What’s Up, Chicken Butt

I read The Brand Gap this weekend, via a suggestion from my CD. I thought a lot about what it says in terms of myself, mostly because that is the easiest way to relate. In the book it says a company (or a sole designer in my case) should be able to answer three questions.

1) Who are you? I am Alice, I am a young, creative, independent female.
2) What do you do? In terms of a living, I am a designer. Or as Frank Chimero shared with some lucky Portlanders, “a planner with an aesthetic sense”, which is really something Bruno Munari said. But I do a lot of other things, and I probably should figure out what these things really are…
3) Why does it matter? Umm. Well this is pretty hard to answer considering I could hardly answer number 2. I’ll work on that.

I think I have been working on it since becoming a sole contractor in January. I thought I had it figured out. Then I started doing more freelance projects, during which I realized that I didn’t have it figured out. I quickly learned that a freelance designer must employ different amounts of different skills than one in an agency. And I learned that I need to figure out what it really is that I do, and why it matters.

More recently, I was forced to move to a new neighborhood, across town. I really miss the old one, but I’m starting to believe I belong a little more to the new one. I think the change has really helped me to refresh both personally and career wise. This moving thing, along with my work life has made me realize that I need to make a plan and find my personal brand. At least I feel like I am a good position and place to do so.

My new spot has a lot going on. “Young” people that are doing their own thing are everywhere you turn. In fact, tonight I heard fully grown adults making animal noises on the street below. It is kind of like I’m living in a community of Lost Boys. I can eat breakfast on what I call my “Side Porch” and watch people cruise by on their bicycles. I can see a park from my bedroom window and it calls at me to go lay in it’s warm grass and draw pretty pictures of what I want my new portfolio site to look like. The new space has a good way of helping me reevaluate my life as I place my old things in it and find creative ways to make a shared rented space feel like home. It is a little reminiscent of me rearranging my room every other week during my childhood. I haven’t been working a ton as of late, but I’ve been exploring this new nurturing life, and it feels kind of good. Hopefully I will be able to use the process to answer these branding questions.