Cultivating a brand takes a lot of hard work. It requires creativity and strategy to build something memorable that resonates with your ideal customer or client. That’s the case no matter what or who you’re branding — artists included.
Whether you’re a musician, a documentarian, a painter, or a puppeteer, artist branding can showcase what makes you and your work different from other artists of similar crafts or styles. Thankfully, artists tend to be incredible storytellers, and storytelling is the very essence of marketing. Let’s uncover how you can grow your reach as an artist through well-planned and carefully considered artist branding.
When it comes to selling a product or service, branding is the identity behind the commodity. It’s the image, the identity, the name, the story, and the set of values associated with a product. It’s about the emotions your brand evokes when someone thinks about or interacts with your business. Everything from the visual logo for artists to the style guide to the typeface and even the tone invoked in the marketing copy are tools used to separate a brand from the competition.
Branding for artists is essentially the same thing as branding for any kind of product or service. The difference is instead of selling a product on a shelf, you’re selling art, which can be less tangible. An artist might be a painter selling paintings, or an artist could perform spoken word poetry — an experience that you can’t hold in your hands, although it is still valuable!
An artist’s brand can serve two distinct purposes. The first is identifying them in a way that helps them distinguish their approach, personality, and the art itself from others who may do something similar. This is their so-called personal brand. The second is for marketing purposes, to help them sell their works to interested collectors. While marketing and sales may not be a priority to many artists, they understand that there’s a place in which these two parts of themselves — the artist, and selling their art — coexist. Artist branding plays a key part in that. A brand built on the authenticity of the artist’s voice will come across as genuine, an important quality to convey to buyers interested in bringing home or experiencing a deeply moving work of art.
Breaking down branding into the three Es helps to ground the artist branding process. Through exploring Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Experience, we’ll unpack the role each plays in branding for an artist.
If you make your living in a creative medium, artist branding can help you launch a meaningful career in the arts. Let’s explore a branding example to give you a better idea of the thinking behind a brand strategy for artists.
Example: For the sake of this example, imagine that you’re a musician with an upcoming concert. You have a venue booked and tickets to sell. You’re an indie singer-songwriter, and you play a few instruments — mainly acoustic guitar. Unfortunately, these talents are a dime a dozen, so you draw upon your artist branding to craft a unique experience for concertgoers. What is it about your persona that you can draw upon to make an interesting show that’s not “just” a concert while remaining authentic to who you are as an artist? In this example, you’re known for your interest in the plays of the Bard, Shakespeare. Let’s see how you can use that in your branding.
How artist branding helps: Now, artist branding is an umbrella term, and branding for musicians won’t be the same as branding for painters trying to sell framed paintings online. With that in mind, where should we begin when the “item” for sale is an experience? As we’ve already established, experience is the third E in branding, but how do you take an experience and make it different? Look at the market — there are a lot of musicians out there, so what makes you interesting? What genre of music do you sing? Do you write your songs? Do you play any instruments? Do you offer something unusual or exciting that attendees will want to witness, like a show-stopping dance performance? You’re selling an ineffable experience.
Since you’re known for incorporating Shakespeare’s influences into your songs, you may want to team up with some talented actors who can perform in between your sets. When you perform, the actors move around you, conveying the song’s emotions through dramatized facial expressions and gestures. You can tease this one-of-a-kind performance through posts on social media, behind-the-scenes content on your website, and an email newsletter featuring your logo and embedded videos. That’s how you brand it: by reproducing the experience to others. Think about the best place for your brand, too: You may want to partner up with a niche online Shakespeare-loving Bardolatry community to promote the concert to their audience as well. No matter which direction you take it, the most important thing is to make sure each element feels authentic to your voice as an artist.
As an artist, social media marketing and advertising are crucial because they offer a chance to reach the people that you normally couldn’t network with in real life. Instead of being limited to a single gallery, venue, or artisan store carrying your wares, your reach can now potentially be the entire globe. With more than 5 billion people on social media worldwide, an artist’s reach is larger than it’s ever been.
Through social media, you have a chance to create a community, find opportunities for collaboration, and engage with folks in new ways. Social media also opens up the door for meaningful communication with fans of your art, further building your reputation with each positive interaction. Plus, platforms that prioritize photo and video, like Instagram, are the perfect medium to distribute clips of you reciting your latest poem or sharing your newest doodle. In fact, artists can even be discovered on social media, turning these platforms from marketing channels into game-changing, and even life-changing, tools.
Just like any effective brand, artists need the right tools to get where they need to be. Take advantage of an easy website builder to create a digital portfolio of your work, provide a place for interested parties to send inquiries, and establish your presence online — including a hub for your social media credentials. Brand identity-building tools like Namecheap’s Visual can also help in this regard, offering easy logo makers, business card makers, and more to help artists develop their brand both online and in person.
To brand yourself as an artist, start by developing your own unique aesthetic and defining your mission statement. Once you’ve built up a portfolio of your work, you can share it with others by creating an artist website and social media accounts on various platforms. Use a consistent brand voice and tone that aligns with your values as an artist.
Some of the best art brands for supplies are Golden Artist Colors, Liquitex, Posca, and Winsor & Newton. There are several well-established art suppliers that are respected in the field, such as Blick Art Materials, Michael’s, and Jerry’s Artarama. Examples of artists with recognizable styles/brands include Takashi Murakami, Banksy, and Jeff Koons.
The biggest art brands, such as Crayola, Sharpie, and Faber-Castell, are widely available at stores nationwide. It’s common to see products from these brands available outside of specialty art supply stores.
Many artists use only their first and last name as their art brand. However, you can add descriptive terms to make your brand stand out, like the type of medium you work in or the style of your art (e.g. Belinda Kline Ceramics). Alternatively, you could come up with an evocative name to serve as your art brand (e.g. Studio Bliss).
When you create a brand voice as an artist, it’s important to prioritize the three Cs: clarity, consistency, and constancy. Be clear about who you are, keep your tone consistent in all your communications, and focus on remaining visible to and engaged with your target audience.
From voice to visuals, here’s how to create branding that everyone will recognize.
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