the tags I came up with for my local type, premium quality, Divine Magic, Sweden Freedom. I also knew I wanted to base my loga type on the two main colors off my color theme, which are blue and yellow for the tag premium quality. I knew I wanted a dark, unsaturated blue, which has always been used through history as a cooler off wisdom, intelligence and even royalty for the divine and magic loga type tags. I asked my friend, who is a graphic designer and illustrator, to create an angel that symbolizes a projector off magic and dreams. He made it in vector form it and then sent it to me. I then did the rest of the design and layout myself in Adobe Photo Shop, the local type tag Sweden I automatically got from my two main brand cores, blue and yellow, which are the colors off the Swedish flag. To add even more to the premium quality and magic vibe, I added a very smooth Grady int on the dark blue background as well as a shadow behind the Angel. This creates a sense of depth that really elevates the feeling I wanted my longer type to represent. Then I added my full brand name in text, which is Peak 11 media productions and finally I made a double border off white and black the recent fall. That a double line border is that it creates a higher contrast and also makes it possible to have in my log a type on any background color and always have the outline contrast the background, which will make it stand out. I am super satisfied with the end result and haven't changed my lower type scenes. I created it. You should always be extremely careful to change your logo type, because it is like changing your face. I want to share one mistake. I did, though I did not create the entire local type in vector form. It and I strongly recommend you to do this because you will then be able to scale it as you want without worrying about picks, elation and blurriness. All right, so here's a final checklist for your logo type creation. One. Start looking at your brand definition tags to create a tag list to describe the emotional and visual presence you want from your local type. Three. Make sure to be clear on the colors you want to use in your lower type, especially the main brand corner and four find a graphical designer that can finalize the Loga type for you. Amazing. Your professional brand needs a professional local type so that people will recognize and remember you wherever they see your brand and products. I'm Mike helping you create the face off your brand because you look my 8. Your Audio Logo: branding is not only a visual appearance. Many brands also have complete sound design profiles, and the most important element off sound that you can incorporate in your branding is your audio logo. Sound is actually an amazing form of communication that can transfer emotion to your audience. In many cases, we respond to sound and music much more than a visual elements like a log, a type that's one very good reason why you should create your own audio logo. Another good reason is that, well, there is not a single professional brand that doesn't have a logo type, but very few brands at the moment. Take advantage off the power often Odio logo. So just by having one, you will stand out. So what is an audio logo, Exactly? Well, it is very similar to a jingle, but there is usually no lyrics, and it's generally very short, often just a few notes and no more than 3 to 5 seconds in length. So if I know how a famous audio logo, I'm pretty sure you can tell me what brand this is, even though it's super short and only a few notes done in 10 10 10 10 10 in a That was the audio logo off McDonald's. How and when do you use an old your logo? The single most common use often audio logo is in video form. When your vision logo type appear, you will often hear audio locals in the end of commercials from top brands. Now, let me give you a practical example. My own audio local for my brand peak 11. I had composed and produced my OD logo to be used mainly for my video intros that I used in all my video productions. This video intro has my local type, my main slogan and my Odio logo all in one. On top of that, I have made the animation to be in sync with my audio logo. When you get the visuals plus the all year together like this, you will gain the benefits off audiovisual synchronization. It's basically a one plus one equals four kind of thing because showing your visual logo type and playing your audio logo at the same time will increase the effect it has for the overall experience for the viewers. Basically, people will remember you even better Now. What should you think about when creating your audio logo. Here's a checklist with my top tips. One. Make sure to compose and produce it in high quality and high definition. Outsourced the production of your old your logo to a professional composer and producer to make your audio local very short. People have short attention spans on the Internet, and I recommend video interest to be a maximum of five seconds in lengths or as amusing three seconds. Which means your audio logo can be no more than that, either. Three Major OD logo Clear and distinct I recommend using only one or two instruments to play the notes off your ODI logo. Full. Design your old your logo with your brand definition tags as the foundation. You should give your brand tags to the composer and producer who will make your old your logo for you. Five. Remember that your audio logo is not an extension of your visual logo. It's basically a mirror, but in a different format, one being visual and one being auditory, so make sure they work very well together. Awesome. We are making super fast progress here. Your professional brand is in the making, and I share all my tips and tricks from practical experience, running my own business since 2004 and working with branding professionally scenes around 2012 because you roped my friends. 9. Your Slogan: Now it's time to communicate what you do, who you do it for and why. In one single sentence, your brand slogan. First things first. What is a brand slogan? Well, it's basically a sentence that will summarize your main intention off your complete brand. As I said in the intro, It can be what you do, who you do it for and why you do what you do. Perhaps you will not be able to get all of those aspects into your slogan, but the main thing is that your slogan will have an emotional impact on people and that it will be very easy to remember. Branding is a complete package. Your logo type your cooler theme, your slogan and all other elements work together to form your complete brand. But the slogan is usually the Onley element that is actual text. Now let's look at some examples off slogans from famous brands. My favorite is from Nike, a brand that focus mainly on sport and fitness. Their slogan is Just Do It. And in only those three words, they describe the entire movement they have created with this famous slogan. It's what runners use to stop making excuses and go out for a run. It's what sport and fitness people use to get to the gym or workout. Now let me explain my reasoning for coming up with my own brand slogan. My brand slogan is creative content for creative people because I produce music, sound, video and media and my target audience customers and consumers off my content or creative people themselves. So my slogan covers what I do and who I do it for, But I don't have my why in my main brand slogan. That's why I also have a secondary slogan, which I use as a tagline in my videos in copyrighting etcetera. A secondary slogan can be longer, in my opinion, since it is not directly tied to your local type, which is the main place, you will display your main brand slogan. You can see my brand slogan in my video intro here now my second, every slogan is I share my story and journey as a music maker and artist to inspire and empower creative people like you. All right, so now it's time for you to take action and create your own brand slogan. I have a list of advice for you that you should think about before you start brainstorming ideas for your slogan. One. Keep it short and distinct, like a punchline. Remember, just do it to have one word be your main focus were that you feel strongly about and fits your brand. In my slogan. This word is creative in Nike's slogan. Just do it, I would say Do is the primary word for Apple's slogan. Think different. The word different feels the strongest. What is your brands? Primary word. Three. Consider what you want, your slogan to focus on what you do for whom and why. Or you can also look on your brand from a higher perspective, like many of the big brands do and have a slogan that says more about what you've owned your customers to accomplish when introduced to your brand. Like the slogans of Nike or Apple, I just mentioned super. Now sit down for a brain storing session. Come up with a list of primary words and shoes, one as your starting point and centerpiece of your slogan. They think about the tips I just gave you and start doing down potential slogans for your brand before you know it. You will have created an amazing slogan that truly defines your brand and vision in one single sentence if you want to, you can even go for a second ARY slogan like I did. That can be a bit longer to further define what you do and, more importantly, why you do it. I Mike and I want to end this lecture with a quote of a brand slogan to make you take action. Just do it. So go ahead and continue the creation process of your own professional brand by creating your own brand slogan. I know you can do it because you rock my friends. 10. Your Avatar Image: it's time to create one profile picture to rule them all. It's time to create your avatar. So what is an avatar image? Basically, it is a profile picture that will be used in all places online, where you use a profile image. It mainly concerns places on the Internet, where you're active and representing your brand. Like all social media platforms, Internet forums and even in your email signature, there are to the re different directions you can take with your rabbit or image. Either you go in the personal branding direction or you go in the professional branding direction. Basically, this means either you have an avatar image, which is a close up picture of you, or you have your local type as your avatar image. I have personally chosen the personal branding direction because I believe that personal branding is actually stronger than professional branding, especially if you're a soul entrepreneur like me, which means my brand is closely connected to me as a person. I could have easily chosen my local type as my avatar image because it is actually square already informant. But instead I took a photo of myself in my studio, did some editing in a photo editor and cropped it into a square image like this. Then I uploaded this editor image as my profile picture on all the social media channels are used. So every time I comment, people will see an image of me. And each time I build a stronger connection to the people that not only can read my text but seeing image off me as well. Now, what things should you consider when creating your avatar image for your own brand? Here are some tips I want to share with you. One. Design your avatar image in high resolution, even though it will be used in very small resolution. Most of the times scaling it down for each use case and specific resolution will make it sharper. For example, I created my own avatar image in a resolution off 1000 times 1000 pixels to make your avatar image completely square, meaning the proportions off height versus with is 1 to 1 and three. Keep in mind that the end result will be a very small image, so make sure you use a high resolution, sharp and most importantly, close up image or simple and clean graphics like your local type, make the focus point of your territory image as large as you can inside the square, so it will be easily recognized by people. For example, my logo type has text in it that will not be visible in a small lavatory image, especially on a smaller screen, like a mobile phone. But a person's face is very easy to recognize, even in a small picture, because we, as humans have been trained from evolution to recognize faces extremely false and very accurately All right. Now choose your direction, personal branding or more classic branding for your editor image. Keep in mind that in most cases your editor image will be used in social communication, like on social media. In YouTube, comments, your email signature, etcetera. And these are the very places where I believe you can benefit a lot from personal branding due to the collection and relationship factory built when you chat, discuss and talk to people online. My name is Mike, and I guide you towards creating a short, clear, an easily recognizable avatar image to use us your profile picture all over the Internet to represent your own brand because you roped my friends 11. Your Main Font: Hey, friends and creative people. This lecture is about the visual aspect off text, and by this I mean phones. There are thousands of forms you can use, and each one looks and feels a certain way. So what is a front? A formed is basically a standardized look of a text so that all characters have the same type of this sign. There are straight phones, curly phones, smooth phones, bold phones and so on. And phones can look very different from each other, even if they are in the same category. So why does this matter? Well, each person has a unique handwriting, and I even remember a teacher back in school who could recognize all the different students by their handwriting. Your handwriting is part of your personal brand because it's something that you don't suddenly change its part of your character and who you are. When you're creating your own professional brand, I recommend that you choose one main phoned that you will use for the majority of your communication in text. In fact, using several different forms in one design is one of the pitfalls that amateur designers fall into. It simply looks unprofessional. One example of using the power off consistency that comes by using the same front in basically all designs is the brand apple. They even went so far as developing and designing their own phones called San Francisco, which they use in their operating systems on their website and other forms of marketing, packaging, etcetera. The chosen main formed is only one off the branding elements, but it sure helps in creating that consistent experience for the end users and the audience that comes across the brand. So what's my own shows? And Main phoned. I wanted to use a phone that has many different versions off with, from Super Teen to ultra Bold. I also knew I wanted to use a straight formed with focus on readability. I wanted informed that can have that. A pick cinematic vibe when written in compact, ultra bold and that diligent and smooth vibe when reading in a super thin version the fund that I ended up using as my main phone for my brand waas Helvetica Neue. It has over 20 versions off with from Super Teen to ultra condense bold, but all versions have the same style off straight and clear design Here's an example of how the formed I'd shows to use looks in various versions off thickness. Now, when choosing your main phone for your band, make sure it can represent your brand overall definition and visual emotional character. Whatever formed you end up choosing, make sure to really use it consistently. In fact, that's the most important thing. It should be your default. Go to formed. For all the signs, of course, you can make exceptions in some decides that really cool for a different style of font. But always start with your main phoned and make it the default choice in all design work you do. I have some tapes you can think about before you start looking for a main form to use one. Do you want a serif formed or san serif font? One example off a serious formed is times new Roman and an example of a sensory formed is Ariel. Forms with syrups have slight lines at the end of a stroke on each character. Syria phones have been widely used in print like books and newspapers. Cell phones have a more classic traditional sensory forms, have a more modern look and works great on the Internet because of the readability factor to do you want a formed with sharp edges or rounded edges. An example or reformed with short pages is Helvetica, and an example of a phoned with rounded edges is new. Nieto forms with rounded edges or fairly uncommon, but might, for example, add a sense off full kind and welcoming touch to your brand. And three. Are you going to use many different versions off thickness for your phone? Most phones does not come with more than three or four versions of thickness. So if you will use more versions, make sure that your chosen main formed for your brand is an entire phone family with many options off thickness. One final piece of advice is to check if the phone you choose is free or if you need to pay to use it. For example, the phone I use Helvetica is a paid formed. This means you need to buy a license to use it Legally. However, you get this licence for free if you buy a Mac computer. Basically, it comes with the Mac operating system. One great source to find good phones that are open source, meaning free to use is Google phones. So go to fonts dot google dot com and look around for a form that suits you and your brand . My name is Mike, and I wish you good luck hunting for your optimal phone to use as your main phone for your old professional brand because you look my 12. Mike's Personal Branding Tips: Now it's time for my favorite type of branding. It's also the one that will have the biggest impact on your audience if you truly go all in personal brandy, right? So you have learned the most essential elements off professional branding like, for example, your color theme, your local type, your main phoned, etcetera. All of those things are super important and will greatly benefit you and your business if you create them, implement them in your designs and, most importantly, used them consistently. But in my experience, from running my own business since 2004 and simply from interacting with other people online and in real life, people connect four better with other people compared to just brands and entities without a human face. That's why most of the big brands have a front figure. That's why political parties have a person to represent them. That's why we have leaders, because people follow and connect with other people. I have personally experienced the positive effects off personal branding a lot during the years, especially after I started my YouTube channel back in 2010. There's a saying in the marketing world that people do business with people they know like and trust well by being yourself, showing your personality and by being relatable, you will start to build that know like and trust factor with people who follow you online. It's basically building a connection and relationship with your audience. Now let's talk about how you can develop your personal brand. It's not rocket science. It is actually common sense once you get the hang of it, because personal branding is very similar to professional branding, in the sense that it's all about consistency. So in traditional branding by using the same color theme as the base for all designs, people with store to remember and recognise you everywhere because of that specific or a theme and in the same way things that for a repeated pattern of yourself as a person will create your personal brand. Something's come naturally and automatically like the way you speak, the way you move, the way you walk etcetera. These things are part of your natural character and becomes port of your personal brand, whether you like it or not. Then there are things you have more control over to basically style your personal brand. Here are some examples I recommend you to build a strategy from one your extended title. A professional title is not really personal by professional title. I mean plane titles like writer consultant to build your personal brand. You won't add some things that tell a bit more about who you are, things that can make people connect and relate with you more than a boring job title. For example, let's say I write Star Wars fan in my extended title. If another Star Wars fan find me online and reads my extended title, it is likely that he or she becomes forem or interested in getting to know me than if I only write music composer and for sport fans out there. Isn't it true that if you find a supporter of your team somewhere online or out there in the world, you instantly feel closer to him or her? This is basic human relations. We tend to like people we can relate with, so make yourself relatable by adding some personality to your extended title off course. You should have your main professional experience in your extended title as well. That's why I call it extended. Want a practical example? Sure, here's my extended title. Michael Mike Bags Room Music sound Video creator. True Nerd Coffee Addict Now think about what you feel is the essence of you, your character and your personality than at those things to your extended title. It's a great way to connect with people faster in on Lee a few words to your personal word cloud In comedy. When people make a funny impression off another person, they often use words and catch phrases that people recognize from that person. What is interesting is that many times we are not actually aware of using some words and phrases as often as we do. A catchphrase, however, is a deliberately used phrase that will repeat often, and by doing so, it becomes port off our personal brand. So what I have done and recommend you to do is I have created a personal word cloud in a document. In these documents, I have collected phrases I use often as my signature phrases, as well as single words I like using individually. These doesn't really create your personal brand, but if you look at the complete word cloud and use these words and phrases consistently in all your forms, on communication. You are in fact building a strong personal brand in the way you choose your words, both in writing and in audio or video form. Here's some of the words and phrases I have in my personal word cloud. Now, what will your word cloud look like? Three. Your style and outfit. All right, so your body language way of talking and moving. It's not really something you control. It's just who you are and comes naturally to you. But the way you style yourself and risk can have a dramatic effect on your personal brand, and it's easier to control. Of course, you should develop a style that feels natural to you. The point is that you should not always dress to conform to the norm by sticking to your personal style. You can actually stand out. Do you remember Steve Jobs, a great leader and high authority figure? Yet he almost always dressed in blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater instead of it tailored suit or something you might expect it became port off his personal brand. So the point is not to dress in style yourself in a way you think your audience wants race to complement your personality. For example, I am a professional, but I am also a nerd. I don't really feel comfortable wearing suits and ties, but I don't feel the creative and professional vibe and workflow if I wear slacks or sport where my favorite color is blue and I don't like to wear strong colors. That's why you most often see me wearing dark jeans and mawr casual shirts, almost Onley short sleeved shirts in something toff, blue, black or grey. I never wear sunglasses, jewelry or basically any type of accessory. Well, I do have these sport watch because I need to move my body and exercise more. But that's a practical use, not for style. The main point I want you to take action on is to create a document to actually write down your personal style, an outfit preference, and then be proud off the fact that you or yourself off course you can dressed for the occasion at times. But always ask yourself first, Is it really necessary to conform? Or can you be yourself? The more often you use your personal style, the more you will strengthen your personal brand from your visual appearance. Now what is your way of dressing and styling yourself that feels natural to you in real life? There are so many ways and opportunities to build your personal brand. But what about online? Here are some of the areas where you can take advantage off the powerful impact of personal branding. One. Your email signature to on all your social media profiles. Three in your blogged or vlog four in your video productions on YouTube, etcetera and five. Which is the best of all. If you do live streaming, since showing yourself visually will connect with people the fastest. Making videos where you are present and doing live streams is by far the best way to build your know like and trust factor, which basically is the end goal of your personal brand. Now it's time for you to take action. Create a document called My Personal Brand and fill it with personal branding elements that you feel you will use consistently like your extended title, your personal word cloud, your personal style and any other things that you can come up with that will build your personal brand. Amazing. You have now discovered and learned how to create the essential building blocks off your own professional brand, plus your personal brand. So make sure to take action because it will benefit your career and business incredibly much if you implement and use your branding consistently. Now go and change the world with your own brand because you broke my friends.