Branding your art and building your brand

Branding has a wide variety of views depending on which facet of the art world you live. Some believe that you can not create a brand for your art, your art becomes a well known brand after you are known. Others believe that branding is a part of marketing.

Here, I look at branding as a means to an end yet the end all to the identity behind the creator of the art.

Consider this:

Your art is of your own creation, and you have a name. However you sign your art, that is your identity, that is the brand of your art. Branding is a method one uses to help identify art with the “name” of the creator.

By branding your art, you are helping to identify your own creations and by building your brand you are helping your audience discover more of your art. Buyers can’t go into a gallery and say “you know that pink rose image, I want to see more of that” hoping there are a number of other artists creating the same style and imagery. Buyers go looking for “more art by the artist that created by pink rose image”.

Your brand may not be known until you are famous, but that does not mean you can not build a brand around your art.

You don’t have to come up with some fancy name nor logo to represent your work either. Many artists simply use their name. Their name is how they sign their art and their signature is their brand.

Things to consider when building your brand:

• Sign all of your work.
• Always have a business card.
• Be consistent with your style, name and information when relating to promotional materials.
• Get involved in areas that your expertise shines and share what you know. Online or offline there are plenty of opportunities to share your art with the public and your peers.
• Don’t be shy. If you don’t shout out about your art, who is going to find it let alone say anything about it?
• Use social media to spread the word.
• Remember “referrals are the best for of advertising”.

Branding is just a facet of marketing. You can market without a brand, however you’ll be marketing the same things over and over without the “glue” of a brand to tie it all together. however, you can’t brand without marketing… there won’t be any way for others to know your brand exists.

Bottom line, market your art and build a name for yourself at the same time… you’ll end up with a following of fans who know who you are, what you do and how much they love your creations.