I was listening to NPR on the way to work yesterday when I caught them talking about Starbucks. Seeing as how I am a fan of coffee and also heading to Seattle next week, my ears perked up, no pun intended.

The story was about how Starbucks is struggling and how in the past, they came out of rough times thanks to the strength of their brand. But there are doubts that their brand will be able to help them out this time around, as in their quest to become bigger and “better” as quickly as possible has led to a watering down of their brand (and their coffee, but I digress).

Just think about it: you see the Starbucks logo staring at you in the bookstore, in the gas station, in the grocery store, in the airport. And while convenience can be really great for some things, in Starbucks’ case it is only hurting their original quest to sell a really good cup of coffee. People are turning to independent coffee shops or McDonald’s to get their coffee fix, often at a lower price.

So what does this have to do with professional writing? In my line of work, we are all about the brand and protecting the strength of the brand, from using corporate font faces, standardized logo placement, color guidelines, and more. I think this is common practice across organizations, creating the corporate identity and sticking to it.

But shouldn’t we also be thinking about our own professional identity?

When I set out to create an online portfolio four years ago, I struggled over how to make the design represent me, especially when it came to creating any kind of logo. When the idea of using the @ symbol as part of my name struck me, I saw it as being a way to convey technology and the online space in a way that is visually unique and memorable.

Original header

Current header

And it worked, that @ makes people remember my portfolio, and thus remember me. Even if people don’t understand the connection, they still recognize it.

In the four years since launching my portfolio, I have been given several @ related items, from a magnetic board to a paperweight to coffee cups. When my birthday rolled around this year, guess what my co-workers frosted on my cake? A big @.

The c@ke is not a lie.

The power of a brand is not just something that professional writers, editors, and designers should be aware of when writing verbiage for a company website, editing per a style guide, or designing a company poster.

Think about how branding relates to you, and how repetition of a particular graphical element or color or even your name can be a part of the process of branding yourself. You can strengthen your brand when writing a cover letter, editing copy for your portfolio, or designing personal business cards.

Because when it comes time to represent yourself and your skills to an employer, you should do everything you can to make them remember you. As Starbucks is beginning to realize, a great brand really is like a great cup of coffee – strong, memorable, and worth investing in.

Tags: branding, portfolios

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Design, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.