How to brand yourself as an artist people will remember

BRANDING COVERS A LOT

I preach about making a brand for yourself a lot because I think it’s so important for kicking off your career. But many artists question how useful it is or ask how you even go about “branding” yourself. (Hint: no hot metal is required for this one.) Every company has a brand, and if you want to elevate your own business, essentially you have to have one.

Branding as an artist is about:

• PERSONAL brand, which involves your personality traits, your interests, and who you are as a human being
• art style, which is the visual aesthetic of your work
• messaging, which is the way you talk to your community, the words you use, the messages you spread

BE MEMORABLE

The purpose is that you want people to be able to recognize your art business immediately when they see it (assuming they’ve seen it before). You want people to know exactly what style to expect when they buy a commission or ask you to design something for them. Your messaging shouldn’t conflict from one caption to another. Your mission should be consistent. You want your portfolio to look cohesive, like you actually have your shit together for once.

Cohesive is key here. Think about each artist you obsess over on social media. What does their profile look like? An artist that comes to mind for me is Marena Skinner. Everything she makes is drawn digitally, with the type of squiggly detail that makes you squirm. She uses skin-tone and warm colors to illustrate flat-looking dogs, portraits, knives, and other upset looking characters. Her subject matter is usually sad and focuses on mental health issues such as anxiety or depression. She’s vulnerable and relatable. I absolutely love her work.

And I would recognize it anywhere.

I could name a dozen artists that I fell in love with like this after just the first time I saw their art. I immediately followed these artists and I keep up with them as they create new work.

The others?

Unmemorable.

And I see hundreds of artists each week.

There are a few things to focus on creatively when crafting your brand to make sure you’re a memorable one.

PERSONAL BRAND

Personal brand is about you, the artist. People love to buy from real people. Getting to know the artist is a way to connect deeply with the art. So put yourself out there alongside your artwork.

Your art business has a face and it’s you. Lots of creatives hide behind their work, but if you want to create a memorable brand, show your face.

And show your personality.

I suggest choosing five consistent personality traits to weave into your art business branding. Obviously every human is complex and you have more than five interests. But for the sake of branding, keep it concise. Choose a handful of traits you have as a person and sprinkle them throughout your brand — on the shop, in your subject matter, on your socials.

Don’t be a stranger to your audience.

If you want more about the personal brand, read this post here. We go deeeeeep into the topic of personal branding.

ART STYLE: COLORS

In Elements of Art Style, I teach you about all five elements that make up any cohesive body of artwork. The first one I focus on is color. That’s because it’s the most obvious!

Color is the easiest way to make an impact on your look: limit your color use.

It’s the first thing I did when building my brand. I use exclusively cool tones. And people notice. I know because my friends and family told me when I made the switch, and people continue to remark about the color scheme at fests and gigs. Listen to your audience when making changes in your style. They’ll tell you what they like and what they don’t.

Teal, blues, black and white are my main branding colors. You see it in my artwork a lot. You also see it in my blog posts, website design, business cards, social media photos. All cool tones are welcome, but there’s a specific moody shade of teal that the A Cup of Cloudy brand is known for.

If you’re looking for a quick style move, pick a color scheme. Interested in which color to choose? Read this blog post on color psychology here.

ART STYLE: SUBJECT MATTER

You can get away with being loose on color scheme if you have a rigid subject matter limitation.

If for example you draw exclusively portraits, you can do one in acrylics, one in crayon, one with photography, etc. Your theme and brand would then be portraitry. You’re memorable as “the guy who always does different portraits.”

Being super niche in your subject matter makes for a clear brand.

It might be useful to your niche if you focus on spooky things only, girly pop only, anime only, Christmas art only, or subject matter exclusive to food, etc.

Having a tight subject matter niche will mean your messaging will be easier to refine, too. If you’re always posting illustrations of zoo animals, I’m sure you’ll find lots of things to say about zoo animals in your captions that will be very relevant.

ART STYLE: TEXTURE + MEDIUM

Texture is a subtle part of your artistic style, but it makes a huge subconscious impact on your viewers. Choose two or three texture variations and stick with them.

Your medium makes a difference.

For instance, watercolor comes with its own texture. But you can add cross-hatching with pencil on top to create a more unique feeling. Flat paint is an option. Shiny metallic ink can give your work texture, too.

Below are some examples of artwork that I think has unique textures that can serve as inspiration for you. If you check out their profiles, you can see that their textures are used steadily throughout their work. Their brand is unique and refined.

DON’T EXPERIMENT FOR TOO LONG

Medium falls under the texture umbrella, but I want to pause on it for a moment as we talk about branding.

This is the one I struggled very hard with. I’m all for setting limitations to spur creative growth, but choosing a medium or a set combination of materials to work with really felt like a prison when I first started selling my art.

It was a limitation I couldn’t easily set myself into, so I spent a long time experimenting. It really hurt my brand. It hurt my sales. It slowed down my entire art career. That’s why I focus so much on art style when I teach fellow creatives. I know the power it has over your business trajectory.

You can’t make a plaster sculpture one week, a watercolor sketch the next, and a video production the next without confusing your viewers unless your brand is already insanely specific and unique. As a beginner, mine obviously wasn’t at that level yet.

Thankfully, I eventually settled on two mediums: watercolor and digital paint. It’s a weird combination, but it really works for me. It may take an awkward phase of experimentation, but settling into a medium or a combination will be the best thing you do for your brand. It also solidifies your artistic process, which becomes an important part of your art that people inquire about and that affects your overall image.

The same drawing in different mediums can look radically opposite, and you want to lock in that specific “look.”

Set a rule for your medium and follow it.

MESSAGING

Last but not least, sprinkle some personality into your work. What kind of mood or thought do you want to invoke in your viewers?

This factor usually comes naturally, whether you notice or not, as long as you are open and vulnerable.

You’ll start to notice a pattern in what you talk about in your captions, in your shop listings, and in the blurbs you submit to galleries about your work. What’s the context around your art?

Messaging can focus on a certain group of people (art for people who live in a nursing home, for example). It can be all about a political stance. Your messaging can involve you being very funny or monotone or gossipy or calming. Your message can be about saving native plants and educate alongside your paintings. How do you talk and what do you say?

Sometimes you don’t need words to express the message.

Things like the emotion on a figure’s face, the subject matter, and any text included on the art itself can make a huge impression. Things like color and texture can also make an impact on your message, so I’d keep an eye on art style when monitoring your overall brand.

Make sure everything flows nicely together.

For instance, I use a lot of blues and purples which are generally sad colors, draw frowns on my characters’ faces, an often include gloomy poetry or text made to cheer up someone who is sad. I talk about comforting moments and empathy and grief. This isn’t the only message you can get from my art, but it sure is an obvious one.

Messaging can determine if someone really falls in love with your art or not.

If they relate to the message of your work, you will be harder to forget.

WEED OUT ART THAT DOESN’T FIT

When you solidify your personal brand, your messaging, and your art style, don’t be afraid to abandon pieces that don’t fit.

I know this sounds terrifying, but if all your experimental work is clogging up your social media profiles, it will become a confusing distraction from the art you want people to really focus on.

Delete old posts that conflict with what you want to say now. Stop selling art that doesn’t fit your brand and take them out of your portfolio. Yes, even if they are beautiful pieces.

Also stop selling art prints no one has bought in three years.

Be daring, be bold, and choose what feels natural to you — but also listen to your audience. People will show you what they like through their buying preferences. Which pieces do they buy? Find harmony between what you like expressing and what your audience likes to see.

Move forward with a clearly defined brand.

Let people soak in your artwork, be sure of your brand, and begin to recognize your stuff anywhere they see it.

Become memorable.

FOCUS ON ART STYLE FIRST

If you are feeling intimidated by this advice and suddenly have the urge to throw out all of your precious artwork from a second-story window, pause. Do this first.

Get a FULL deep dive into art style by enrolling in my course Elements of Art Style. That’ll walk you through every part of your art style step by step.