Transcripts
1. Intro: Hi, I am, but please
have rhinos and I run my own business as a
creative freelancer. I comes out and design digital solutions for my
clients all over the world. Developing a personal
branding online helped me so much to get seen and to track
the right clients for me. Be true to you, your style, your values, and
your personality. In this class, you will identify your ideal clients and turn
them into paying customers. You will learn how to build a successful personal brand or your creative
freelance career. A final project, you will design your own posts for social media. First, I will help
you define your style and the reasons you should
be your authentic self. Next hour, how you
define your values, your niche, and what makes you unique as a creative person. We will talk about
the importance of really being true to yourself. So there might be some people
doing things you are doing, that no one does
it the way you do, because no one is q. And social media as a free tool, helps you so much to really
show your personality, your skills, and what you
can do for your clients. So by the end of this course, you will be able to create a social media strategy based on your
personal brand name. For this course, you need any kind of
computer with Wi-Fi, you need a smartphone or
any tablet and a pen. So basic knowledge
of Adobe Illustrator is recommended but
not necessary because I will guide you
through different tools which are all super
beginner friendly. I can't wait to
see you in class, so let's get started.
2. Class Project: Hello and welcome to this class. My name is Professor
Anna's and I'm your instructor for this class. I'm super excited
to see you here and get started to work on
your personal brand. Because this will be
such a game changer for your creative career. This class is perfect
for you if you are a freelance creative, or even if you're employed, working for a company, or if you are doing
an internship. So basically for every
creative person in this class, we will go through the
basics of personal branding. And I will guide you
through my process of developing a successful
personal brand. As your final project, you will be developing
a personal branding and creating even the first
content to share. For social media,
we will talk about your personal branding
values and your personality. We will define your target
audience and your niche. We will develop your visual
identity step-by-step. Choosing design
elements, typography, colors, your tone of voice. And we will prepare your
first design assets for social media
using Illustrator, adobe XD or Canva or C6 press. And we're going to talk about the right content
for what platform, and also what to do on your website and basically other methods
you need to know. I'm going to share
a lot of tips and examples throughout
the course with you. Please download the worksheets
that I prepared for you. Or you can just use your
notebook, whatever you prefer. We're also going to use your favorite design
software like Illustrator Photoshop,
InDesign, Adobe XD. So yeah, please
install these programs are Canva and TCA
Express for your phone. And also make sure to have
some paper and some pens. So to kick-start this course, we will have a look
at a few examples. One person that I
think it's very inspiring, it is Crystal. He shows a lot of
value on social media. Definitely have a
look at his profile. Another person that
I think is very inspiring is dot lung. What you can see here is that her design is
very, very consistent. See the same color as the same
style over and over again. Another interesting
person for me, at least is just a car wash. She's a creative person
or a creative director. My star, you probably know him. And what she shares here on social media is
also very consistent. A lot of photography's
and very visual. Another person that I think is a pretty good example
is your x collection. And Morgan, She's
a UX UI designer. And as you can see here, it's also very, very,
very consistent. So the visual part of this looks very consistent
like I already said. And she's really focusing on
the topic of UX, especially. Then we have Timmy co-occur. He's a photographer, has
a very interesting style, so he makes us just
like graphic design, photography styles and skills. So very unique. And this really comes across in his Instagram profile
because he shares his work and his art into
stories and also as pulse, so very consistent
and awesome for clients to see that and
know what he can offer. Another person that I think does it super wall
is null in Maya. She is an illustrator
from Austria. She shares a lot of
different kinds of works. She's done for client,
but also personal works. And what I hear really like is that she not only post photos, but that she combines
it with illustrations. So she's an illustrator. So when she uploads
a photo of herself, she adds some drawings. And I think this is pretty
cool and pretty interesting. Just keep that as
an inspiration. Not to copy them or anything. You will do your own thing. You will come up
with your own idea. I would say, let's get started
with the next chapter.
3. Personal Branding: In this lesson, we will talk
about personal branding and especially personal
branding for creatives, just remember, you are your own superpower and this solid about
personal branding. You can look at others for
inspiration and for guidance, how they present their career, but you will never find your niche following
others examples. So really embrace
what makes you unique and Neville look
too much in others. So this class will help
you to learn more about your special skills and
what makes you unique, what makes you, you. Personal branding is
what other people tell about you when you
are not in the room. You want to be the
person that others know and remember when
opportunities come up, right? So this might be
freelance project, this might be job offers. And I remember
several iterations in the last year is
when I was working with clients and we realized that we needed an illustrator for some illustrations
for our website, for example, or
someone who draws a moral or a copywriter. Then I will super interesting
to see how difficult it actually was also for
clients who find someone. So I started to think
about who I know who does these kind of projects or
work from social media. And then I reached out to these people whose work I
know only from Instagram. And although I never
really met those people, I knew that they would be a really good fit
for work because I feel I know them from
the things they've posted and from the stories
they're sharing up being, you know, all the behind
the scenes stuff. So they got the job only because they presented
themselves online. And there were in
the top of my head when I was looking
for someone or when we were looking
for someone. So try to really be that person
who is a top of the hat. So how do you achieve that? To really become cut off mind, you need to be
someone that is set automatically comes in mind
when opportunities come up. In general, people we want to work with, people they know. But we have greatest
needs to help others really to understand
what we can do for them, but what kind of services
we can offer for them. The cool thing is that
you don't need to be a freelancer to build
your own personal brand, but you can also
work for a company. It can be really
helpful for you to just stand out and present
how you want to be seen. Right now we're living in a super exciting time
where it has never been easier to really build your personal brand
because of the internet, because of social media. So you can get started today
and birds step-by-step, start to really present yourself
in a way you want to be seen and help people to understand what you
can do for them, what you can, what kind of
service you're offering, how you can solve
their problems. And they used to be a time where people
will just put it out there portfolios
and then send it to agencies or two clients. No one does that anymore. That hiring managers
or stakeholders or agencies or clients,
they look online. If you're an illustrator, they're looking for
your style, maybe so. And another thing, branding
is not about self-promotion. It's not about being
an inferences, is not about getting a lot
of followers on Instagram. It's much more about really been known for a certain topic. So if you want to be seen, present yourself, make
sure you are visible. We're going to talk about
methods you can use and how and what you can do to
really become visible. Because this will open
a lot of doors for you, whatever you are
planning your future. Remember, it's a struggle for clients to find
the right people. I'm working as a freelance
designer for seven years now. And I experienced that many, many, many, many times. And I was prepping for
different agencies and had an opportunity to really
look behind the curtain, solve for everyone, it's
really important to find good people,
the right people. And personal
branding is not just choosing certain visual
style or colors or fonts. This is really much about
presenting you in the way you want to be seen and helping other people to
understand what you do. And this is what we
will do in this class. We will go through
the values and your target audience and then come up with the visual style.
4. Your Values: In this lesson, we're
going to talk about your what and why
are you doing this? So does deafness probably the most important part
of the whole chorus. And you are going to
do your first task. So to get everything ready, make sure to download
the workbook. Either you use the PDF print out version
and print it out. I use the iPad or
tablet version. And you can just import
this iPad version or a television to any note-taking
app on your tablet. And that might be notable or notes or whatever you prefer. This app you can just ride with your Apple pencil on the sheets. So finding your values is basically defining what
is important to you. Not what other people think
should be important to you, or what you think it needs
to be important to impress other people or pretend to be normal or something like that. Now, it's really
about you and we're deeply inside you and what
makes you feel alive. So finding your values
are who you are as a creative person starts
with finding what you love. That sounds easy,
but many people never really think about
what they truly love. They just do things
because they think society expected from them. Or they just think work really needs to be hard and
work can be fun as well. Although you might
already have a career, don't forget, you
can always adapt, adjust, or change things in your career until you
are fully fulfilled. In general, we are all
passionate about something, but the challenge is really
to find this something and turn it into career or
integrated in our career. You can always change
and adapt your career. For example, if you
are a photographer, for example, you'll want
to change your style. Maybe you realize
that you love dogs. I love that you love
pets and general, why not try out pad
photography and focus on that area to find out what
you're truly passionate about. Here's the first task. Just think about your childhood. So the age between five to ten. What's the one
thing that you kept doing and felt like
was so much fun. What did you make you
special as a child? Maybe you are
someone who loves to argue and discuss
with other people. Maybe you were someone
who was just super fascinated by science
fiction and new technology. Maybe you were out two super
creative few, draw a lot. Yeah, and you're
really creative. What is really
special about you? And what might have felt not
that interesting to others. So really ask your
childhood friends or your parents what they
remember of you as a child. What were your special interests back when you were a child? What made you stand out? And the annulus, you could
be very, very interesting. Because usually as a child, you do the things that you love, that you are passionate about all the time with more responsibilities
and social norms, etc. And this really changes. So when you think back
about your earlier, you find your true passion. This is such a good tip. Here comes the task for you. Like I said, really
ask your parents or your childhood friends about
how you were as a child and write that all down in your workbook and
summarize these things based on your own
experience and add them to the characteristics
that define you. Feel free to add
experiences and passions. You'll remember. If you can do the exercise right now because you don't have time to talk to your parents or your childhood friends,
that's totally fine. Just leave it open
and fill it out later throughout the course, or after you went through
the whole course, or whenever you talk with your parents or your friends
who can still do that. So no need to do it now. And I also want to
really emphasize this. This is the thing with
all the exercises. If you feel that you want
to skip any of the exercise that any point and go back to it later
throughout the course. That's totally fine. No pressure at all. Sometimes you might just need a little bit more time
and that's totally okay. So in case you want to
do the task right now, take about ten to 15 minutes, talk to your parents and
your childhood friends, and stop the video and write down the
results in the workbook. And then we will go on with the second part after you
finish this exercise. In the second part of
the value of sections, we're going to
talk about ET guy. So what does it mean? Ak guy is a Japanese concept, that means your reason
for being achy is Japanese and means life and guide is grabs your
value or worth. Your achy guy is your life
purpose or your bliss. It's what brings you
joy and inspires you to get out of
that every day. So it's all about you found
your dream career when your career includes
these four quantities. Things that you love, things that you're good at. Things where you get paid for and things that the
world really needs. And our goal now is to find something that is in the middle, that Iike guy, something for
you that combines all of it. So something you love,
something you're good at, something you get paid for and something the
world really needs. This exercise is super powerful and it's the best
for your freelance career. That I must be honest. This exercise is a
challenge and it's normal that you can answer
all the questions right away. So it's totally okay if you
need to think about a little longer and get back to this exercise
throughout the course. Like I said, it's
probably one of the most difficult exercises
throughout the course, but also probably the
most important one. So don't worry, if you get back to it later,
that's totally fine. We're going to go
through the four areas together and I'm going to share
some questions which you, which will hopefully help
you to fill out the forms. And I'm also going
to fill it out for me for my own business. Just an example for you to
see to see how I filled out. I already I would say let's get started
with the first one. So what do you love? Those things? You are truly excited about. You do them and you might
forget the time you might forget to eat or
an anything around you. So those are those things where you really get
into the flow state. If you're thinking
about the perfect day, these tasks might
be a part of it. Are there things in
your life you can't get enough of things
you would love to do. Everyday. Things that
give you so much energy. And sometimes it's
really helpful to really watch your
feelings during the day. And then really watch yourself when you
feel the happiest. That can be super
small things like making yourself a good cup of coffee or a walk with
your dog every time, for example, or painting
or helping people. So this is very personal. For me. I can say the
things that I love the most are solving problems that can be any kind of real pseudo code
or any kind of problems. I absolutely loved that. Another thing that
I truly enjoy are creating aesthetics and
anything around design. So when I'm creating
presentations or designs for clients, Instagram post, I totally
forget time at anything. I absolutely enjoy that. I also really love traveling. I love new cultures and people. This is the best and
the best reward for me. So I truly enjoy that. I also really love
mentoring, uh, help others. This brings me so
much joy to support others and see others
succeed and grow. And I really love teaching. This is very personal for me. Now I'll take around
five-minutes, the video and fill out what you love in your worksheet
and get back to it. So let's get to the
second section. What are you good at? Things? Really think about what parts of your job come easily to you. Are there any things you
think you're really good at? Are there any areas where other people maybe even
ask you for advice or anything you get a
lot of compliments for. Are there any task you think
are very intuitive for you, but very challenging
for other people. Just get some time
and think about it. For me. I am really good
at strategic thinking. I would love to plan things. And I am really good at seeing bigger goals and then
reaching these goals. I'm really good when it comes to user
experience as really understanding and
knowing which methods to choose and what to do. I'm also good at seeing
the bigger picture, and I'm also good at doing talks and any kind
of public speaking. So now it's your turn. But don't be ashamed to really write down
what you're good at. This is not bragging at all. It's totally okay to
appreciate your skills. And being good at something
doesn't mean that you need to be the
best in the world, but it means that those things just come really easily to you. Now. Take around five to ten minutes, stop the video and fill out
where you're really good at getting back to it
later, It's totally fine. So section number three, what does the world need? This is as super
interesting area and here are some
guiding questions to find out what this
might be for you. Which part of your work are considered a high demand
in the marketplace? Picture the next year, the next ten years,
the next 100 years. Well, your work still
be valuable and which part of the work you
are doing right now will be still in the next
510 or 100 years. Are you solving social, economic, or
environmental problems? And if so, what is it? What parts of your work will
be valuable in the future? I am working as a UX UI designer focusing on augmented
reality experience. So for me it's. The world really
needs compassion. My clients need that, our users need that. I feel everyone needs that
and will always need that. Then another thing for
me is your X knowledge. Ux guidelines will become
even more important in the future because humans are always interacting
with technology. And another thing that is
really needed is honesty and real guidance when it comes to strategic design problems
and user centered design, we will always have
users and we need to design any kind of
experiences around them. Now take around five-minutes,
stop the video, and fill out what part of work does the world
really needs from, from your, from your work? And write that down
on your worksheet and then see you later
in the next section. Section number four. What can you get paid for? Other other people
are getting paid for the same work you
are doing right now, but you are not getting paid. So is there a healthy level
of competition for your work? Have other people made a
career out of the things that you are doing for fun
of it you really love. Is there an option
to really own money? Are people willing
to pay for it? Have people around you requested to buy what
you make or what you do. So for me, what can
I get paid for? People? Pay me to do design websites or any
kind of digital products. And people are
willing to pay for, for advisors and
consultancy work. People are also willing to pay me for education, mentoring, or teaching because they
want to be successful and to become successful
with my guidance. Now, take around five
minutes, stop the video, fill out words
you're getting paid for and where some
options of getting paid. Write this on your worksheet, are, get back to it later. So hopefully you filled
out all the four sections. If not, you can still
get back to it later, so don't worry, but good job. Like I said, this is the challenge about those
questions help you hopefully to reflect and
really deeply think about who you are and
what you want to do. The worst that can happen to you as putting a lot of effort and sweat and tears into a career that you actually don't want. Now you filled out
the fourth section. And I can recommend
you to just get some post-its and write down areas that combine
those four areas. Get some pulses and
write down ideas that combine all four sections. You can also use your
workbook if you want. But I personally prefer posts because then I can move
it a little bit around. For me. A few ideas really combining
all four areas is, for example, giving talks about UX and UI check all
around the world. Starting a few trough your
ex consultancy Studio focusing on solving future
problems for clients, creating online courses
about your ex and the future and anesthetic
and design focused way. Just a few examples and write
down as many as you want, really get creative here. You don't need to
choose one right now, but rather keep these
answers in your mind, write them in your workbook and use them as I'm kind
of like a guiding light. Maybe there's one idea where you think, oh, this
is really cool. I want to integrate that into my business
model right now. So your values are your base for your business
and will always be important. So well done. This was a really
difficult task. We will go on in the next
chapter with your personality. So see you there.
5. Personality: So who are you? This chapter is about who you
are as a creative person. It's about showing the person that is kinda social
media feed up behind the channel or behind
the social media brand. What just make you special, what you stand for? And although you can present
yourself in a way you want to be seen on social media. It's important that
you always stay yourself to really be authentic. Memory, pretend to be someone. It's much easier to connect with people who share
personal information. So being real person people has a really good sentence usually
to see our 10th facility. So it's easier to connect
with people when you share personal topics as well. People might think like, Oh, I'm getting all
this kind of music. I like this kind of music too. And I also have a dog. So really showing your
personality outside from work is definitely key. The batteries, you
know yourself, the easier is it
for you to read, decide what you want to
show and what is important for you when it comes to
finding clients or work. Because the better you
know your strengths and your weaknesses, the easier it will
be for you to find the right work where
you can really succeed. For me, for example, I am super excited about new
topics, new technologies. I love to learn new things,
but on the other hand, I don't, I'm not really good
at a lot of repetitive task, which means for me that the
best work it to find for me is work that requires a lot of research where I need to
learn a lot of new things, are working on new
projects and not the project that are going
on for several years. So really only about yourself
that the Hulk you so much to be really kind to yourself because you understand
what you're good at, where you maybe need
to be improved, and also when opportunities
will come up. And you want to say yes, true? I want to share to
personal taste, but few that you can do.
Those two are awesome. Link them in the
description so you can just do them and learn more
about your personality. The next task for you, besides those personalities, and you don't need to do that. Just a recommendation
is to go through the list of adjectives
that you can see here. Just read them and see what really speaks to you
where you think like, okay, this actually
mean this is mod, my business stands for. Jen, just circle them
here and you can think about what really stands for
you as a personal brand, as you as a person. And you can also find these
adjectives in your worksheet that you don't want
to just circle back and then bring
them in order. Because this really describes your personality as a branch. Take around ten
minutes for that, maybe check around five
to ten minutes for that, and then you will see each other again in the next lesson.
6. Target Audience: In this chapter,
we're going to talk about your target audience, who they are, what they do, and how to get them to
hire you all work a few. It will make your life
so much easier if you know your target audience and if you know where to find them. If you are a freelancer right now and really
looking for clients, or if you are a
photographer and you want to work with
certain companies, for example, from the
e-commerce sector. Really think about what clients, especially you want to work
with and where to find them. What might be really
helpful is to talk to other example photographers
who worked in that sector and asked them
how they met certain clients. Some people don't want
to talk about that, but there are a lot
of craters were really open and helpful. So think about who
do you want to address and who are
your dream clients? Think about, where are
they spending time? Are they on LinkedIn,
other on Instagram, or maybe even none. And you only find them
in in-person events. How do they find designers
and creatives to work with? How can you make
their life easier? Those are the most
important questions here. For example, I am a freelance UX UI designer and I am looking for clients
in the area of XR. So augmented reality
and virtual reality, basically topics
around the future, web three and innovation. I realized that I usually
get jobs in two ways. Either someone finds me through LinkedIn when I read two
articles or when I share my own content or workshops
about the future and future topics are people
find me through Instagram, they see my poster, they lead to something they are working on and then
they recommend me to their teams when
they need your support. So I am a UX designer and one method we will use for visualizing target
audience for our products, our persona's persona
is not a real person, but some kind of an
archetype of a person. A person who is a mixture
between different people. So this person doesn't exist. And this persona should
actually help you realize and visualize who
your target audience is. Your treat these persona's
like a real person. You write down their name, pain points, their needs. Basically everything that is important in all where
they're spending time, on what media they consume with chose
networks they use, etc. So here comes the task. Make a list with your
dream clients and right, where you can find them. Quit one or two persona's
of these clients. My recommendation is to
create one or two persona's, write down their name,
their pain points, their needs, where they
are spending time, where, if what media they consume, which social networks that use. This can be a great way to get
a clearer understanding of your target audience and the image that you
have in your hat. Music. Cheese. After creating the persona, you probably already
get a sense of the direction you want to
go your dream clients. What is always
important is to define your niche or the area
you want to be known for. So you can see yourself as
some kind of a TV show. When people want to watch a
documentary or a thriller, they will turn on a third
and TV channel or watch your third series on
Netflix, for example. The same works for
us as creatives. And all people watch our
stories and Instagram and they visualize our
Twitter profile and they expect a certain
kind of content. In my case, I should be
around user experience, future technologies in the life of a freelance
designer in Berlin, if I would start to share content about how to train dogs, I even how to illustrate people, people who weren't
actually wonder what happened and they
wouldn't be confused. They wouldn't expect this
kind of content from me. So they get something they
don't actually want to see. Probably this content should actually really
relate to your niche. So how does finding
your niche looks like? It shouldn't be too broad
but also not too small. When you think about yourself, what is your expertise? How do you want to
position yourself? What type of client projects
and industries and services are best suited for your
freelance business. And how can you pursue and
attract these opportunities? Who are your competitors? And how you better differentiate
yourself from others? Why industry trends
and how do they impact yourself and how can
you be appropriate? One of the thing that I
encountered a lot is that many freelancers or
creatives who started their own businesses
that they're trying to be all on one. They often do this out
of the need to really accommodate existing clients or maybe for financial reasons, rather take a stand. You want granite. So for me, my niche is UX design for future
check like AR and VR. And I'm sharing content about that topic on social
media as well as the projects I'm working on to attract the clients that
I wanted to work with.
7. Mission Statement: So the mission statement, the clearer your
mission, your vision, and your values are, the clearer your direction. So where you go. For this lesson and we
will have a look at all the exercises you've
already been through. The mission statement is
going to combine all of it. So what does the
mission statement? Mission statement
defines your business. It's about who you are
or what do you do. The the what and the
why of your business? What actually exists? We didn't keep it simple. You can always
adjust and iterate on it once your goals and go to services and changing,
changing all the time. So developing your
mission statement. And mission statement
can be as short as a single sentence or as
long as the paragraph. But it's meant to be
a short summary of your companies or your
freelance business's purpose. You need to state the watch
who and why of your business, what the company
is offering, who, who you're selling to, and why the core values. So here's my example. The watt and the freelance
business offering is for me, it's two extra G, a
UI high-fidelity, ready to implement designs, educational content
about your ex and future tech who you're
selling to its companies, agencies, startups who create digital product with a
focus on future tech. Why the cobol use you do it for. It's reliable, it's futures
thinking, storytelling. It's transparent
about the process and the designing process. We end up designing with
the user in the center. My mission is
development design, user-centered experiences
and services, both a focus on
strategic planning and research driven decisions, as well as supporting the
design community with your ex educational
content on social media, workshops, talks at
conferences and events. So task for you is
really fill out your mission statement with
the what, who, and why. And why did in big
letters feel free to use colors on
paper and put it somewhere over your desk in your office that
you see that every day or make a design and put this on as a screensaver
on your phone.
8. Visual Identity: I'll be visual identity. Now we're finally going to
talk about the visual party. We're going to talk about
your visual brand name, which will set yourself
apart from others. Treat your business as a brand and create
a visual identity. People really recognize
you and see who you are. What is your style, what is your personality, and what do you want
your clients to see when they open your social media
profile or your website. All of these things
are going to reflect who you are and how
you want to be seen. So the visual part of your own branding
is super important, as well as the strategic part
that we have already done. Although all of
the strategy work we did the previous chapter is absolutely necessary to know what you're
trying to communicate. We can use any kind of visuals to create visual connotations. It consistent branding
really helps us to recognize your content
when they see a post. And I know that
this is from you. How to really get started with the visual elements of
your personal brand name. I would recommend you to
start with a mood board. We're going to create a
mood board for your brand. So look for any kind of elements that
really speak to you. That can be elements on
Pinterest or on Dribble. That really makes sure that
they are reflect your brand, the colors and
elements, photos, etc, can always change things on the mood board or delete them, or remove the images when you think that they are not
a good fit anymore. I would recommend U2. Don't look too much what
other designers are doing and don't do step
personal branding elements, but we focus on the elements
that make you special. Yes, so don't copy and pasted, but only get inspired for me. I really like to have a
look at Pinterest and dribble and just look
around for inspiration, just to get Inspire. So usually I create a separate board on Pinterest where I copy
all the elements. So like I said, it doesn't really need to be
only design elements, but it can basically be everything that you
want to be included that can be a certain
photography style or any kind of elements and you
kind of color combinations. So when I'm doing mood board, I usually start on Pinterest, I create my own album or I
just go to the homepage. I just scroll a little bit
through the images that I like and maybe I find something
that would be a good fit. Or I think this is
visually appealing or it's a good fit for
my personal brand. Then I add that image to some kind of like a
Pinterest mood board. So I'm kind of like
a Pinterest album. So you can just spend some
time here and don't only look for brand elements or
visual identity elements, but for basically every kind of visual that can be photos, that can be color combinations, that can be any separate
design elements and that you like and just add
them to your album. I call this Skillshare
personal branding, so that I can add all
the elements that I think would be a good
fit to the same album. As you can see, there are
lot of things on Pinterest, so you can just scroll
a little bit around and see what really works for you. Besides Pinterest,
Dribble, Behance, or the basic design platforms, there are also some
photography sites like Unsplash or Pexels, for example, where you
can find a lot of images. And from my
experience, of course, it depends a little bit on
your expertise and your area. Adding photos to your
moodboard can be super, super nice, super-helpful to
create your visual style. So open the personal brand kit, the Illustrator file
from the resources, and just add the elements that you downloaded
or that you saved on your Pinterest board to this doc and just put them in the
little frames for the moods. When you create a mood board using images, using elements, emojis, any kind of look, any kind of resources
that you can find. You can also look on
Unsplash on Pexels, just Google immigrants,
Adobe Stock, any kind of templates
that you can find, but also branding elements, maybe from other brands, but now copy and paste, really create your own
personal branding. Really focused on the areas that really makes you special.
9. Colors: Colors. So colors
really sending message. There is a whole topic
about color psychology. Really try to be mindful of the messages
that the colors you choose for your
personal branding are sending to your users or
to your target audience. A car into neuroscientist
Antonio Damasio. But consumers feel
about a brand is more important than what they
think about the brand. So combine that
with the fact that we know certain colors
evoke certain emotions. So your brand colors really
have the potential to impact your science or
get hired or your performance even more than
the products you offer. In addition, really repeating the same color can
increase brand awareness. So when was the
last time you saw a Coca-Cola or a Twitter
bird that wasn't sky blue. You want to reinforce that association by
using your brand colors. Regular thinking
about Coca-Cola and the red can just
four competitors. Here are the most
common areas where you will use strobe
brand colors. That might be your
logo, your website. If you have a shop, any design that you offer
could be e-mails, etc. Could be uniforms,
could be advertisement. We talked enough about the abstract stuff
about brand colors. Let's look at the hard facts
or at least some guidances. Here's a brief overview
of what the colors mean. So red is passion, importance at attention, or orange is playfulness,
friendliness, vitality. Yellow is joy, and optimism is supporting greenest nature,
Stability and Growth. Light blue is contrast
and openness. Dark blue is
professionalism, security, homology, Iowa and stability,
creativity, luxury. Pink is femininity. You've innocence, brown
disbursed, earthy traditional, right is simple,
minimalist, pure, gray. It's neutral, gloomy. Substitute, black,
strong, elegant. Unusual. Of course. There's no right way to choose
your brand colors sheets. When it comes to things
like bread identity, it's difficult and
unwise to just rely on heart and pass troubles. But process can be really
intimidating and confusing. So another guidance is helpful. Yeah, I explain our process for creating a color
scheme that I can use for more as a framework
and a step-by-step guide. So just use that as a guidance. So there's the tuple
than risk-free colors. So you have a base color and x and color and
a neutral color. Brown color schemes
can range from one to four colors depending
on the species. But even seeing a
color schemes require some variations and shapes
for different purposes. Then really choose
your base color. What trade of your
brand personality is most important to your
base colors should not only reflect the most
important characteristics of your brand identity, but also appeal to your
desired target audience. You would choose the
remaining colors based on how well
they match this one. And then we choose
your accent color. Your excellent color
will be the Qataris. You use the most after
your base color. It's a bit trickier here
than the base color, as there are more constraints. Aside from matching your
brand personality trait, you're excellent color
also needs to be visually harmonized
with your base color. Not to attention appeal to your audience and just got to
choose your neutral color. You're neutral color will
likely be a background color, something designed to
deter really attention. Typically, these are
various shades of gray or be SHE or
why tones works, work well as well
as also an option, but be careful it tends to dominate whatever colors sheen, It's classic colors is a budget beer that
really appeals to be a more mature mainly consumer. They use a dark blue
to signify maturity. And a column from that ranges
between a masculinity, brown and affordable yellow. As you choose your brand colors. Don't forget your goal. What colors schemes
are you using? Typically brands use one of
these common color sheets. Let's talk about
fence super briefly. We have different kinds
of color palettes. We have the monochromatic. Monochromatic. If you have a trade, you want to focus on a
monochromatic color. She will emphasize the
importance of that brand color. Good for a minimalist brands. The color challenge here is to differentiate the
shapes and Alphabet. Your gaze doesn't become
visually actual fight. Analogous colors
that the adjacent on the color wheel have a hard
luminous relationship. As adjacent colors tend to have the same
emotional connotations. No analogous shims are safe bet, bought as such are not the best for standing out or we're
tracking essential. Then we have the complimentary, complimentary colors
or opposite are colors that are directly opposite each other
on the color wheel. So being opposite sides, they bring out the best in
themselves when combined. So you often see complimentary
colors on sport teams. Complimentary colors are
great for dynamic uplifting. But be careful not to copy other brands as
they're so popular. And we have the triadic, this is a consistent
color scheme for a brand. The triadic colors straw, equal amounts of colors from three different
areas of the color wheel. We have the triadic shims are just as resilient as
analogous themes, but often more stimulating versatility
than complimentary. Schema's. The hardest part is matching the three colors to your
brand personality traits. Decomposition of your
brand colors will become over and over again in many different
areas of your business. So the color scheme
for your brand debtor minus the look of your
website, your logo, your social media posts,
your advertisement, and even affect
smaller things like any kind of any kind of asset
that you put out there. So you choose them wisely. Okay. So my first recommendation
is coolers. This is how you can exited. It's a really awesome
website where you have different options to get
started with a palette. You can go through the
generator and you can use the space bar degenerated
different colors. You can lock them with the icon. You can change the
different colors in the color palette that
they present to you can, you can change them just
by adjusting the values. You can share it,
you can export it. You can just download it. So that's really,
really cool thing. And also if you are signed in, favor rise any colors
or change the position, which is super nice,
also change the shape. So really cool thing. The other thing that I
really like here are the trending color palettes. If you need some
inspiration, as you can see, there are a ton of pallets. So really good way
to get inspired and see what works for you. Then we have Color Hunt, which is really focused on
a lot of color palettes. So check that out. Super cool, but you can see the hex codes, the
different colors. You can copy the
link and send it to friends who ask
for some feedback, for example, or just download the image, which is really cool. The other thing that I
wanted to recommend to you is Color, Adobe, adobe Color, where you can really kind of filter
based on the shame. So monochromatic
triad, complimentary, et cetera, which is really cool and then adjust the
different color schemes. So this is also like a
really, really cool thing.
10. Typography: Brand typography is
some visual element of your brand style guide or your brand book that really arranges to our
businesses record copy, and measurable way underlines your messaging with
your brand personality. Your personal brand
typography is not quite the same as a brand
font or typeface, although there are
closely-related typography really gifts the brand, meaning. Typefaces and funds convey the values and the
tone of your brand. Just like your cholesterol. Typography, has a diverse set of connotations and presents
what your brand stands for. Clean, modern and simple
sans-serif fonts reverberate with the audience
in a different way than old fashioned Cera fonts. Monospaced fonts have
technological fear. Why black letter script
funds are more personal. That's why it is important to choose topography wisely and really understand why you're using this kind of topography. So topography defines the way people experience your brand. Your customers are seeing your personal brand
messages on social media, or are linked in all your
emails or online in the press. So they experience your
brand through words. And what are your
personal branding as? Positive experiences from
positive brand connotations. Typographic mistake such as really small funds on a website. It's one of the main complaints that I'm hearing from users. It really lead to a super
bad Brad, brad experience. It changes, use
perception and really boost this brand recognition. Topography and
fonts really affect the way your audience
and your clients really sees and remember
your personal brand because they're large part
of your visual identity. And memorable typeface is instantly recognizable
thing golf, widely admired brands
like Coca-Cola or Disney that have even created and registered
their own typeface as a way of making it a
part of their identity. Thing about your own
freelance business and think about where you
need to have proper fee. So how's my brand typography
wants to make me feel, um, what kind of experience
does it want to be created? Is it recognizable
and memorable? So what are toned as a set? And of course, topographies have their own personalities
and characteristics. So you need to know
these as well. So fun, psychology is
really understanding that every typeface has
its own unique traits. And they come in
categories which are classifications for better identifying and choosing fonts. So the basic fund categories and their traits are
Sarah, traditional, classical, reliable, over
and said convey the sense of respectability
and H long class. Some of the Cera fonts
are Times New Roman. Garamond, Bodoni, Palatino. Then you have sans serifs, which is minimal clean, contemporary for brands
that evoke a sense of cleanliness,
modern directness. Some of the sensor or funds are Droid Sans have VD
cover Donna for truth. And we have script
this unique, elegant, distinctive for brands that emphasize their
special purposes. Some of the script
fonts are, for example, a Norah, I'm Alex Brush
specific goal when song. Now we have handwritten, little bit more artsy and
formal funding for brands that presents himself as
playful and approachable. And some of the handwritten
fonts are sans serifs. Lemur herbarium. By Chris. We have the decorated,
dramatic, stylized, diverse for brands that aim
to be instantly memorable. Some of the funds are
funny cow or blue shift. Three. Flaps are confident, bold, offbeat for brands with a
proven history of quality. And some of these
slab serif fonts are Peterson's piece
that's pro guard, Deja vu pro Arial. Really, where to
find the brands for. The typography for your brands. Can look on Google
fonts for exam that you can download them for free. If you have a Creative
Cloud subscription, you can have a look
at Adobe fonts. They can find a lot of
really great fonts. And then you can
decided what kind of topography and
fonts and works for. You. Really write them down in your brand book and have some kind of
microphone hierarchy. So you should be part of your comprehensive brand
style guide that really includes clear and relevant
examples of use cases. So your phone treatment must be very consistent and nudge
all of the complex. So choose two or
three typefaces, primarily from the
default typeface which communicate your
brand's identity. So maybe the most
important type one. Then you have a secondary font and typeface that compliments the primary fun and supports the type of graphic
design system. Chest Perry fungi, that could
be something that he used, for example, my main. So you really should
understand and define your brand personality, traits or personality of each RFI and find a
match for your brand. Really decide between
like an open-source could also be a paid font
and some custom fonts. So really make sure the font
you choose are legible. It's flexible, it's
complimentary with your other brand elements
and can follow your growth. So establish hierarchy of your fonts and outline
this in your brand book. This could be an illustrator, for example, or Adobe XD. Choose those two typefaces. Try out, play a little
bit around preferred. Choose two to three
typefaces now, at them in your dark
wherever you work, this could be Adobe XD, this could be Illustrator. Download them. You can also purchase
them online. There are a lot of really
great platforms online. You can find some of the websites or the
secretary can purchase them. Also in the, in the dark with all the
resources from this class. So just download them and
click a little bit around. There. I'm sharing some
really great resources that I hope will be helpful.
11. Branding Design Elements: Design elements can be logos,
emojis, illustrations, etc. Here, yeah, really create a set that you can use in
your personal branding. Our odd, this is a
part of your brand. So for me as I'm focusing a lot on the future and new tag, I'm using silver elements a lot. I really liked this
futuristic feeling. Really focus on your
target group and on those elements that really
work for your target audience. Also feel free to
look again at x4, what bar to really
get some inspiration. Because you're going to
use these elements on social media platforms and basically everything
you put out there. So some of the essays
that Ukraine is, for example, a logo. So how to design logos is probably an own course
here on Skillshare. But what I can recommend you is the CCO express Logo Maker. It's pretty cool. You can find the link
in the description. As you can see here, there are some examples, so some kind of templates that
you can get started with. So if you see something
that you like, you can just check it out or you can create
your own logo. So tell us a little
about your logo, whatever is your
business or what soar. Yeah, freelance
business all about. So for me, it's a design studio. This is what I'm doing. And then it's called, I'm just like a random name, hello future for example. The slogan is, um, let me think about something
that really makes sense. For example, innovation
for two Mauro, okay, then next, I'm going to choose this style, not mean modern. Next, then I can
look for an icon. I can either search for some
thing in the search bar, just choose a random one here. I select this one, I click on Next and
then the software automatically designs my logo. And here are some, yeah, some examples or some
recommendations. And I can have a look if I like one of these logo and then adjust or change things in this logo so it's
not 100% finished. I can change things. So look at this. No, I think this is not
so nice. Maybe this one. Okay. Now there's two basic. We look a little bit, oh yeah, there's
this really cool. So I can either download
it or customized, change a lot of things, but I'm going to click
on Customize logo. Really cool. Now it opens and the
zCX press WebEx pleura. And here I can change
basically everything. I can change the colors, I can change the font. I think this is pretty
interesting for you. If you want to change the
font to the font that you chose before for your branding,
you can just do that. So click here, change
the font and yeah, then change basically colors, whatever you think really works. You can export this
logo, can save it. And then you can use this for
all your branding elements. So really create those
visual elements. Then you can either
create them in Illustrator or you can use
emojis as part of the photo, are basically
anything that helps.
12. Print Branding Elements: So preparing your design assets, there are a few
different elements or asset that you should prepare once your stylus to
find using the same font, same color as the same elements, everything that
you already find. For print, you probably
need business cards, maybe letterhead, an envelope. So the business cards are probably the most
important thing here, I can say for my own business and never
really send out a letter. So I have never really needed a letterhead,
neither an envelope. But this really depends
on your business and your creative area and
the upcoming tasks, so you might need it. Some of the documents are
probably a proposal document, an invoice, and a contract. I'm going to talk more
about these topics. And the second part
of this course, which is focused more on the business part of freelancing and starting
your own business. But generally, I would
recommend to use a software for the invoice, which makes it much faster and easier in case you need
to do a tax audit. You can find a few software
tools and the resources file. Then social media, story poles, templates, any kind of
graphics that you need, story highlights and head
Obama's for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
Behance, Lincoln cetera. Stories cover. So I'm using the same
header images for YouTube, behance, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It's pretty basic but
represents my visual style. So in case your brand is an eCommerce brand or your business is
based on e-commerce. Think about any kind of
packaging that can be boxes, tape wrapping, paper labels,
maybe even thank you. Cards, or promotional postcards like the one that
I, that I prepared. Really create those
visual elements. Then you can either create
them in Illustrator. You can use emojis as part of a photo or basically
anything that helps. They are also printed elements
of branding products. For example,
business cards from, you know, from my experience, business card,
tiny bit outdated, at least in some of the areas. So when I try to give them a business card
to clients or stakeholders, usually they don't
want it anymore. Although I really tried to create business cards
that look really valuable and expensive so that people use them
all at one time. But from my experience, most of the people
I work performed, most of the people I asked, you get my business card, they didn't really want it. So this is CMI, very first business card actually that I created
as a freelance designer. The idea here was that you can see like some kind of
like a wireframe is dying off the website with the different design
elements and with a little bit of
like a gold foil. Thickness was really nice. And the background has this
little gold elements as well. And just type my
basic inflammation. And the second version. After I realized actually
that most people don't want the business card
when I gave them the car, they said like I don't
I don't want it. I decided to add
some kind of like an alcohol like this so
people can just scan it. Didn't get connected to my
link tree on my website. I think it was connected
to my link tree. And then they could
decide if they want to add me on LinkedIn, follow me on Instagram or child, my courses or whatever so that we could
connect them, Becky, on the platform, and then they could give me
the business card back. There's actually
work pretty well so far from my experience, at least in your business card or definitely not required. I mean, it's nice if you
have it, you never know. But I haven't given that out to a client for for
years now, I think. But this might be
very different for your area or the area
you're working on. I know that for photographers, illustrators, It's much,
much more important. And a few of the other
elements that I printed out, although my work is mostly
digital art for my podcast. So I started a podcast
two years ago, were just around the future
of experience design. And I created some
kind of postcards for these some kind of
advertisement that I gave you. The two people are left at conferences so
people could just grab one. I think it was
actually pretty funny. So my idea here was that I wrote like a little postcard
to the future. So the future, blah, blah, blah, and then like a little
texts about it, the hashtag that I'm using. And he again, the R code to listen to the podcast and it's this little
sort of awful. And I also printed out some thank you cards for
the people that I owe, the people that I interviewed. Like a personal knowledge. And then yeah, I did send
them a thank you card, but also some yeah. Some sticker as a swatch. And then I had some
envelopes sold very futuristic with
this bluish thing. I wanted to send out any staff to podcasts related clients. So really think about you, what kind of things you need as some kind of printer products that could be a business card if you
want to design one. Or there could be any
postcards or thank you cards. Just wanted to show you mine. Just as some kind
of inspiration.
13. Social Media: I know social media is a
very controversial thing. We all don't want to
waste time there and constantly check
Instagram or Twitter. We just need to do
social media and very strategically
to really get the most out of it for our business
and our freelance career. You can start with a basic
thing, like your buyer. Do you telling you
a bio what you are doing and what are you offering? Is it really reflecting
your personality? If not, then
definitely change it. Choose the channels via. This really goes back to your mission statement
and your target audience. If you are a UX
designer like me, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram are super important for you. If you are more visual like in Illustrator
or photographer, then Instagram and Pinterest might be the best
platforms for you. So the platform should always really prepare the type of content that you're
putting out there. So for me, as a UX designer, participating in discussions on LinkedIn about the future
technologies and UX, super important for me and my brand sharing articles there. Do we show that
unprofessional? So bad? Yeah, but I necessarily
wouldn't put the same content on
Twitter, on Instagram. Especially sharing
educational content and sharing volume
can be a great way to build a community
and connect with other people, also your clients. And this will position you
as an expert in the field. But it's also about
your personality. For example, through
Instagram stories. You can share behind
the scenes stuff. Polarizing is also
really good thing. Don't be afraid to be another controversial or even
share something unpopular. And if you don't stand
for something in the end, you don't specify
anything, right? So we choose your
channels wisely. That should be channels
you really like to spend time there and where you can really find your
target audience. So thinking about Instagram,
instagram is great. It's great for photos, videos like short reels, crowds, but also for
educational content. The focus is on the
visual content. Pinterest is very similar, but the focus here
is even more on images for people to
create mood boards, sides, recipes, et cetera. So again, very visually focused. Twitter is about a short text, not visual about the focus is more on discussions
and content sharing. Tiktok is about a videos. It's about content. It stands this educational. It needs to be short and
funny and interesting. So edutainment behind
the scenes as well, linkedin is much
more professional sharing long pulse with copy events that you participating and really
connect with professionals. Dribble is like Instagram, but focusing on
work projects with high-end shots,
videos, and animation. Behance is much, much more
about about the project, about any kind of
case studies that you build this as some part
of your portfolio. It's also community,
community-based so that you can follow
for certain people, but they can also follow you a really great platform as a website or is a platform
for your portfolio as well. We also have Facebook. I'm personally not
on Facebook anymore, but I know that a lot of
creatives are still there and building a community is still sharing a lot
of content there. Although you probably need
to keep in mind that the, that the community there are
the people who are active. They're on new but older because many of the younger
generations actually move to other platforms like Instagram or Twitter, TikTok. So take your time
and really think about where can you find
your target audience? Which of the channels you
really enjoy spending time on and where you really
want to focus on. Don't really say I'm
doing everything. Rather we focus on two or three platforms and then we sharing content
on the other ones. Or just getting started with just a few platforms to not get overwhelmed
in the beginning.
14. Planning Content: So what is spread content for
your social media channels? I can recommend creating different kinds
of content areas, content buckets
for each challenge that you decide to
prepare content for it. This really helps you to stay consistent and make sure that everything you put out there
is aligned to your branch. The problem of
what should I post won't happen again because, you know, what kind
of content you need, what you can always prepare and don't have
all the struggle. Because you can prepare
things in advance. You have between five to
seven content pillars for me, I have some content
pillars on Instagram. Tips, new technologies,
freelance topics, experiences behind the scenes, inspiration and talks and workshops and also
personal content. For example, what I'm doing on the weekend or what
I'm doing with my dog. Really write it down your
content payrolls and the different areas and also
potential content examples. So if you write
down, for example, if you are a photographer and one of your
content pillars is, for example, photography tips. You can also write down a list
about the things that you want to share as photography
tips are behind the scenes. If you already have some, some things in mind where
you think that might be interesting for
other people to learn about. Here again, really keep in
mind for a target audience, how you can attract them, what's really
interesting to them? So have a look again
at your persona's. Maybe you create two persona's. And we think about
like what kind of content is really
interesting for them, how you can help them, where you can solve problems for them.
15. Designing Content: Designing content.
In this lesson, we're going to use
our brand name or the branding elements for
creating our first policy. I want to show you different
options about how to really prepare those powers with different design tools
like Illustrator, Adobe XD are also RCC Express. First, we choose one topic
from your content pillars and one of the potential post ideas. You can make a sketch really think about the
message that you want to get across and then choose what kind of post you
really want to create. I'm going to design
an Instagram post, but you can also design Instagram story or Twitter
or whatever you prefer. So feel free to use
the tool you prefer that can be calmer,
Illustrator, etc. I can say I personally
use from the very start, it'll be extinct because
I can easily edit photos in Photoshop
and I totally love it, but I can build a
library and I think it's, it's pretty nice. This is how my pulse
look like an Adobe XD. And now I want to show you with different kinds of rituals, how can create hosts? So let's get started with Canva. You can either use the app or the depth
version here I'm on the web version and you have different kind of
things you can do here. Of course, you have a lot of templates which I think
is really cool to get inspired to just scroll around and then maybe
adjust those templates. Right now I'm on the story templates or
Instagram story templates. And as you can see, there are a ton of different templates, and most of them are
actually for free. You can use this app for free. I'm just going to click on one template to show you how it looks like and how the
customization really looks like. Because you can customize
each of those templates. So you can click on the
different elements. For example, the topography. You can change the
color if you want, really based on
your brand colors. You can also change
the typography if you want and really go choose the topography that you decided to be your
brand typography. And then you can add different
kind of design elements. Maybe you'll find
similar ones that you already chose for your branding. That could be like, you know, fingers piece out. I don't know. It depends really
on your personal on your personal brand and what
you chose to show there. And of course, you can delete
different elements here. You can also adjust them and change your Instagram handle, et cetera, and basically adjust and change
everything bad. We're going to create our
own post from scratch, going to the main page
and then clicking on an Instagram post is
what I'm going to do. My goal is to create some
kind of like a quote post. So I'm going to look
on the text areas. Click on one text that's looked already put
in ice like a quote. I'm just going to
write in my texts, the texts that I want to use. It's like your Xcode. Pay attention to what users
do and not what they say. I think is pretty cool
and pretty inspiring. So definitely opposed from my content buckets
of things like inspiration from Jacob Nielsen. Then I'm going to select the
topography and change the, change the type here. You need to see if the
topography you chose for your brand epigraphy
is available or if it's not available, right. So for me, I usually have
determiner and Playfair. Like I already
said, the Playfair is available, That's awesome. So I'm going to
choose that in here. I actually would
use the terminal, but it's not available here, so I can't really use it, but that's that's fine. I can use another type for you. I would recommend to choose
the type that you yeah, that that you chose for your, for your personal brand. But have a look at all the beautiful
typography choices here. Maybe there's one typography that really fits to
your personal brand. So just look a
little bit around. They have amazing typography, yarn count by
absolutely love that. And as you can see
with the little, you know, yellow crown, this is only for
premium members. I'm not a premium member, so there's still a lot
of topography left, so you don't need to
be a premium member. You can use everything for free. Then I'm going to change the like where it is on
the page a little bit. Also change the color. Here. What you can do is
you can just insert, when you click on Color, either choose one of those or you can here at
your brand kit, but this is only for
premium members. But you can just add your own color either by
just choosing one here, all by entering the hex code. You chose some colors
a few lessons ago. So really choose the
same colors here again so that you really repeat those colors over
and over again. As you have seen. And my branding, it's like
some kind of like a pinkish. We'd light pink and
orange and light blue. I'm going to use those colors, play a little bit
around referred. I think it's like the
most fun at least for me, to really just play around, look through the
different elements that the design elements and
search for certain elements. In my case, I'm
going to look for gradient because it's
also something I am using as some kind of, um, yeah, as a branding element, you can either upload your
own elements as PNGs, for example, or jpegs. Or you can scroll through this really big library
of free content. This one looks really
nice with the gradients. I'm just going to place it here on the side to give
it a little bit more. It looks awesome. Maybe
another gradient or maybe not. Okay, Cool. Going to put this at the top. It's nice. Now I see that. I'm going to use dark blue just to show you it
looks a little bit better, but you can still go
with the orange sheet. Cool. Looks nice. Now, maybe we can add another
element if you, if you, if we want to sell another of those elements that I chose
were the silvery elements. I'm going to look for it, this one and just add
it on the other side. Remember, this is
just an example. Is this not like the
perfect solution? So really go with your style with what
fits to your brand. Don't copy and
paste anything and make sure to really
be consistent. Now you can download
it either directly posted to social media or you can download
as S and P and G, What I would recommend you. Yeah, perfect. And now we will have a look
at CC express. C6 press is part of the
Creative Cloud membership, but you can also use it
if you're not a member, which is, I think a
really cool thing. So it's for free.
And they also have this premium
functionalities for CCAC, a Creative Cloud members. They as well have a huge variety of really
beautiful templates. As you can see here. I really loved that designs. I think it looks really
awesome and it's a really good place
to get just inspired, look around and we see
what works for you. Branding is also something
that evolves over time. This is pretty nice
with the flowers and it works pretty
similar than Canva. So you can click on
the different elements and then adjust everything. The color. You can adjust the typography so the different funds and we choose the font
that you chose for your branding and
see if they have it. You can also upload your
own typography here, some kind of like
a branding kit. But it's a little
bit more advanced, maybe for another course. So here you can change the
color of the typography. So basically
everything and adjust those kind of templates
based to your needs. Cool. But we will start
from scratch and design a little bit
different design element. We will go to the main
page and we will go on. Let's see, they have a lot of really cool a template as well. We will click on an
Instagram post as well. And the interface looks
pretty similar to Canva. Also have a lot of resources
and things you can use. So even if you are not a
designer or a graphic designer, you can use those presets. You can use those elements. So your designs already
looked pretty nice. Your own task really here is
to keep things consistent, but using the same topography, using the same colors in the same elements
so that you really repeated over time and
it's really easy to, for people to recognize it. So what I'm going to
do is I'm going to use this template that
I just clicked on, which really doesn't really
look like my brand right now, but we're going to change it. So there are some
folders already in the. Fire. But what I'm going to
do is I'm going to change those images here. So I'm just going to upload
one of those images that I just downloaded from
unsplash for my co-workers. Presentation. Looks pretty nice. Cool, but I can also use those images here
from the webpage, but maybe as part of
your brand and you came up with some kind of
like an image strategy. So you create a
different photos, maybe you're a photographer, so you have a huge
variety of photos or off of any kind of visual elements that you want to integrate here could also be, could also be maybe illustrations
or something like that. I'm just going to put this to the side and then pull
little bit below. You are the different
layers on the site, But I think, which
is pretty cool. You probably know this
from Photoshop or Illustrator that you have
this different layers and some a little bit more on the front end up as a
little bit more back. I'm going to change
the colors really based on my branding. Or we didn't like
the light blue. It looks cool, but I'm going
to go with the orange. I'm going to add
the hex code there, just copied from my
branding boards. And then I'm going to
delete this image. And then I'm going to
change the typography here. Guess you're wondering
why the description is Syndrome and I'm
sorry about that, but I couldn't change
it to English somehow. I hope it's not a problem and still see what I'm clicking on. But here as well, some design
elements you can look for different elements for me, I just look for silver anno elements could be something like glossy or so. We'll just have a look and see if I find something
that looks nice. I could also upload my own ones. But right now, I'm yeah, I just wanted to have a
look at the this year. Then I'm going to look for
the German word for gradient. I'm not going to
look for gradient. And oh yeah, they
look really nice. This is the kind of gradient
that I'm looking for. It looks pretty similar
to the branding that I I evolved. Super nice. I'm just going to put
this to the side. There's the perfect colors. And after that, I'm going to
change the description here. I'm guessing like that
about UX and design. This is just an example
for you to see, but yeah, changing the font
is definitely makes sense. Follow me on Instagram. Okay, cool. Looks nice. Okay, perfect. We can also change this font. So I personally for my
branding on Instagram, you can also see that I really loved to play little
bit with typography. My background is communication
designs are really love to sometimes use
crazy topography, which is not part of
my branding type, but just as some kind of
like a visual element because I don't use any illustrations or
something like that. So I really like crazy
typography sometimes. I'm just going to download it. Okay, now let's have a
look at Illustrator. This is probably the two
most of you are using for branding or design elements. So the first thing
that I'm going to do is I'm going to add a text field and I'm going to create the same pose
like I did on Canvas. So really, I'm using the
quote that I found online. So pay attention to what users
do and not what they say. Now, I am going to use the exact topography that
I'm using for my branding. Because I downloaded
all the type around from Adobe fonts to my
Creative Cloud library, which is a really nice thing. So you have it in like all your Creative Cloud tool if you are a Creative
Cloud member. Okay, cool. Otherwise you can also
purchase those funds, or maybe they are free fonts and you find them on
Google fonts, for example. Cool. Oh, okay, perfect. I'm going to change the colors. See how that looks. I really like that. I'm going to add
another text fields. And Jakob Nielsen, this is the person who actually
came up or fat, going to use terminology. This is my fund a
little bit smaller. Okay. And I created some
elements forum for me. I use them in basically
all my posts on Instagram. You can have a look and
then you will see it. I really like to change
Typography from medium. And then the semi bold too, put some emphasis on
some parts of the text. I have this kind of gradients that I
created in Photoshop. And I have some
other elements that I just created as part of my, yeah, that's my design elements, part of the course and
also **** normal branding. Cool. Okay, that looks
pretty nice. Awesome. Now it's your task to
create your own post. Use the tool you want to
create your first post. Make some sketches, and
then we will see each other again in the
next class. Enjoy.
16. Website: Already talked about how much
the industry has changed. Website is a great
way for your poll, for you to be accessible
for everyone online. You don't necessarily
need a website. You can also use any
kind of web pages, unlike the hands, for example, for uploading your work. But if you are planning to build a successful business
and the long term, rather invest in a website. So you can either code or yourself if you want to do that. And if they have skills, or you can use any kind of
templates like Squarespace, WIX, or WordPress works out. But so my own websites
as credit with WordPress website is your home where you present your work. You'll offer possibilities,
way how to contact you, any kind of news, your blog, etc. Maybe
also your shop. I felt opportunity to really
optimize your web page for ESI also search
engine optimization. And this is probably
a whole other course. You can find a lot of content about it online if
you're interested in it. And you want to
learn more about it. But it's basically about
adding the right keywords. We have projects and
headlines on your website that it will rank super
high in the Google search. So people will actually
find you and your web-page. So you get a lot of traffic to your website through googling. In my case, if someone Google UX design
Berlin freelancer, it would be amazing if my
webpage appears at the top. It's your decision
if you want to do a website or if you
want to get sorry, if someplace like the
hands for example, if you want to do both, yeah, you can decide what really
makes sense to you. And one recommendation is
that also created a course about portfolio
portfolio building and how to create case studies. If that's interesting for you, you can find many more
details and that chorus. And you can also,
you can just find it through my Skillshare profile and see if you want to dig a little
deeper into that topic.
17. Last Tips & Goodbye: We are at the end of this
class and I don't want to leave you without some mouse. So my tip for you to be a really successful
person on social media, but to the community. And the best advice for that
is to really give value. So what can you do to others, especially your target audience, our target group, that
makes their life easier. So really give something back to the community
and to other people. One person really does set and the awesome Ray
escapes Rainer Chuck, He problem, he
used the term jab, jab, jab, jab, jab right hook. And this means giving, giving, giving and then asking
for one thing in return. He, she had a lot of free
content on social media for a year about
business, about anything. And he published a book and many people actually
bought it to support him. So how does giving value
looks like for you, right? So checkout, go vein or
chalk and also Christo, who started to share free design and businesses
and content and ended up building a huge following on social media,
especially on Instagram. Check on that pulse,
check out the pages and analyze their approach.
You can learn a lot. Another really
great tip is to be authentic and don't be
afraid to have an opinion. You might know this
profile on Instagram, which is called the roof sign. And he writes on
cardboard short message, which is very controversial, but people really
love the honesty and he was able to
be a huge following. Also try to be consistent, rather post price per week than getting started
posting every day and then ending
up being super exhausted after three weeks
and start posting at all. So be kind, support others. On social media you will see
a lot of other creatives, other businesses who are at a totally different point
at their life or career. It easily happens
that you compare your success to the
success of other people. And that's really toxic. So try to not compare
yourself to others. Social media isn't real, and other people also don't really show all the
details and all the truth. If you feel jealous at 1, I read that book and I think
this was super-helpful. Think about if you
would actually change your life with tears. If not, if you would only
change like this one part, then it doesn't work, right? So really think about if you would change your
life with tears. If not, then it's okay. To be honest. I went back. I didn't feel jealous
at all because I'm pretty happy
with my own life. And I don't want to
change if anyone, and I hope this is
helpful for you to get inspired by others, but don't get jealous. The support or the
creatives and businesses. Everything you do for others, everything nicely put out their whole get back to
you at some point. Start conversations not
only with other creatives, but also where your community interactive
elements have an opinion. Do Q and A's go live
and really speak up, be a part of their
communities and a leader who people really getting
a lot of value from. This class was
helpful for you and I can't wait to see your
projects in the project area, so please upload them, can wait to see them. If you have any questions, you're free to just chat
them in the question area. Our connect on social media, I'm always happy to
get to know you. So say hi on Instagram
or on Twitter. I would love to get
to know you and see how your personal
branding evolves. I wish you all the best and thank you so much
for taking this class. I hope you had a lot of fun. The next one, Bye bye.
Patricia Reiners, UX/UI Designer // Innovation //
