Why is my own identity so hard to construct?

A card that uses transparency for contrast.

Have you ever noticed that your own business cards, website, resume, and self-promotional materials are the most difficult elements to design? You are not alone. As an educator, I watch students struggle with this every semester. The main challenge is coming up with a precise concept that is perfectly suited to an individual.

A card for a divorce lawyer that reinforces the concept through action.

By creating a visual identity, you are constructing a visual representation of yourself. This is difficult because you have to distill a multi-dimensional, complex human being into a two-dimensional expression, with very few gestures. All of this has to happen in a way that the viewer will understand the essential youness-of-you in about two seconds.

A retro-styled card. Disclaimer: I would expect the designer to actually be either buff or wimpy to pull this off.

So here are a few things you should do and then redo:

1. Generating ideas can be difficult. This works for some people: Create a list of words that you feel are directly linked to your identity.

2. Ask your friends for the same list of words. Cross out any words that are not on both lists.

3. Create simple sketches that represent each of a few words on both lists with circles, triangles, and/or squares. Don’t even worry about fonts yet.

4. Make lots of very quick sketches. Do not use the computer yet.

5. Throw away all of the sketches. OK, you don’t have to burn them. Just put them away, maybe there is a diamond in the rough.

6. Start up Illustrator and get to work on your identity. Choose a font that fits your literal description. You can always take a quick look in Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works for some quick type ideas.

7. Always print, assess, and revise. Don’t forget that the screen lies, especially when it comes to printed type.

8. Allow yourself to fail a lot in this process. Failure is directly linked to creativity.

9. If you are doing this for a class, you will probably have to settle on something for the due date. This is a task that you will revisit more than once in your career, it usually does not wrap up neatly within twelve to fifteen weeks.

10. Most importantly: be consistent. If you are making several identity items, consistency is king.

There are other issues, of course. How many colors are you printing? Should you use more than one or two fonts? Should your business card be a square or a rectangle? Should you use every filter and effect that you can to mock the software (no – it’s not funny, I promise). And weird things will surface in the process. For instance, maybe the display font you chose didn’t have a letter you needed for your name (if this happens, choose another font – maybe take a look at Ellen Lupton’s A few good fonts page). Start early, revise frequently, and be sure to fail as often as you can.

Images reposted from http://creativebits.org/cool_business_card_designs