AUTHOR: Alisha TITLE: Making the Brand, Part One DATE: 2/23/2005 08:13:00 AM ----- BODY:

This past week I met a lotttt of new creative forces in the world: emerging artists who needed direction and guidance. On a technical level, the work was all over the map. There were great talents and not-so-great talents. (Eeee! Hey, I'm not naming names!!) Among all the portfolios, what was the one thing I consistently saw that needed work? B R A N D I N G Artists and craftspeople need to make good work, create relationships with collectors, and define an identity that is recognizable, memorable, and reflective of the artist and their work. Did I lose you there? Essentially, I am saying... If you want to sell your work one day, you must take time today to create an identity and stick with it. I'm not demanding a logo. I'm not asking for you to have a tag line. I simply want you to pick a company name, your artist name, or some 'design/studio' name and stick with it. Better yet, make a deliberate move to use a particular font. Then too, stick with that. Image making is equal parts branding and consistency. If you ever wonder why some of the links on the right-hand panel of my blog are directed to product packaging, brand marketing, or business support sites, this is the very reason. I believe it is crucially important for artists to acknowledge this responsibility to mold an image and then take part in actively creating one.

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