Artist branding 101: The basics for any creator

To understand artist branding, let’s spend a second on how traditional branding works. 

When we think of brands, we immediately have an impression. 

It can be a feeling related to a nice memory, like a good shopping experience at an IKEA store, or remembering the iconic Christmas ads from John Lewis because of their wonderful storytelling.

Often, when we hear a brand’s name, we quickly see their logo in our head, and vice versa. How about the mermaid of Starbucks?

Sometimes, a jingle rings in our ears. If you hear McDonald’s, I’ll bet you’ll sing “I’m lovin’ it’ next.

From this perspective, brands are a set of impressions and those impressions are crafted in a way to make a lasting impact on their audience. When a brand’s image is built well, consumers will happily engage with the company behind it, that includes purchasing from said brand and recommending others to try it, too. 

Individual creators can get better at marketing and selling their creative artwork too, once they start thinking about their business as a brand and themselves as the CEO.

That mindset shift can be extremely powerful. The moment you decide to look at your daily activities as serving your purposes from a business perspective, everything changes. 

You’re not an artist working alone, trying to make it, and see if you can make a living out of this. You are already the owner of a small creative business from day one, a business that you want to make successful, and every decision you make should be aligned with that.

One of the decisions you should make early on is to brand yourself as an artist, and you need to work on setting those impressions you want to make.

Artist branding, being a type of personal branding, is all about emphasizing your artistic identity, style, and values to connect with your audience and potential customers.

Here’s my list of the most basic artist branding tips to consider:

1. Have a brand statement
2. Find your brand voice
3. Learn how to tell your story
4. Be consistent with your visual appearance

1. Have a brand statement

A brand statement will help you keep in mind:

• What is your creator business about? 
• What is your message?
• What is your purpose? 
• What is it that you want to communicate about yourself?

Your brand statement will determine all your future art marketing activities, from a single social media post to a newsletter.

To find yours, think of the vibes of what you create (adorable, whimsical, gothic) and add what it is that you create (illustration, pottery, crochet art). If it’s unique, something that might set you apart from others, you can also include your purpose (e.g., promote social-emotional learning with kids’ illustration) and target audience (e.g., perfect for neurodivergent individuals).

Once you have your brand statement, keep it close. It can be a digital note on your computer or a physical post-it close to your working space that you can look at every day and be reminded of how you want to position yourself as you communicate about your creator business.

This is how ceramicist Kness does it:

👉 Kness: The cutest ceramic shop

Kness is known for her cute and charming porcelain animal figurines. Her statement’s power lies in stating the obvious and angling herself correctly towards customers (“this is what you’ll get from me”).

There’s Kevin Parry:

👉 Kevin Parry: Stop-motion animator & video wizard

Kevin is a very talented stop-motion animator, but he’s not the only one. The “video wizard” label, however, catches your eye and will ring in your ear later. And, it’s simply on point. He really is a wizard. Check out his content.

Then we have Picnic Blanket Jewellery:

👉​ Picnic Blanket: Jewellery to melt your heart

Katie literally melts glass to create her jewellery pieces, which will melt your heart because they’re charming and oh-so-lovable. The statement is a clever wordplay that’s also informative.

2. Find your brand voice

In traditional branding, we talk about brand voice, which essentially means what you’d probably think of instantly: imagining how the brand would speak if it were a person. It’s the same reason why we also refer to this as tone of voice. 

When somebody speaks, you soon get a feel of their personality, you catch the type of words they use, their mannerisms, even, and what their tone is like. Brands can form their voices in a similar way.

• Nike, with their “Just do it” slogan and all types of brand elements, is usually described by consumers as active, sporty, confident, and supportive—that is how they “hear” Nike’s voice, too.

• Dove emphasises true beauty, mostly targeting women, and the elements of care, gentle vibes, and honest communication when it comes to the female body, are what resonate most with people when Dove “speaks”.

Find your brand voice as an artist by thinking about how you and your artwork resonates with people.

What do you sound like when you speak as an artist? What would your artworks sound like if they could speak, too?

In the end, you’ll probably land on a set of adjectives, a mix of what you’ve heard from others describing you and your art, and what you believe you exude as artist and/or what you aspire to be. 

Following the same line of thought, the moment a brand would change its voice, you’d know that something is weird or wrong. If a brand is known for being humorous, and it suddenly gets dark and gloomy, you know that something is off. Or, if Dove would start making jokes in their ads, that jump from being a very emotionally charged voice among brands would confuse people (not that laughing is not emotional, but I think you get my point).

For this reason, I find it practical to write down the adjectives or any kind of description of your brand voice that you come up with. This way, it becomes more permanent, and it’s something you can pull out any time you’re hesitant about how to set the tone in your communication. This way, you can keep your tone consistent.

For many, though, this is something that comes more naturally, and they don’t need to formalise it in such a way. It’s your decision. 

Just keep in mind that the power of consistency in your communication and marketing is that your audience finds safety in the familiar. And what is familiar is easier to relate to, which is one of the ultimate goals of branding.

3. Learn how to tell your story

This comes down mainly to two things: learning how to tell your life story as an artist and learning how to tell your everyday stories as an artist.

1. Your life story as an artist that will be turned into your artist bio

Try to share your creator journey in writing in a way that people can relate to. Try to engage them, make them feel something, and bring them closer to you. 

It’s a tale as old as time that people buy stories and not products. Once you show the human in you, the things you create will appear much more appealing as well. 

But as far as your artist bio goes, you can tell the story of:

• How everything started
• What were the obstacles that you faced
• What was your first success that helped you stay on your path
• What are your themes, messages, and methods that are typical of you
• What does art mean to you
• What is your purpose as an artist

When you write your artist bio, while also being informative, focus on building an emotional connection. Your goal is to be relatable and memorable like how someone would remember a friend or even just a kind stranger. Build that spark of being familiar.

2. Your everyday stories that will appear in your marketing content 

Building on your life story and creator story that appears in your artist bio, and keeping your brand statement and brand voice in mind, too, you can utilise your everyday creator moments in your marketing materials.

Instead of simply sharing the image of a new artwork on Instagram, saying that people can buy it, and pointing them to your webshop, lure them in—with good intentions—with the story of how that product came about. 

• Was your artwork born on a particularly hard day for you?
• Was it something you almost gave up on?
• Does it remind you of a dear family member?
• Did it turn out completely different than planned, but somehow even better? 
• Is it connected to a childhood memory?
  What famous person would love this artwork?

Share a short story with the post that can resonate with people.

In the sea of other posts with images, links and call-to-actions urging people to visit a website, I can guarantee you that they will remember that bunny ceramics you made in memory of your childhood rabbit—and that becomes one more lasting impression that you made on a potential customer. It might even be an instant buy situation.

In psychology, this is called the familiarity effect: we are more likely to favour familiar things over unfamiliar things, and often due to repeated exposure. To leverage this effect in marketing, your goal should be to build an emotional connection with your audience and make sure that they repeatedly encounter your work.

Example 👇

Let’s say you’re a potential customer who is also a mother. Would you go and buy from a creator because I showed you a picture of a nice mug they made that, on first glance, might look like any other?

Or would you be more interested in it if I pointed out that the flowers on the mug represent the many roles of a mother in life, and the way mothers constantly bloom for others as caretakers? 

What is I tell you that the creator is also a mother?

I think you know which situation is more likely to end with a purchase eventually, especially if you keep up posting like this, focusing on storytelling.

4. Be consistent with your visual appearance

Your visual identity should be consistent across all the platforms where you communicate as an artist, and this includes:

• Your colour schemes
• Your font(s)
• Your logo
• Your image and photograph styles

Colours and fonts

The colours and fonts should mirror your artistic style, of course, and should neatly pair with your identity as an artist. 

Although, there’s an art to this, without overcomplicating it, just think with your common sense.

For example, black can be gothic or very elegant, depending on what other colour you add to your palette and in what context you place them.

Yellow is usually considered happy and bright, while green reminds people of nature and gives an earthy vibe.

However, when green is next to gold, you might land on a magical or luxurious impression.

Similarly, the appearance of fonts can be strict, playful, traditional, modern, and so on. 

You can always do research on this, but for now, I advise you to trust your instinct, maybe ask for feedback from your artist and non-artist friends, too, and at the end of the day, decide on what feels most authentic to you and your creator brand.

Logo

The art of designing a logo is a very complex topic, but everything that you put into your brand statement and brand voice can be helpful here, too. Essentially, you should try to visualise both.

A few questions to brainstorm when designing your logo:

• What is the impression you want to make when people see your logo? 
• Can people tell who you are targeting as your customers by looking at your logo?
• Do you want to use your name as part of your logo in the long term?
• Can you pick a key visual as part of your logo that defines your art or something that is a recurring design element in your works?
• What message will the colour or colours of your logo convey to your customers?

Image and photography style 

When it comes to image styles, there are a few factors to consider in your communication channels that act as your branding elements. 

Website images

In general, it’s good to consider that the type of imagery you use on your website also speaks about your brand. The first thing to decide is if you want to use illustrations or photographs only or mainly. This is not a question if you’re an illustrator or a photographer, of course, but for any other creator, it’s worth considering. 

Illustrations, used for web design purposes, are usually described as artistic, can offer more colour variations, and are great for portraying abstract concepts and values. Photography is usually celebrated for being more realistic, great for showing actual life events or human faces, of course, and therefore can feel more authentic. 

But what is authentic to you, right? Your decision should come down to what type of imagery is on-brand for you and is able to tell your message the best.

Profile images

How about your profile image that you use on your website, your socials, and any other channels? Does it show you during work? Or out in the field, looking for inspiration? Perhaps reading a book? Or chatting with fellow creators? The way you’re photographed can give a different impression of you, and again, you should think about how you defined yourself via your brand statement and brand voice. 

If you’re a painter and you share an image of yourself working in front of a canvas, surrounded by paint, brush in hand, we get the point. You’re a painter, with a focus on your craft. But, if you are a painter who is also very active in community building, organising workshops for fellow creators and perhaps speaking at events about art, then you’ll want to add photos showing you in those roles.

Naturally, it can be a good choice to have a mix of profile pictures. Unless you use your logo as a profile image on your social platforms, a headshot will work best there. On your website, though, a half-body or full-body image can appear on your About page, allowing you to show more of yourself, if you’re comfortable with it.

Product images

If you create visual art, besides putting product images on your website and webshop, you’ll share photos of your artwork countless times on your social media channels, too, and you should make sure that their appearance is also consistent. 

For instance, you can photograph your products in front of the same three coloured background, let’s say, purple, green, and yellow. Products will vary, but the background will always be one of these three colours to create a unified effect.

Or, the background could be white each time, but then you can digitally add a few dots of the same colours for each post in different variations. 

Both approaches will create consistency in your visual appearance.

Pick a method that is efficient and can be repeated quickly and easily, without stealing precious time from creating, but also making sure that your branding stays on point. 

The ultimate artist branding advice: Don’t overcomplicate it

You might have caught my vibe while reading this article: I believe that you shouldn’t overcomplicate marketing or branding. I believe in testing things and allowing yourself time to work things out. 

Artist branding is a very sensitive and gentle area of branding, something that the artist should 100% identify with in order for it to work. This is what makes it both easy and hard. 

It’s easy because it truly comes from you, and sometimes you’ll make decisions that you really can’t explain, but they’ll work—whether that’s a profile image or the colour of your logo.

It’s also hard because how can you really find the true essence of you in a font or a product image? The question seems absurd as it is. Sure. But, it doesn’t make it impossible either. 

As a marketing professional, I believe that your branding and marketing should feel comfortable to you, without exhausting you, or feeling like you’re not your true self when it comes to sharing who you are as an artist with the world. 

_{Featured image by Muhammad Rahim Ali}