I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I have an excuse: I just got married. Which brings me to my blog entry topic for this month…self-branding. (If you’ve been a long time reader, you’ll know that I’ve posted on branding before, but the focus here is a little different.)
For our wedding, I decided to design a sort of family seal to be placed on the invitations and wedding programs and such. Without knowing it, I had created a sort of logo for us that would extend beyond the actual marriage ceremony and be an identifier of our family. The logo encompassed fundamental elements of our relationship that were important to the both of us: unity, peace and faith. The logo itself became almost like a modern day coat of arms. This led me to doing some research into the heraldic traditions and I found that a coat of arms didn’t always work to identify a family but also an individual. Men and woman could actually pass down their own “logo” (essentially) to their sons and daughters.
It seemed like a really neat and somewhat strange idea to me until I started finding more and more articles talking about self-branding; creating an easily marketable identity based on who you are as a person. I caught an article in Time magazine a little while ago about personal branding. The author, Jeninne Lee-St. John says, “A growing field of personal brand consultants…help people pitch themselves in the job market and the dating arena. Part life coaching, part management consulting, personal branding applies the language, philosophies and strategies of Madison Avenue to the brand that is you.” This takes the old tradition of developing a coat of arms as an identifier and modifies it to include every part of your life: ranging from what kind of car you drive to what kind of glasses you wear to the places you’d like to be seen.
There are also websites you can go to with information on self-branding such as The Art of Self Branding (by Lea Alcantara). Here you can find information about self branding and even play a game to help get you started developing your own personal brand.
Thanks for reading.
One Response to "be yourself"
I know this may be off topic, but what blog platform are you running your website on? I only ask because I want to set up a web page also and I really like your styling. Back to the topic at hand, I think your post is one of my favorites – I may have to do a trackback once i get my blog set up so I can spread the word.