Your Brand as Art

A few months ago, Simon Mainwaring made a post titled, Social media explained by a 9-year-old in one sentence. In it he shares a quote that he saw at the Portland Children’s Museum by a 9-year-old Elyssa which said,

“When I make my art about a flower it is not showing you who the flower is, but to tell you about me.”

Simon goes on to draw a good comparison between the quote and a the way we use of social media. But it’s also a metaphor for the way brands need to behave in this new age transparent and authentic relationships.

Photo Credit: sacks08

A brand, well executed and fully developed, will also tell you about what it is, what it stands for, and how it views the world, just like the artist does when capturing a flower.

1. It will tell you about what it is by the way it shows up. The logo does matter, colors matter, and overall style matters. These brand elements are often the first opportunities we have to being to understand the brand.
2. It will tell you what it stands for by the composition of the image. For a brand, the composition is developed through the activities is participates in, the way employee’s great customers, and the integrity with which the it approaches its business dealings.
3. It will tell you how it views the world through the style of the image. Impressionist view the world in a different manner than photographers do. A brand with an impressionist view will focus on the blurry but colorful abundance. A brand with a photographer’s view will focus more on reality and highlighting one aspect or another in turn.

As you are creating your brand, remember – the smallest and seemingly most inconsequential decisions about the way your brand shows up will determine what your brand ultimately stands for tin the mind of the consumer. Your brand is a piece of art, open to interpretation, speculation, and theorized motivations simply by the way it shows up in the world.