Artist Branding: What is it and how do I do it? -

The Importance Of Artist Branding: Branding isn’t just for companies and corporations, every artist already has their own brand whether they realise it or not.

The question isn’t whether you have branding, it’s how effective is your branding?

MYTH: “Branding is not important. All that matters is my music!”

REALITY: Whilst high-quality, engaging music is extremely important, never underestimate the power of branding. It is possible for artists with lesser quality music to still be successful – mostly due to their branding and marketing.

WHAT IS ‘BRANDING’?

Branding is your identity. It sets you apart from other artists out there and gives people a first impression of who you are – often before they’ve even heard your music.

Assets that make up your branding can include:

Logo (colours, style, font, icons)
Photography (clothes, makeup, what you look like)
Videos (animation, dance, story, old school, contemporary)
Album/Single Artwork (hand drawn, engaging photography, your image)
Merchandise (interesting artwork, jewellery, clothing)
And of course your music (genre/style)

Knowing how to create a unified and creatively representative brand for yourself as an artist can be challenging, but the difference can almost always be seen when comparing unsigned artists to those in the mainstream who have the help of labels, management, creative teams etc.

If your branding is amateur, then you will appear amateur. Levelling up your branding on the other hand can elevate your appearance to be even more pro than you probably are, therefore attracting more fans and getting noticed by important people within the music industry.

BRANDING CONFUSION

Make sure your image matches your music. Branding that doesn’t reflect what defines you can be misleading for your fanbase who are likely to end up confused. Take a look at these wrong images:

BUILDING A BRAND

You should never feel that building a brand is in any way ‘selling out’. What’s the point in making music that you want people to listen to, if that’s only ever going to be your inner circle of friends and family? Branding helps you reach new and relevant audiences and whilst often has the stigma of the sell-out, in reality it’s just about trying to reach as many people as possible who will resonate with your brand.

The easiest place to start is by choosing an appropriate font. There are a heap of free font websites out there. Ensure that the font helps link what the listener is seeing and hearing. Create unity between the audio and the visual.

Try out different colour palettes for your overall look and feel. Note, if you use colour in your logo, ensure that your logo works as black text or white text also, as this is often how you will be displayed on gig and festival posters.

Think carefully about photography and videos. What do you want to look like? Clothing, hair, makeup, locations, photo filter, video grade. You can say a lot with these important and creative brand choices.

WHAT DOES GOOD BRANDING LOOK LIKE?

You only have to say words like, Rolling Stones, KFC and Facebook. With only reading these words as text only, you’re already seeing the tongue icon of Rolling Stones, you can smell the KFC and you can see the blue colour of Facebook. Of course these are examples of global branding done well with billions spent on marketing, but the underlying message is still the same. Build your brand – it’s important.

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