What is a “Brand”?
As defined in Wikipedia….
A brand is a name or trademark connected with a product or producer. Brands have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as “cultural accessories and personal philosophies”
A brand is easily associated with identity. In business your “brand” has often been said to be “everything”. People identify you through your brand. So in order to fully succeed professionally your brand needs to be recognizable and identify you and what you do. Can we agree on that?
Branding and identity have been on my mind lately. I have been going through a bit of an identity crisis with my own “brand” PrintedProof.com. You see, originally printedproof was a site I launched with the intent to promote printing products and services. The site is still very much that place, however it has evolved into less of a magazine-commercial style site to a more personal-professional structure.
What is the crisis you ask? My own growth as a professional in the Graphic Communications industry led to “PrintedProof” becoming a brand for my own knowledge, skills, abilities, and even personality. A large player in this has been the success and response I have received from social media. Now, I am not saying I am now the most popular kid in the class or an expert on everything I talk about, but none the less… I have built a brand. This brand has led to other opportunities which I must now embrace.
I have a tendency to always be changing, evolving, and making things better. I am a designer, its what we do. I have segregated my original vision for this new brand into an entirely different entity and what is now a new identity.
PrintedProof.com is now a place for me to blog and provide my loyal viewers with information and opinions on my industry: Graphic Communications. Before launching printedproof.com I was a freelance designer and marketer. This is something that paid the bills and something that I loved doing, and will start to leap back into that driver seat. In addition I have many ideas that I can begin to build upon behind my new brand.
The short of the story is that a brand carries such importance that it can dictate its own path of success or even failure. Sometimes a vision, once in motion, can take off in ways that may not have been intended. The question is… can you evolve with a new identity and harness the power of a brand?
Please comment your thoughts on Brand and feedback on the new identity of PrintedProof.com
