I have spent the last week in perpetual frustration attempting to figure out how to "re-brand" myself. I've done numerous design exercises, compiled all of my previous "branding" work, and whiteboarded until the dogs came home (well until my roomie-wife did). I crowdsourced words, creeped on peers' portfolios, and read content strategy and emotional design books.
From all this research I came to absolutely no definite conclusions. I did however, find avenues through which I see personal branding appear.
The big ones include:
- One's portfolio: through language you use to communicate who you are
- One's resume: through which you show your identity at a glance
- One's Social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog (what photos you upload, what screen names you choose)
But I also realized personal branding comes in subtly too. For example, through:
- One's email signature
- One's physical space: through how you set up your working space (what do you put up for decorations)
- One's appearance: through how you dress
- One's speech: through personal lexicons, voice inflections, as well as personality and communication styles
There are millions of articles on the web about how to brand yourself a certain way. But how do we translate our "in-person" self into an "online" self? Is there a point in even trying to as complex social creatures? While there is no easy answer to these questions, they are things to keep in mind. A helpful resource on this journey by Aarron Walter on design personas combines these senses of emotional design and content strategy to create a brand.
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