Brand Yourself

Brand Yourself This is a guest post from Allie, a designer who wants to teach you the basics of branding yourself. Make sure you read to the end to get a special offer, just for my readers (aw)! Michelle always does a terrific job of helping her clients define what they want to be when they grow up, what they want to do, what kind of business they would like to create. But whats next after that? How do you start to get your name out there? My biggest advice is to automatically think of yourself as a BRAND and BRAND yourself well. The biggest part of branding yourself well, in my opinion, is making your brand visually pleasing. Your logo, your ads, your headshot, your website header these are all things that people see right away when they are navigating to your site, your facebook if the design is something that is visually pleasing and exciting to them, they will click on your ad, keep reading after they see your blog header, or keep scrolling on your website. So how do you make your brand visually pleasing? Try these tips: Come up with a logo for yourself! Have set “design guidelines” for your brand and all of your paperwork Have “Brand Colors!” Make your resume and your business cards STAND OUT. Be consistent. Make sure everything “relates” to each other! If you can’t do this yourself, HIRE SOMEONE. Your brand is WORTH IT. So say you want to take some steps to make your brand more visually pleasing? Begin by educating yourself on some of the basics of design. Start with basics like: Color choosing brand colors is something that can make or break your brand colors each have meaning and certain colors go together with reason. Do a bit of research on colors before you decide! Type choosing the right font can really help your brand image. Type has feeling you want to convey the right feeling for your brand! Not sure where to start? Check out some of these resources: Check out colourlovers for ideas for color palettes and current color trends! Meet Your Type from fontshop has some great advice! Any book by Ellen Lupton is a great learning resource but my favorites are: Graphic Design, The New Basics; Thinking With Type; DIY: Design It Yourself Check out books from Robin Williams as well try the Non-Designers Design Book or the Non-Designers Design and Type Book I cover all of the basics in Design 101 an e-book that covers design, alignment, color, type.. and so much more! Check out Design with Type online- its a great resource and a great companion to the book. Start with those basics and youre right on track to make your brand more visually pleasing! Want to learn more about the basics of design? Check out my super affordable e-book, Design 101! Originally priced at just $5, When I Grow Up readers can get it for 50% off with the code GROWUPDesign. **************** Allie is the owner of Alexandra Rae Design a blog about design, creativity, and memory keeping. Shes a recent (err semi-recent) graphic design grad, navigating her way through careers in the creative world. She loves twitter, pinterest, and fixing up her brand new (to her) house with her husband. Shes got a lot on her to-do list but she always finds time for creativity, design, and documenting her life.