Self-Promotion Identity in the covid-19 Era

It’s been a while since I have writ­ten a post here on the site. In that time, well, every­thing changed. 

I have been busy busy. A lot of teach­ing, remote­ly, of course. Today the sub­ject of self-pro­mo­tion iden­ti­ty came up – always a dif­fi­cult activ­i­ty at the best of times. 

I have begun think­ing about how self-pro­mo might be chang­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. In class, we looked at busi­ness cards, as best we could through the webcam. 

Are Business Cards Dead?

The use­ful­ness of busi­ness cards may have been on its way down pre-COVID. Now, there are lim­it­ed con­fer­ences and face-face meet­ings for the fore­see­able future. The nails seem to be on their way into the cof­fin of the ven­er­a­ble name card.

Self-Branding Process

We may need alter how we deliv­er our brands’ iden­ti­ties to our con­tacts. Yet, the process of self-brand­ing remains rel­e­vant, and large­ly unchanged. I first went through the process of design­ing my own iden­ti­ty ten to fif­teen years ago. My style has evolved since then, but it was inter­est­ing to return to the ori­gin of the process.

The first part of the process involves get­ting “intro­spec­tive.” You need to look inside your­self and try to hon­est­ly syn­the­size “who you are.”

Per­son­al­i­ty and val­ues are impor­tant. This is because we live in a con­nect­ed world and want to work with peo­ple and brands to which we can relate. From your intro­spec­tion and syn­the­sis, you devel­op a “theme,” which sum­ma­rizes your deep self-analysis. 

Next, you use the theme to guide you as you gath­er visu­al com­po­nents. These are options you may use in your designs. They can include colour schemes, fonts and typog­ra­phy, sym­bols / objects / inspi­ra­tional images, pat­terns, tex­tures, etc. 

All this can be dif­fi­cult for many rea­sons. But, avoid­ing the tug of per­fec­tion­ism is key: There is no per­fect solu­tion. Just start any­where. Put these things on a page and see what sticks.

Final­ly, you will have to nar­row down your options. You will begin to cre­ate brand iden­ti­ty com­po­nents and deliv­er­ables. These may include a logo, and graph­ic approach­es to social media, your port­fo­lio and web­site. Maybe even a busi­ness card for the sake of nostalgia.

A Self-Promo Giveaway?

So read­ers, I am think­ing of putting togeth­er a Self-pro­mo Tem­plate. This would get you start­ed on your own self-brand­ing process. Maybe you haven’t done it yet, or now is the time for a brand-refresh. Let me know if you are inter­est­ed through the con­tact page, Face­book, or Insta­gram.