Branding

When I was working at a bank, they did a big rebranding which included new commercials, new promotional materials, and a new tagline. At the time, I didn't really understand branding or its impact, but I did go to the big celebration breakfast they threw with free food and coffee. All that I could gather was that branding was a short catchy slogan with a feeling behind it. And besides, the bank name and logo stayed the same.

Now that I'm gearing up for publishing (holy cow, is this really happening? someone pinch me), I've run into the idea of branding again. Specifically, author branding. I did a little research to learn more. An author's brand helps makes their content recognizable to readers. This could entail a specific color pallet across social media, a logo or image, similar cover designs for all their books, or a specific font for their byline. Some authors use just their name as their brand which works for well-known writers.

I had already made my website and twitter themes consistent. If you've seen my blog before, you probably already noticed the new template. I was using a soft image of a typewriter with dark magenta script text and a light gray damask pattern for the outer background. I wanted the design to communicate immediately that I'm a writer, which it did. Where it fell short was that it doesn't match what I write. I have two near-future science fiction novels I want to publish and am planning a space opera style novel for NaNoWriMo. Magenta script text and typewriters don't say speculative or science fiction.

But I'm making a brand for myself, not just what I write. I love star gazing which also ties in nicely with science and space. The background image is a picture from the Hubble telescope which I found on the NASA website. I also like bright and punchy colors, so I brought out the green and purple colors for the rest of the page. I really like the font I used for my name at the top and hope it will work on a book cover.

All that said, none of this is set in stone. Just like the bank I worked at did a big rebranding event, I can do it for myself too. Well, maybe not a big event. I might just tweak it a little for now. I'll leave the big events for the release of my first book.

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