In the arsenal of “Basics Every Artist Needs” sits quite firmly your marketing collateral. It’s not only a huge part of your brand and your image, it’s most likely one of the first things people see when they interact with you as an artist. That is, if they didn’t see your art first. Okay, so it’s at least the second thing people see.
If you slept through class and missed Brand Images 101: The Basics Every Artist Should Understand, get caught up on what you missed!
What are Collateral Materials?
But wait! Before you do anything, you have to know what your brand is. You have to understand how all the pieces work together. Do the legwork now to discover your WHY as an artist and what will represent it.
What Are Your Goals?
Like I said above, you have to know your Why before you can do anything else. Your Why is the cornerstone of everything you do. It’s the driving factor behind your work, the reason you get up every day to do your work, and the reason you keep going when you’re covered in paint and considering a nice job at a bank like your parents wanted you to do. PS: it also helps you set goals you’ll actually achieve!
Good goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Consider what you want to accomplish as an artist and measure them against your Why and your values. Does your goal support your mission? Is it in alignment with your values? Well then, proceed!
Who Are You?
Using your Why, decide who you are as an artist. What do you want to be known for? You must understand who you are as an artist so your patrons understand who you are as an artist. Define yourself.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help with this process:
How Will You Represent That?
Now, you can decide on what you’ll use to represent yourself through your collateral materials. It’s time to decide what you’ll use, but not how you’ll use it juuuust yet. That comes in the next lesson! Gotta walk before you can run.
How you define success influences what materials you’ll need.
You don’t have to create everything at once just for the sake of it.
At a bare minimum, you’ll need an artist statement, professionally rendered photos of the work you want to exhibit, inventory list, and a headshot of yourself. You’ll likely want more, though, like a full biography, website, active social media channels (at least Instagram), display signage, and maybe even catalogs of your work.
Take your time.
Have a stretch-list.
Almost There
Now you’ve defined your Why, your goals, and the materials you’ll need in order of importance to accomplish your goals. The next step is to start to create. Join us in Collateral Materials 102 to learn about your visual style and how to share that vision with the world.
The content of this post was developed in collaboration with Casey Droege Cultural Productions.
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