Perfect Brand. Beautiful Me.
When I began working for my clients, I had two brains fighting each other over what our agenda was.
1) Be careful with how you show up. Be professional, dammit. Businessy, but not too businessy; a little creative is ok, but not too much.
2) Be authentic and be yourself. Show up and be your beautiful, chaotic, messy self and let the chips fall wherever the hell they want to.
I recently told a friend, I love designing brands for clients I’m passionate about, but kinda “meh” for just any old clients. I love designing websites for the same reasons. I don’t want to go hit the jackpot and have 20 clients show up wanting work, because then I’d have to say “no” and there’s a part of me that knows that and doesn’t want the mess. I don’t want to have all those clients show up, feel less than passionate about 90% of them, and feel like I have to say “yes” because money.
‘Cause I’m tired. I’m tired of showing up for everyone equally. I’m tired of saying “yes” to the money and “no” to myself and what lights me up. I’m tired of curating the heck out of myself till I’m a shiny, small, beautiful, careful boxed thing.
What is brand?
It doesn’t begin on the page. It doesn’t begin with consistent posting, using a font, or a color. It’s not a logo, a catch-phrase or a clever hat. It’s not editing ourselves for public consumption.
Brand is not a careful box that we put our businesses and ourselves into in order to sell the work we feel passionately about. Brand begins as an inside job and moves outward to become a truly powerful visual identity, voice, and website.
My brand is all the beautiful, messy, chaotic parts of myself. It’s bringing all those parts to work with me. Letting the kid, the creativity junkie, the talker, the speaker, the hiker, the artist … all the parts of me … join me at the work desk, to meet my clients and let those parts be seen, heard and to let them speak.
My brand is heart, passion, love, energy, creativity. Being present with people. Loving people. Encouraging people. Showing up for them in important ways. Feeling and listening, creative and silly; it’s experimenting and failing. It’s thinking sideways. Connecting with people – truly connecting and helping them solve real problems, to help them find real solutions.
