Personal Branding: Visual Branding

Visual Branding is an important part of your personal branding. It’s what your followers, customers, and those that don’t-even-know-they-need-you-yet see of you all around social media.

Visual Branding also tends to be what most struggle to figure out. I am sure you have some of these questions rattling around in your brain right now with a few extras added in… “What should my business name be? What should my logo look like? I have so many colors I love, which ones do I choose? How do I pick fonts?” Don’t worry, we will get you on the path of identifying the puzzle pieces and getting them put together.

Where do I start?

Head to Pinterest, create a secret board, and start pinning. Pin the things that make you happy. There is no right or wrong in this. Once you have pinned for a bit, take a look at the board. This will help you to see your overall style and feel. Don’t be surprised if it’s not exactly what you expected.

What’s in a name?

In the Personal Branding post I told you all about my aha moment and my name is my brand. I know that doesn’t work for everyone! Ya know that list I had you come up with in the Personal Branding post? Go look at that. What does it say to you about a name? Anything jump out? Don’t overthink it. If you can’t come up with one right away, keep going. It will come to you. If you really feel like you need one to move on, talk to a few friends or family about it. Those that know you can help see things you may not.

What colors?

Choose colors you love or like. If you aren’t happy with your colors, you won’t be happy with your entire branding. Your branding doesn’t have to include your favorite color. That’s totally up to you!

I love heading to Design Seeds, choose one base color, then explore all the different variations they have. I have pinned tons of my favorites. You can check out my board for inspiration here.

Your logo

First things first, don’t over complicate it (are you noticing a theme yet?). It can have your favorite thing, it can have a random image. You can use just the branding name you choose. Whatever feels right to you. Just think, Nike only has a swoosh. It’s simple and yet recognizable. At this point, you’ll want to start playing with graphics to create your logo. As much as I love playing with graphics and making most of my own, my logo was something I chose to outsource to my friend and graphic designer, Alex Tebow Designs. She has made many logos, invitations, business cards, and really all my graphic needs over the last 7 years. I can give her ideas of what I think I want to see and she magically creates something better than I could have imagined.

If you want to make your own, but need some help in how to make graphics, then I highly recommend the Sassy Suite course Brand Yo’Self with Graphics. This course covers how to use PicMonkey and Canva, along with other tips for creating beautiful graphics.