The Importance of a Designer’s Personal Branding
In our previous article, we have discussed the seven essential steps to boost your design portfolio. However, in today’s highly competitive creative worker resources, having a portfolio alone is not enough to make you distinguishable and get you hired or landed on a project with the client.
If you sightsee on design showcase websites such as Dribbble and Behance, there are millions of incredible designers with their beautiful, highly imaginative, and functional designs flooding the hall. Some of them including highly-accomplished work with real business results, yet others are eye-candy designs with no actual application. Indeed, as a designer, it is an excellent first step to showcase your showcase on such a platform. But on the other side, a recruiter or hiring manager, especially those who are not coming from a creative background, tends to see the showcases as nothing more than a simple design that looks similar to one another when they have to review hundreds of thousands of portfolios. It is indeed tricky to get your work distinguishable if you are not doing something ‘extra’.
“To achieve something you’ve never had before, you need to do something you’ve never done before.”
Hence, this article will give you a hint on how to be a well-known designer by channeling your inner character in detail on your website to attract potential clients that might into your taste. It is a basic yet fundamental marketing trick that works all the time: set your branding and identity.
First, Establish a unique visual identity
Instead of trying to look like everyone else’s personal portfolio site, build your website based on a visual style that performs your personality. To find out what is character you are really into, you need to answer these questions.
- What colors attract you the most or best define you?
- What kind of graphical shapes best represents your personality?
- What kind of story do you want to tell? Or what side of you that you want to show to the public?
When you have got all settled, it is worth noting that you need to reassess your portfolio website. Make sure that you always bring something fresh on it. The more you procrastinate on updating it, the more overwhelming it will be when you eventually update it for a particular necessity.
Second, Tell Your Story Like You are Writing your Short Biography
Contents that perform well on social media are those that are relatable to most of the audience. Many times, stories about one’s struggle upon an achievement got the most attention from the public. Instead of showing off how amazing you are now, the audience is more interested in how you did what you did today. People would love to know how you become the person you are today. Do not be afraid to show them. Nevertheless, the conversation around underprivileged people who gained success is preferable to the inheritance family success.
Stella Guan, a digital designer who is actively sharing her journey through her website, has ‘whispered’ her method to attract a client. According to her, clients that come to her rarely talk about her work during the meeting. Instead, the company man she met swapped stories about each other’s lives and eventually started the project together. From this experience, we can infer that interpersonal relationship is what we need as it is the foundation of social life in the’ over’ connected world.
Third, be a Consistent Content Creator
Content creators are the winner in today’s digital mass-sharing. You need to create as much content as possible regularly to keep your audience engaged. First, you must have decided the kind of content you are passionate about. If you love writing, you can start by writing articles about your interest. Another way, you can produce informative videos, reorganize your work as a sharable post on social media, or even start a podcast.
The variation of digital content is unlimited. However, we all know that getting started is the hardest part. When you doubt whether you should create a youtube channel or a blog, you can start first by being active on social media for your personal-brand routine. Besides, being a content creator can make you not relying on one paycheck only.
Here comes your personal-brand
If you have done all of those steps, you have officially created your brand. It is a term that came from the synergy of crafting a message about yourself as a designer both visually and even powered with words. This kind of synergy will draw people who share the same value and interests as yours to your side. They will become your followers, subscriber, and eventually, your business partner. The power of a personal brand is that if they love to hear from you, they will almost certainly buy what you sell.
Most designers are a digital nomad and sometimes a freelancer. In this case, you are the marketer or salesperson of your brand. It is worth noting that having something on display is excellent, yet, you need to persistently think about getting your brand into your audience’s top of mind because your work does not speak for itself. Therefore, you need to talk about them a lot.
Finally, we have curated some designer and or creative worker’s websites for your real reference upon creating your portfolio website. The more you explore, the more you know which style would suit you best.
- https://kulbachny.com/
- https://abhishekjha.me/
- https://www.stellaguan.com/
- https://www.tgoodman.com/
- http://robinmastromarino.com/
If you have any more insights about personal branding for a digital designer, we are very open. Please slide into the comment section below and share it with us! 😉 👇🏼✨
