[Lesson 1] Branding Your Business
Now that you know what makes you truly unique, who your dream clients are, and the offerings you want to have, it’s time to create the branding of your business.
You’ve done the hard work already, and now you’ll just have to put the pieces together – and have some fun playing with colors + inspiration + mood boards + imagery.
Before moving forward, I want to let you know that branding is not just the colors + logo + style of your brand, of course, they’re part of it, but branding is what people think + feel + say about your brand to other people when you’re not in the room. So, it’s your job to let people feel + think what you want them to feel + think about your brand, and the ways you can do it are through:
- Colors + Logo + Style + Photography. All visual materials that you create for your brand, even lookbooks + line-sheets.
- Copy (All the things you write for your brand: blog posts + about me page + product descriptions + social media posts + emails + newsletters + work with me page + sales pages. Everything you write for your business).
It’s imperative that everything you put out in the world is aligned with your brand, and it’s even more important that it is aligned with what you want people to feel + think about it.
The easiest way to do this is branding your business authentically.
Wait, what does authentic branding mean?
You know I’m always preaching to discover your authentic style and use it in your work because it’s your personal seal + why people will buy from you + your identity as a creative, and that you use it in your work all the time.
Well, you heard me say it before: an authentic style has an undisputed origin in its creator. It’s authentic because it comes from within.
The same way, an authentic brand comes from its creator. It is within you, it enhances your uniqueness, and it helps people find and connect with you because of you + your vibe. Besides, and authentic brand makes all the work so much easier because everything you create for your brand, you’ll do it being you (not trying to be someone else).
An authentic brand starts with you
As your authentic style + a thriving business start with you, your authentic brand too, so you’ll use a great part of your homework from module 1 during the following lessons.
Okay, your authentic brand is all about celebrating your uniqueness, highlighting your values, and telling your story.
As you’ve seen everything in your business it connected to you, you are the foundation of all the little pieces of your business and brand. As you’re already special + unique + different, making those differences pop up will help you + your brand differentiate among others.
Your story is what brought you to this point of your life, it is what made you decide to build your business, and it is part of your DEEPEST WHY, which should also be part of your authentic brand. Together, they help people relate to you + your brand because they’re able to see there’s a real person behind your business – someone who has dreams + struggles + hopes + hurdles, just like them.
And your values + beliefs are also part of the unique YOU, they also help people to create a bond with you + your business because they want to feel understood + connected, and they want to support individuals who are similar to them and who value + believe similar things to them.
How to create your authentic brand
This has been one of the most fun things I’ve done in FSBS, I loved every single step of it, and during this module, I’ll show you the exact steps I followed with a dear example: my new shop and website on www.heartsoulme.com
Well, before coming up with the branding that you can see over FSBS, I struggled a lot, and I used to change everything every month or every couple of months. But it was until I created the aesthetics that fitted me and that were connected to me + who I am + what I do + my story + where I want to go, that everything stuck and I haven’t made any significant changes since then.
And, the process we’ll follow is actually quite simple:
- You’ll take the work you’ve done so far, like what makes you unique + your story + your dream clients + your offerings + your values, and you’ll put them all together in a brand brief
- Then, you’ll summarize all that into a few keywords that will represent your brand
- You’ll create a visual vocabulary that’s connected to you, and that represents those keywords
- After that, you’ll create a mood board + color palette that will guide you visually during the creation of your logo + graphics + photographs + colors + typography.
- And finally, you’ll pick your typography, and create your graphic elements + logo + photography.
As usual, you must evaluate your results of every phase. Sometimes it’s good to let things sit for a couple of days, and then revise how you can tweak + improve them. The goal here is not to rush this process, but take it with care + see if each phase is really aligned with you, so you create a beautiful and authentic brand from the get go.
So, bring your workbook from module 1 + 2 + 3, print this module’s worksheets, and let’s get started.
