How Personal Branding lead me into deep self-reflection

The Power of a Personal Brand Personal Branding is the new resume and is a powerful way for people to discover you and can create new opportunities that change your life and career. In truth my personal branding has brought me most of my current success and financial freedom and has grown my business, launched my speaking career and strengthened my network.

A little background story

I did some research and came across "Personal Branding" in one of Roberto Blake's videos (one of my favourite YouTube resources about Graphic Design atm) and he talks about why we should use personal branding (You can find his video"The Power of Personal Branding" here). It's healthy and helpful for an upcoming designer in this world to have your own brand and I thought I'd give it a try.

Core Values - what does really matter to me?

So, what happened? I started by trying to brainstorm for a possible logo and for that I wanted to know what really matters to me. What do I want people to think/feel when they hear my name, hear about my future company? After hours of scribbling and brain racking, I felt a little bit lost. How can it be so difficult to find clarity about such basic things? I used to feel very clear about what I want and why, who I am, where I want to go and how to get there. Why did it change?

The Trap of Success

Maybe I haven't been so honest with myself the past few months and maybe I started to copy what I thought was successful. I always wanted this blog, e.g. to become a place where I can deeply share with people who actually care about what design means and does to people. I wanted it to be personal and fun but also serious and honest. Looking back I feel I haven't really been authentic to these values I had and was more concerned about page views, visitors and potential earning possibilities. Don't get me wrong, I do want to make a living with design. But does it have to sacrifice my values and my personality? (Makes me think about a book I still want to get and read "How to be a Graphic Designer without loosing your soul")

Sometimes we need a Mirror

I realised that Personal Branding requires you to go deeper than you would expect. I couldn't really define myself and found it so hard to find any idea for a logo. After some hours of scribbling and typographic endeavours I thought I found something quite smart. Just my future initials, after I will change my name for my husbands family name. RJ. I felt a bit strange about how it looked and later showed my sketchbook to my husband. What he said really hit me (in a positive way): It didn't feel like me. It felt like something that I'm not. And I knew he was right. I tried to pretend to be some sleek, stylish designer that I'm not (and actually don't want to be). I have wonderful qualities but they don't show at all in my drafts. I felt down. I didn't really share what has been going on inside of me the past days and it just came out that I was, frankly speaking, quite frustrated. We had a talk and it made me realise that I have a very clear goal and clear values and I want to really find people I can share with.

New Ways

Brainstorming with my husband really helped to see myself from a different viewpoint. I think sometimes we just need someone to see ourselves truly. Like a mirror. I realised as well, that I do believe in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in Design and that I want them to be reflected in my words, actions and in my personal brand. I want to become successful with design and make a living with my own company in the future. I want to be able to be flexible to spend time with my family while at the same time pouring all my passion into designated hours of creating beautiful, meaningful, truthful things.

So I wonder how many of you also had a hard time to define themselves professionally, and who of you tried personal branding. Maybe some of you found it really easy, because you already had this clarity in yourself. I just didn't expect a personal logo to become such a journey of self-discovery.

In future posts I want to practice these values and I hope they'll be more authentic and valuable.

Have a wonderful day,

Romica :)

Status Update: My Creative Bucket List 2015

Hey Creative Adventurers, I have just finished writing an article about creative bucket lists or goal setting for creatives and a process that could help you to achieve them.

My list of creative goals is not a bucket list in the strict sense. I want to achieve all these things in a time frame that I can grasp. Not just the end of my life but at the end of this year.

  • Write and illustrate a children's book and get published

    WHY: Recently, when I visited home for my wedding celebration, I found a tiny book I've made with story & illustrations. It reminded me of how I used to love writing and I really want to make my own book and get it published. There have been books in my childhood that were so lovely that I still remember and cherish them to this day. I'd like to become part of a child's joy and memory with one of my cute and fun stories with beautiful illustrations.

    WHEN: End of this year 2015 (someone's birthday, which I can't announce yet)

    We live in an amazing time. Now people all over the world have the opportunity to get published through self-publishing. I think it's an amazing opportunity that I want to take. I'll share my experiences with it in future posts, so if you're interested in this area, follow me here on WordPress or subscribe to my blog through the link at the end of this post :)

  • Teach - share my skills and make a class on skillshare.com

    WHY: If you have been following my blog for a while, you might have seen Video of the Week post on How to more work efficiently in Illustrator by Aaron Draplin. This video was part of his skillshare.com class and it was the first time I have heard of skillshare. Today I did some research and I think it's an amazing plattform for creatives to learn and to share/teach, which really inspired me to make a class myself. I think teaching is giving something back.

    WHEN: End of this September (I just joined the teaching september challenge)

    Skillshare.com (no I'm not paid for this review) offers you not just a great resource to learn from other creative people but they teach you in steps how to create your own classes. Again I want to write a proper post about my experiences with their material etc. in the future. If you are interested you can get a free month of subscriptions through this link. (Please read the terms and conditions and guidelines/regulations of their website for more information on this free month of subscriptions. You follow this link at your own risk). I'll receive a free month as well, if you think it's great. If you don't like this kind of "recommendation-stuff" then just google them and you'll find all the information you need.

  • Design my own font

    WHY: During some reasearch on how to create my own font I have found this tutorial on How to make your own font with glyphs and Illustrator by "Hello Brio Studio", and I think I'll try that as it does seem quite straightforward and this will be a font that I can use and have all the rights.

    WHEN: End of this year 2015

What are your creative goals?