Your Branding Questions Answered

I can’t count how many times I’ve revisited my branding. Every time I do, I beat myself up. Why can’t I stick with one logo or brand name?! Why is it so difficult to make up my mind?! AHHH!! Branding can be so confusing.

I see other creatives struggling with the same questions I am. Do I use my personal name for my business or a fictitious name? Do I need a social media account for all aspects of my business? Today, I’d like to address some of these common questions and my stance on them (for now). I haven’t changed my branding much in two years, and that’s a new record for me. Since what I’m doing is working, I thought it would be a good time to talk about this subject.

1. What should I call my business? Should I use a fictitious name or my own name? This question is so tough! However, I don’t think it matters as much as everyone thinks. My advice is to think about your future vision for your business. If you see yourself freelancing and doing a lot of client work, go with your name. If you have a name that’s difficult to pronounce, maybe shorten it for your branding. If you plan on selling goods, a fictitious name works really well because you can build a brand story that is bigger than yourself. What do you primarily want to be known for?

   Also, do you want to have employees or to be a lone wolf? If the answer is lone wolf, your name will work better. If you want to build a big business with employees, I suggest the fictitious name route.

   At some point, I realized I have two types of distinct customers - the artist (who wants to make better art) and the art collector (who wants to buy prints of my work). Therefore, it made sense to separate my business into two entities - Nicole Cicak and On Lane Avenue. Again, I don’t think it matters much what you call your business. What matters more is the kind of story you can build around it.

   When choosing a fictitious name, I suggest four things. First - it should be incredibly easy to pronounce. Second - you should be able to explain why you chose the name in one sentence. Third - the name should have some sort of meaning to you. Fourth - do a google search to make sure no one else is using the name for something similar.

2. Which social media platform(s) should I use? I am NOT about spending my life on social media, so I like to be strategic as to how I approach it. A lot of artists and creatives tend to hang out on Instagram, so I use that platform to talk about making art. However, I don’t see that many print sales from Instagram. Therefore, I like to promote the “selling art” aspect of my business on Pinterest. I’m not a social media expert by any means, so you may be experiencing something different. I have talked with a few artists, and they seem to agree that Instagram is not ideal for selling art. However, it works really well for selling a course or sending people to your blog/website. Whatever you do, I encourage you to be strategic about where you spend your time. I also recommend choosing one platform to focus on for each of your brands. You’ll get further doing one platform really well, than a bunch of platforms not so well.

3. How can I evolve my brand without seeming like I’m all over the place? This has been a major struggle of mine, and I’ve come to this conclusion - you don’t need a new brand every time you launch something new. In fact, I this is the ultimate procrastination tactic (at least for me). A lot of times it feels easier and more fun to work on branding, than to sit down and do the actual work. I know, it’s a hard pill to swallow. My advice is to find a way to make your new endeavor work with your existing brand(s). You will get much further by focusing your efforts in one place. I learned this the hard way when I started interviewing artists in 2019 under the title “Where Makers Make.” For some reason, I thought I needed a new brand and website for this project. Eventually I ended up consolidating the interviews on my personal website, because it made more sense. Why didn’t I do this in the first place? I think it was a fear of starting the interview process. As much as I hate to admit it, I was stalling.

   My second piece of advice is to always be working towards simplification. How can you have less to manage? Following this rule has worked wonders for my brand (and my sanity) The less websites, the better. The less social media accounts, the better. Also, don’t make any hasty branding decisions without thinking them over for at least a few months.

   That being said, if your gut is screaming at you to make a change - do it! If your brand is holding you back in some way, do something about it! People are paying much less attention than we think, and most of your followers probably won’t even notice! Especially, if you make changes slowly and gradually. Pay attention to customer feedback. If people seem confused as to what you do or where to find you, change your brand strategy. If everyone seems to get it, you’re probably on the right path.

4. How can I stop stressing over my branding? Look at your brand as a flower slowly blooming. You don’t need to arrive at the perfect scenario tomorrow, as tempting as that sounds. Just follow your intuition, and keep simplifying. I guarantee you will get there eventually. And even when you “get there” and are happy with your brand, you will still be making little changes. You’ll never really arrive, and I think you know that deep down. Change is healthy. If you don’t evolve a little each year, you will become irrelevant. Trends are changing and the world is changing. You have to change too in order to stay current.

   Finding your perfect brand works in conjunction with getting to know yourself. The more you grow as a human, the more your brand should grow. You brand should be a reflection of who you are, so use that as your north star. Ask yourself on a regular basis, “how can I make my brand more “me”? This takes the pressure out of trying to be something we’re not, or making changes just because everyone else is.

I hope this was all helpful! The biggest learning I’ve had on this subject is to not worry too much about branding. Worry about doing the work. If you’re worried about branding, it might just be a procrastination tactic as it was for me.