The Ultimate Guide to Branding a Musician
What is branding?
Branding is, “what you use to promote yourself as a musician by means of distinctive design. It is a way of visually expressing your creativity instead of sonically,” says John Dobie in his article Music Branding Strategies for the Modern Artist & Musician. Dobie says that branding for a musician can be broken down into graphic design, imagery, and personality. All of these aspects should work together to tell a story. Awal’s article, Don’t Be Boring: A Musician’s Guide to Branding, says branding is “how you communicate who you are in everything you do.”
Your branding plays a major role in how you communicate with your audience and gain new followers. So, everything an artist puts out should coordinate with each other and be consistent. Having this consistent voice should make you recognizable and “ultimately fans should be able to tell that you are the same person with the same interests and beliefs, which is clearly articulated through your choice of messaging,” MI College of Contemporary Music wrote in their article, The Importance of Branding in the Music Industry: 8 Tips for Success. MI continues with, “Coordinating creative outputs, marketing materials, and specific messaging shapes a personal identity. One that helps artists differentiate themselves from several others competing for the same attention and even the same genre. Strong, consistent branding creates a unique perception to audiences.”
So what?
Stand out from the crowd
Stereo Stickman’s article Musicians & Bands: The Importance Of Branding, discusses how a symbol represents who an artist is and can cause a possible fan to feel connected to them. They state, “Your brand is how you first appear to people, how you market your music, how you advertise, how you’re seen and considered. It’s the thing people will recognise in an instant as you, as your sound, as your creative output.” Having a strong brand as a musician is key to stand out against all the other artists trying to get their break. Especially on the internet, Stereo Stickman points out. The internet and social media allows you to communicate to a vast audience all at once. You don’t want to get lost in the shuffle. You have to use your branding to make you stand out from the crowd.
Discovery Music Group’s article, The Importance Of Branding As A Music Artist, brought up KISS as an example of a group with an easily identifiable brand. Their face makeup, sound, and set design is very unique and shows how powerful branding could be for a performer.
New opportunities
Having a strong brand also betters a performers’ chance to get performances and new opportunities. Music Fibre’s article, Your Artist/Band Logo Vital. Here’s Why., discusses how your logo should be helping you stand out on posters and on your marketing materials. The marketing materials and how much effort you put into it, “will make you more desirable for bookings, help you shift merchandise and make your online music profiles look much more professional.” The Importance Of Branding As A Music Artist by Discovery Music Group, agrees with Music Fibre regarding the new opportunities that a strong brand presence could bring along. They point out that having a strong cohesive brand shows that you care and can be professional. Your brand not only can attract fans, but managers, agents, and music labels as well. If they are looking to invest in a band/artist, they want someone with an established image as they will be a safer bet.
Merchandise
Merchandise is an important addition to any brand. Some companies see it as a way to make money. However, for musicians it is a different story. MusicPromoToday’s article, The Truth About Buying Merch: What Do Fans And Artists Get?, says merchandise is “an essential part of the artist-fan connection.” The artists buy the merch to show how loyal they are to the artist. Buying merchandise and wearing it in public, “takes their fandom status to a whole new level.” Fans are easily recognizable when they wear clothing with your logo or band name on it. “A simple t-shirt may provide a fan with an exceptional opportunity of being a part of a big and broader fandom. Thus, artists should start paying more attention to these merch-status relations, and produce items with high practicality and usefulness.”
Logos
Music Fibre’s Your Artist/Band Logo Vital. Here’s Why. emphasizes how important a good logo is for a brand. Your logo needs to be a symbol that makes people instantly think of you and any memories they associate with you. They also gave some key tips to keep in mind:
“A good artist logo also needs to be versatile. If your logo looks great on an album cover but is hard to read or difficult to print in a single colour it won’t last the test of time.
Your artist logo should be simple and memorable.
Your logo should work in both colour and black and white.
If you are working with a designer be sure to request the design files in a variety of formats (.psd, .jpg, .png, .pdf) – this will ensure you will also have the right file ready when it’s requested.
Work It! – Use your logo across your social media, merchandise and request promoters use it on the artwork for your gigs!”
How to figure out your brand.
Figuring out your personal brand takes time and a lot of thought. You need to think of what makes you unique as an artist. This is what makes you stand out from others and makes you memorable to the fans. This could be found in the “why” questions rather than the “what” questions. Awal’s Don’t Be Boring: A Musician’s Guide to Branding, says to ask yourself 3 questions when trying to discover your “why”:
What is it that compels you to publish sounds and share them with the world? (Why?)
How does the music you make reflect that drive? (How?)
More specifically, what type of music do you make? (What?)
If you answer these authentically, you will be able to explain why you are putting out music and you can see what makes you unique.
John Dobie is a designer and works in branding and in his article, Music Branding Strategies for the Modern Artist & Musician, he discusses his creative process. Dobie believes branding should be, “something that speaks to your ideal audience and what they resonate with.” As he designs he likes to listen to the music to inspire the design as he tries to amplify what the music is communicating. The branding should reflect what the fans expect to hear from the artist. Branding might be a person’s first impression of you, so having branding that reflects your personality is vital.
An important part of creating your brand is also finding your target audience. Stereo Stickman’s Musicians & Bands: The Importance Of Branding points out that knowing and understanding your demographic and how they receive their messages is key. You need to cater to the audience if you want them to feel connected to you.
What do I do with my brand?
Alongside merchandise, your branding should be one everything you do. From posters, social media, CDs, etc. A key thing to keep in mind is to stay consistent. Stereo Stickman says, “This is your brand – the idea or image that is recognisable and easy to detect in an ocean of other images; the visual that represents you. Having your presence carried onto social media is also very important. People want to keep up to date and stay informed, so artists should be consistently and regularly posting. If the posts start to stop, the fans will most likely not stick around.
To end this blog post, here is a summary of what you should do in order to build and execute strong brand according to the MI College of Contemporary Music:
Develop a memorable live show using props and costumes
Write songs using highly personal lyrics that tell your unique story
Use unusual instruments to create unique sounds
Create behind the scenes content to show fans your recording process
Give out free information on the music business to build a community of other artists
Develop an eye-catching line of merch and use your fans as brand ambassadors
Offer exclusive content for joining your mailing list
Hire a professional copywriter to help you write press releases and a compelling bio
Hi, I’m Lauren and welcome to my website! This is where I share my graphic design work and blog posts!
