The Personal Brand

Personal Branding

Digital representation

Avatar

This picture has evolved since my student days, it has been tweaked and changed a bit over the years. First inspired by the Thunderbirds cartoon “Brains” who like me, wore blue glasses.  He was the intelligent boffin of the Thunderbirds crew.   You can read more about my parallels with Brains.

Online Handle :  “LisaEmms”

The avatar above, is used with my real name“LisaEmms”, displayed camel backed as an online handle.  The avatar and handle is ubiquitously used across all digital media, unless it is absolutely necessary to use the real me, it is not that I am trying to hide who I am, it is just how people recognise me.

Typefaces

When I have something to say, I use a font called Veranda.  It’s great for onscreen, which makes a statement that that’s how I prefer to read. It looks ok on paper too! 

Where possible, I give people in the digital world the option to change fonts, as someone who sometimes doesn't wear her glasses, I appreciate large fonts, and inclusive accessibility. 

If I were very clever creative and, with enough time to produce my own fonts, I would, but till then I will stick to free ones.

I use the typefaces in various sizes, with colour for emphasis.

Colour

Inspiration of colour

The colours, have all been taken from various parts of my life, my home, my travels in India, and even my slippers and reading glasses. They are bright and fun, and represent my extreemly outgoing personality.

What started as an interior design pallet, when I moved from the bright blue and white of The Greece Islands and wanted to inject some colour into my new life in Margate on the UK Kent coast, has now been taken into my digital world too.

Most copy print is black on white, with coloured headlines, titles and hyperlinked text.   However white type on any of the block colours, can be used to make a bold statement

Colour Chart

Colour Codes

Design building blocks

Where background can be changed I have used a green wallpaper image that compliments the colour pallet.  I use these wallpapers on personal web space, which is publicly viewable, but also as background on all personal hardware, desktop computer, tablet, smart phone etc, to create a differential between personal space and work space.  

For online design, I use building blocks of wallpaper, white content boxes, with squared edges. Squared edges go agains current trend for rounded edges, sometimes it is good to be different and stand out from the crowd. The background wallpaper compliments my design and colour scheme, and the white content boxes make print easy to read.

Design building blocks

Stationary : A Twin Personality

I have designed, two sets of stationary templates one which is fun, the other professional, I hope they compliment each other.

Personal Stationary

Once you define your brand and start to think about it, everywhere you see things that fit with your look and feel, this now has overflowed not only into my home but even out on the road.

Follow Lisa's board Wish list on Pinterest.

Theme Tune

My music collection is entirely digital, yet I’m against the use of sound on the some parts of the web, for many complex reasons, which I won’t bore you with here.  I will not make you download the thousands of bytes of data to bombard your senses with tunes that may not be to your taste.

I understand the use of sound in branding, and can think of several excellent examples where it has been used.  So just-in-case I need to use it, I’ve chosen a theme tune, of course there are copy issues, connected to using someone else's music. 

For these reasons I have not uploaded the sound track to accompany this page

“When you’re smiling”

It reminds me of good times with friends.

Brand Management

Now I have defined my visual brand style, I need to work on updating all content, so that it is ubiquitous.  There is much work still to be done on the management of my personal brand,

Keep In Touch 

The brand is constantly evolving, nothing is set in stone.  Your comments and suggestions are welcomed, just get in touch  lisa@lisaemms.org

Follow for updates follow my news on Twitter, be warned most of the content is about cycling, I guess it is just part of who I am.    @LisaEmms

www.flickr.com LisaEmms' FLbrands photoset