CoreyMade » Branding http://coreymade.com an underground creative studio Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:06:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Personal Brand Building Part 1 of 3 http://coreymade.com/personal-brand-building-part-1-of-3 http://coreymade.com/personal-brand-building-part-1-of-3#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:42:40 +0000 Corey http://coreymade.com/?p=230 Rockable Press

When I ordered this book, I had a very vague thought on personal branding and how it could affect me, and my overall business. Everyone knows that a brand, whether it be a company, product or in this case personal, represents a core set of qualities and traits. What you may not know is how to pinpoint those qualities and traits in a way that represents you and how you want people to perceive you, your services, your products, or your company.

Why is branding important?
Easy, it separates you from the crowd. A personal brand will differentiate you from thousands of others who are possibly in the same business, or even the same group of people. There are literally, thousands of web designers, freelance writers, photographers, and bloggers. What is going to separate you from all others? Your personal brand will. A lot of the times, people tend to think that a logo is all there is to a brand. That is a notion that is largely misperceived. A brand is everything from your logo, to your website, to your business cards, the way you interact with customers, and the list goes on and on. Let’s dive into the subject and find out how you can build your personal brand to be a rememberable and effective one!

Decide what you do:
Firstly, you have to decide what you are going to provide to your clients. I am going to use web designers as an example. If you are a web designer, do you provide everything that has to do with web design and interactivity such as web design, print media, logos, coding, flash, etc? Or do you focus on one thing such as web design and coding? Once you have this established, you can work on what defines your core values and what is going to separate you from the rest of your competitors.

Go ahead, tell the world about you:
When you are pitching a sale or even simple text on your website, tell the world something that will define exactly what you do, any accomplishments you have, clients you have worked for, and make it interesting. Here is an example:

Hello, my name is Jimmy and I am a freelance photographer providing quality wedding photography to individuals in the Chicago area. I have had the privilege of working with some great people including the major of Chicago, providing black and white photo shoots of the wedding and engagement. I provide all photography, touchups, and printing for my clients.  I use the highest quality equipment from the start using Nikon and Canon products to shoot and print shots.


The above example outlines who Jimmy is, what he does, who he has worked for, and the equipment he uses, which tells the client the quality of work they should expect.  Of course, your sales pitch or intro text can be any size in length, however I recommend to keep it short and sweet.

This is only the start of this 3 part series of personal brand building tips, so stay plugged in to the blog and share with your friends.  Also if you have anything to chime in on, please do so below!]]> http://coreymade.com/personal-brand-building-part-1-of-3/feed 5 The new CoreyMade is finally alive http://coreymade.com/the-new-coreymade-is-finally-alive http://coreymade.com/the-new-coreymade-is-finally-alive#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:54:12 +0000 Corey http://coreymade.com/?p=203 I hope everyone likes the new design as it took a long time to get things put together. However, as the old saying goes, hard work pays off at end of the day. Here are some changes that I have done

General Layout:
The layout is completely different from previous versions of CoreyMade. In older versions, I used a lot of vector such as my last live site was compromised mainly of vector graphics. This current design as you can see, steers away from the vector based graphics. I have tried to keep the layout as simple and clean as I could while staying focused on my brand!

Phases:
In previous versions of CoreyMade, I did not list my phases that I do from start to finish on design projects. However, I thought it is an important aspect that clients would like to know how I handle things from the moment I start on a project. I have also limited what services I offer and stick typically to web design and compliant code.

Portfolio:
I have limited my portfolio entires by quite a bit, only listing nine different case studies at a time. I gave this much thought, and the final conclusion was I wanted to list my best web designs, and provide actual history and outcome to each. In previous versions of CoreyMade, I did not infact have what the project was about or how it ended. As you will see in this version of CoreyMade, I have expressed the client project in detail.

Well thats about it folks, I hope you enjoy the new site and please leave comments!]]> http://coreymade.com/the-new-coreymade-is-finally-alive/feed 2