Creating a Personal Brand Style Guide

Transcription

1 Creating a Personal Brand Style Guide Prepared for: Dr. Perren Professor California State University San Marcos Prepared by: Dakotah Ramirez John Larson Camron Bradley Zachary Myers Josue Ramos California State University San Marcos February 25, 2018

2 Introduction... 1 Brand Mission... 1 Creating a Personal Brand... 2 Target Audience... 2 Six Elements of a Brand Style Guide... 3 Planning for The Future... 4 Evolving Your Personal Brand... 5 Conclusion... 5 i

3 Building a personal brand for yourself is an essential step to stand out when searching for a job, seeking promotions, and much more. Marketers tend to forget that they can, and should, market themselves like how they market a company's brand. Why create one? To create a successful brand, one of the first steps is to incorporate a style guide for your brand. This guide is necessary to help you stay consistent throughout your brand. Staying consistent is one of the hardest parts of maintaining a brand personal, and must not be overlooked. Inconsistency will confuse your audience and followers because they may not know where or from whom the work is coming from. The importance of having a mission statement for your brand is to understand and portray your direction. A mission statement should clearly explain why your brand even exists in the first place. It will also help dictate your future and form a basis of your brand s strategy. A well-structured mission statement that facilitates evaluation and improvement is vital for brand growth as you begin to gain momentum in the workforce. Encourage your audience to read your mission statement to communicate a mutual understanding of your brand identity. 1

4 How to create it? To create a successful style guide, you need to first know your brand. The three key components are as follows: core values, vision, and brand personality. Together, these key parts are some of the most necessary things to keep in mind. They enable you to establish your personal brand identity. This will help you show your audience who you are and what you stand for. Core values: Knowing your core values is the first step to creating a successful vision statement. Values are what is important to you in life. These are things that you stand by, live by, and that have shape yourself. They should be the guiding principles for the decisions and actions that you make, who you are at your core. These values should be easily remembered so that you can maintain consistency through your brand. Vision: Your vision can be summed up in a short paragraph. The point of creating a vision is to state the clear core ideals that you want to portray about yourself to your followers. This should also be a statement that explains your overall goals in creating a personal brand. Once you know your core values you can ask yourself, What do I do right now that aligns with my values? Where am I not aligned with my values? And how can I stay aligned with my values over the course of a couple years? These questions can help you understand where you are from now and help you see the bigger picture of where you want to go. Brand personality: The brand personality is a way for you to set a tone regarding your design and writing. This should take into consideration some of your passions, which simply is the way you enjoy spending your time, and should consist of some key traits that you believe help you stand out from others. You should make a list of 3-5 passions and a list of 3-5 unique adjectives that you feel are key traits of yourself. You can also create a list of 3-5 adjectives that you are not. These lists can help you understand where to go, and where to stay away from when focusing on your personal brand. It s virtually impossible to target every person in existence, by narrowing down your audience you can develop a group to develop your brand around. Your defined target audience will make all the difference when producing content through blogs, social media platforms, and tangible documents (business card resume etc..). It is important to note that when producing content for your target audience you are not limiting yourself to those outside of your defined audience. It just means that you allocate your budget, strategy, and brand elements towards a specified group. 2

5 It s important that you define the elements that should be included in your style guide. Everyone s style guide may vary and certain elements that may fit in one s guide might not work for someone else. The main elements that I will mention below are some of the major elements that are present in almost every successful personal brand style guide. 1. Brand Story This is how you introduce your brand to the world. A story or summary will give people insight and be able to relate to your brand. A Story will help people understand your brand. Everyone likes to hear a story and get an overview right away. 2. Logo Make sure your logo is being used the way it is intended to. Include all approved versions of your logo and when to use them. It s important to list the minimum size and proportions. Express your logo with different color variations and when to use them. Also, make sure to show how you DON'T want your logo to be used. This will avoid your logo ever being used in a way it is not intended to be used. 3. Color Palette This is important in creating consistency for your brand. A good tip is to pick light colors for backgrounds, darker color for text, another neutral color and then one that stands out. It's important to put swatches of your brand colors in your style guide. This color palette will closely be associated with your brand and be a major tool for you. Color palette will vary based on your brand's personality. So, make sure they match! 4. Typography Your brand will decide whether you want one consistent font that will fit all your needs or if you want multiple brand fonts. It s important to use a different font than the one in your logo. Explain how this font relates and fits with your brand. It s also important to explain what fonts are for headlines, captions and text. Next is alignment. Do you want your text to always align right, centered, or left. Spacing is also very important with fonts. 5. Imagery The images that you provide will steer everyone in the right direction. Your images that you portray for your personal brand can convey the feeling that you want others to feel when they hear your name or brand. If you don t quite know what images you want to portray you can look to someone else images who you are inspired by. 3

6 6. Voice Your brand voice should coincide with your personal brands personality. This is the language and words that you use for your personal brand. Pick words that you like and will describe you and stay away from words you don t like. Word choice and voice will show your audience the style of your personal brand. Simple words are best because it will ensure you that your audience understands and knows the meaning. Once you have established a personal brand that you are comfortable with, remember that as you grow and progress, so should your brand. You may soon realize that your personal brand doesn t exactly fit the image you want to represent. Your personal brand should change and evolve as you grow as it reflects who you are as a person, so it is important to add to it and adjust information as needed. Your personal brand will still all be about you, your focus or message may change, but it s still your story, values, and ideals. Just like companies, the ones who evolve are surviving while the ones who are unwilling to change are the ones who slowly die off. Why is it relevant? Ever since the internet and social media started playing such important roles in our lives, you need to be able to create and maintain your personal brand. Employers are going to Google you and when they do find you, your image must make a good impression for you. Your personal brand should be so strong that any stranger can quickly conclude what kind of person you are. What should you do? There are a few key things you want to keep updated, your LinkedIn profile as it is normally the first result that comes up when someone Googles your name. Social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ also show up high in search results so you want to have your profiles represent the image you d like to be. 4

7 If you are unsure of how often you need to update your profiles, a general rule of thumb is anytime something major changes whether is personable or professional. Whether it s acquiring new skills, gaining experience in your field, or changing career paths it is important to update your information, so you can attract the people you want. Your personal brand should always answer why a company should hire you, and what makes you special. Remember it s not about completely rebranding, but rather evolving to an image that better represents you and what you do. Developing a personal brand style guide is very important to establish your personal brand. The elements of a style guide consist of a brand story, a logo, a color palette, typography, imagery, and a voice. The three key takeaways from the lesson are that your style guide keeps your personal brand organized and professional. It allows you to have a competitive advantage in the workforce. Helps you establish clarity for your audience. 5