The one thing you need to know about building a creative brand

what you need to know about building a creative brand

Top art agent Lilla has some thoughts to share about building a creative brand –  and it might not be what you are expecting!

Watch the video for advice from a top art agent on building a creative brand and make it really special, or find the transcript below.

Want to learn more about how to make your art unique and commercially viable so you get cool jobs in hot markets? Sign up for one of Lilla’s game-changing courses today and get ready to take your creative career to the next level.

If you want to know more about building a creative brand,  don’t miss this FREE downloadable worksheet from Lilla on discovering what your unique brand is, and be sure to check out her fantastic course, Portfolio Review, to learn how to build your creative brand and attract more clients.

building a creative brand: transcript

So many people talk about brand, the importance of having a brand, you have to have a brand, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, because my agency has a strong brand, and my artists have strong brands.

And I want to throw out kind of a radical concept, and that is, every human being already comes with a unique brand, like everybody is unique and different – so you already have a brand.

But how does that, you know, how do you parlay that to your art career? And the whole key is getting your art to be a reflection of your unique brand that you already come with. You know, you don’t confuse one of your friends from the other – you don’t, you know, it’s clear each of your friends is really different. This one’s really funny. This one not so much, like, whatever.

Everybody comes with a whole constellation of personality traits, heredity, genes, chemistry, allergies, weird hair, or really great eyes, or they suffered an illness, you know, or a bizarre amount of siblings, like every, or they grew up on a farm. You know, we all have a constellation, a multitude of characteristics that make us unique. So finding your brand is really just about how can you parlay that into the art.

Okay, Lilla, we get that. So how do we parlay that into our art? Okay, well, the first step is kind of owning what makes you unique and special. Like, “I just really want to draw in pastels, I love pastels, I hate oil pastels, I love the smoosh of the pastel and the, like, the getting two colours together”, or “I love working in Illustrator, I hate Photoshop”. You know, making these small and big discernments over time leads you to your unique place.

And it’s about really owning that, and feeling confident in those things, and being tuned in and aware of what makes you unique; and over time, well, and this is what I do in my courses, my courses are all about how can I encourage people to really shine, thrive, flourish, and make their own unique work?

And then why is that – let’s talk pragmatically – why is that important? Because if you do something really unique and special, the client, the manufacturer, the magazine, whoever, has to come to you for that, there’re not 50 other people who are kind of doing the same old thing, but you own this unique niche in the marketplace that people begin to get to know, they begin to want, and they come to you.

So, you know, early on I realised you don’t need, I don’t need, to get like 50 bajillion jobs. I need like 100th of 1% of the jobs that are signed every day out there in the big huge world, and I’ll have more work than I can handle.

So it’s having confidence – like, the big question so many artists deal with is should I kind of be like sell out, be kind of mass, do a little of everything. And I don’t know, maybe that’s okay, maybe that is your brand, I don’t know, but it’s okay to take the risk, to narrow your style, bearing in mind the cultural conversation of what’s being sold and bought, you know, you’re not on Mars, but bringing your brand to the marketplace makes you really special, and that’s what I want to say about brands. Thanks.