Watching a YouTube video today, the creator was discussing finding your style (in art). She said that often times when you are unhappy with your art, it can often be attributed to the fact that your taste is better developed than your skill.

I feel that this applies to branding as well. I feel like I know what I want my brand to be. Well, that’s not exactly true either. I want my brand to be much like Taylor Swift’s career. First country, then pop, now folk - but instead of spreading it out over years I want to be a country-pop-folk artist all at once. But that doesn’t really work for a nobody trying to be a kinda somebody as a designer. So…I choose folk. Or at least my version of it? OK, maybe equating my branding and style to a music genre is not exact, but you get the idea.

The thing is, I thought I was doing this. I was taking more artistic pictures, I was limiting my Instagram feed to 5-6 topics so that I keep my work at the forefront but also come off as relatable, I thought I was working towards a vision. But my vision was still country/pop/folk, and it showed. It’s a little all over the place. So, I dedicated an entire evening’s work to defining what it was I wanted to convey with my brand. New logo, new branding board (or just a branding board as I’ve never made one before), a vision/inspiration board…all of it. I just spent the day thinking about who I wanted to be as a designer and a brand for the next while. And I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I’ll share my branding board here:

I kept going back to this idea of a cabin in the woods, drinking coffee by a window while it rains outside, a stream rushing past somewhere close, a fire in the fireplace and a good book in hand, curled up in a big chair wearing a warm sweater and socks, listening to good music and just being at peace. That image resonates with me right now and that’s what I want my brand to convey. And it’s hard to not think about confetti placemats and oversized ice cream cone displays, but serenity is where I am at right now and for the sake of my creativity - I will meet it here.

And I’m sure that the things I’m going through right now are influencing my vision at the moment, but that’s OK too. I would love to be able to dictate to my brain what to find inspiring, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work that way. And I think that’s what is important as a designer and an artist. Realizing where you are at and meeting yourself there instead of trying to fit yourself into this image that you imagine. There is a lot wrong with trying to mold yourself into something that’s not right - first, it probably isn’t what you imagine it to be and you’re spending valuable effort working for something that doesn’t exist, and two, there is a lot to say for authenticity. I’ve been mass consuming the wise words of designers I look up to and one in particular talked about being your authentic self and how it shows in your work.

And it’s not easy. For me, the inspiration wasn’t coming and so I tried my best to fake it. But once I let go of this idea of what I was supposed to be doing and what I thought my end goal was, I found something pretty genuine and I think pretty exciting and creative and what will (hopefully) be a beautiful collection.