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Lea Alcantara is a web designer who runs her own business at Lealea Design. She was listed as one of the 50 best female web designers in the world. Her article series on The Art of Self-Branding got a lot of recognition from web designers world-wide. She also gives occasional talks on branding.
Hi, everyone! I’m Lea, the creative principal to Lealea Design where I craft digital experiences for clients, big and small. Additionally, I host the ExpressionEngine podcast, teach interface design at my local university, and do the occasional conference talk about personal branding.
A personal brand is essentially the perception you project to others. It’s a summary of all you say, touch, and do.
A freelancer’s livelihood is based on their personal brand, their reputation — business is about building relationships and people want relationships with human beings. Having a personal brand helps you communicate to others clearly what you’re about and that in turn, helps attract the right clients.
In my article, the Art of Self-Branding, I go through a word association exercise: write down three adjectives, the first three adjectives you would associate with yourself. Next, do an informal survey of the people in your life — personal, professional, casual — and ask them to associate adjectives with you as well. Ask them to be honest, good and bad. When you’re complete, put the data into a table that ranks them in terms of relationship and years known.
Once done, you can weigh the responses based on those types of relationships and how people perceive you depending on how intimately they know you. It’s so important to do this because there’s so many different types of personas we project to people depending on our relationship with them. It’s a way to see what’s common among everyone no matter how long or well they know you, what’s different, and also a gauge to see how your own perception of self matches along with others. It’s also a wake-up call in case there are some flags you need to address.
Our entire lives we’ve been building our personal brand. The environmentalist analogy is simply trying to see how you can reflect on all the choices you’ve made in say, your wardrobe or your home decor or your past design projects. It’s important to use that since it’s what you’ve been building to establish your identity in a natural way. Then, you can compare that to your adjective table and see how to align these items to create a design system for yourself.
I put big emphasis on it because if you try to stray from your real values and personality, then you will come off to everyone as awkward and fake. People can spot someone “trying too hard” a mile away.
Also, when you’re really honest about your goals and values, then you’re able to really focus on the right type of clients and work, which will pay off in the long run. We don’t want every client under the sun; we want the right clients who give us fulfilling work and pay us well.
This all harkens back to honesty, as well. Consistency is delivering, day-to-day, the quality of work and professionalism that is expected of you (and then some). If you’re all over the place, it shows a lack of focus, and a lot of clients will be put off and worried about reliability. It comes off dishonest.
I’d encourage everyone to visit my one-page site:
Art of Self-Branding – it has links to tutorials and articles on the subject of branding.
I also wrote a recent article at .net magazine that talks about it a bit more, too.
That a personal brand isn’t built-in a vacuum. If a personal brand is built on the perception of others, it’s really a team effort of building relationships with family, friends, colleagues, clients, employers, and peers.
You need them to help discover your personal brand. You need them to help promote your personal brand. There’s a lot you can do to help communicate your brand, but in the end, be as genuine, helpful, and kind to others… the rest will follow.
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Friday, April 13th, 2012 01:29
how beautiful the information. It is very good useful collectin.
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 03:05
so when you write about male designers, you always mention their gender in the title, right?
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 07:41
Title is actually derived from a list of female web designers. It’s linked on the post. ;)
Sunday, April 8th, 2012 16:42
In the world some people are successfull in life.And you are the one of them.and it’s true that a personal brand can attract the clients.Thanks for your artilcle.and best of luck.
Saturday, April 7th, 2012 13:48
hi Lea, you are so true in what you said :) good luck in future. David
Thursday, April 5th, 2012 12:21
It’s nice that there are successful people who are always willing to share what they know. Self brand is definitely is the unique you that creates relationship towards the people that surrounds you.. thanks, Lea!
Thursday, April 5th, 2012 05:24
It’s always nice to read about freelancers being successful in the industry. People like Lea are such an inspiration for new freelancers such as myself. I agree in what she said about building relationships, personally I think this is the most important aspect of a successful home based career.
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 20:43
Lea, I appreciate your insights though maybe your article should be titled, “Branding, Lea Style”.
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David Radovanovic
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 20:43
Lea, I appreciate your insights though maybe your article should be titled, “Branding, Lea Style”.
david
Saturday, April 7th, 2012 13:48
hi Lea, you are so true in what you said :) good luck in future. David
Noemi
Thursday, April 5th, 2012 12:21
It’s nice that there are successful people who are always willing to share what they know. Self brand is definitely is the unique you that creates relationship towards the people that surrounds you.. thanks, Lea!
Cristina
Thursday, April 5th, 2012 05:24
It’s always nice to read about freelancers being successful in the industry. People like Lea are such an inspiration for new freelancers such as myself. I agree in what she said about building relationships, personally I think this is the most important aspect of a successful home based career.
Black
Sunday, April 8th, 2012 16:42
In the world some people are successfull in life.And you are the one of them.and it’s true that a personal brand can attract the clients.Thanks for your artilcle.and best of luck.
Nanang Guanwan
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 01:02
Very Inspiring :)
zafor
Friday, April 13th, 2012 01:29
how beautiful the information. It is very good useful collectin.
sohel rana
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 13:13
It a very nice website …
maria
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 03:05
so when you write about male designers, you always mention their gender in the title, right?
Rean John Uehara
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 07:41
Title is actually derived from a list of female web designers. It’s linked on the post. ;)