Building My Personal Brand
Project Date: Summer 2023
Project Overview
The goal of this personal branding project was to establish a strong and authentic online presence that reflects my unique identity, values and expertise as a young professional. Using Adobe Illustrator to design my logo and Canva to design my guide, my aim was to craft a cohesive and visually appealing brand that enhances my professional reputation, connects with my target audience, and showcases my skills to potential clients or employers.
The Problem
The development of a personal brand holds significant importance for several reasons. First, it allows you to stand out in a competitive job market by showcasing your unique skills and qualities, setting you apart from other candidates. Second, it facilitates networking and enables you to connect with like-minded individuals, mentors, and potential employers who can support your career journey. Moreover, defining your personal brand fosters personal growth and clarity about your career path, leading to informed decision-making and professional development. Additionally, a strong online presence enhances your credibility, while a well-crafted brand can attract diverse career opportunities and contribute to long-term success in your professional endeavors.
The Solution
I began this project by engaging in a thorough self-reflection in order to identify my unique skills, strengths, passions and values. Defining oneself with colors, typography and a logo is extremely daunting, especially when trying to navigate how I wanted my target audience to perceive me. Based on the insights gained from my self-reflection, I began with choosing a photo from Unsplash that I felt aligned with my core values and passions — I chose the beach. From there, I used Adobe Color to create my color palette from the chosen photo and moved to Adobe Illustrator to begin designing my logos.
As a technical marketing professional, I wanted my logo to convey my personality and aspirations, while also keeping it simple. I chose the font EloquentJFPro Italic for my logo text and added several statement swashes on most letters. Being completely new to Adobe Illustrator presented several challenges during this; however, it pushed me past my limits and allowed me to gain a deeper understanding about the program.
Top logo is current brand logo; bottom is un-manipulated EloquentJFPro Italic font
I decided to incorporate swashes into my design as they are commonly used to enhance the visual appeal and sophistication of typography, aligning well with my personal brand. Once I finalized the font choice, I included a small star to the right of the name for a touch of decoration. For the lettermark logos, I opted to encompass the single “M” within a plain circle, while also maintaining consistency with the star element. Although I initially experimented with intertwining the “M” and “T,” it appeared overly busy, and my objective was to preserve the simplicity of my wordmark logo. I ended up creating two versions of the lettermark logo — one with the a lowercase “m” with no swash and one with a swash. I decided to keep them both, as I think they both could be useful. However, moving forward, I will narrow it down to only one, depending on which logo is utilized more often in any projects that require my personal branding.
Results
I feel a tremendous sense of pride in the entire project’s outcome, encompassing the creation of individual logos and the overall design of the guide. It truly reflects my personality in a remarkable way, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. I have also been able to gauge the reactions and feedback from my peers and even members of my family — which was exceedingly positive. My plan is to measure any rise in engagement on my Linkedin or Wordpress Portfolio once I launch the brand to further asses how well the guide is received. I truly hope to continue building on this throughout the Emerging Media Masters Program at UGA.