The story of how Branding became Personal
by Designer Maxwell L. Alexander
Back in my School of Visual Arts days (less than a decade ago) we were all like “branding is all about consistency, consistency is the king…” Boy oh boy, have we gone far from that!
As we all know the universe exponentially expands while speeding up in the process. Big Bang is the ultimate concept that can precisely describe socio-economic processes within human civilization: empires are born, expand then fade away. Real Estate bubbles grow, expand then blow up. Economists and mathematicians are busy creating models that supposed to predict the speed of expansion, but technology keeps raining on their parade. The thing is, technology has evolved to the level of sophistication of organic life and Moore’s Law isn’t really a law anymore, because life moves fast, as fast as the universe itself.
So what does it all have to do with branding? Branding is the strategic application and the reflection of the progress and evolution of our collective intelligence. Born out of the market economy it helped us to communicate the value of products, team up around concepts and ideas competing on the world stage. When we’ve broken the physical wall and information/data has become the ultimate value itself, branding has become the ever-fluid and universal currency of the global economy. It’s not the governments that print money out of thin air, it is us, Designers who channel infinitely abundant energy of the universe into the reality or simply a bubble that we live in now.
In practical terms, technological cycles are speeding up exponentially.
“New” has become the “better”, so the idea of brand equity has transformed from a static description of a product/concept/idea into a living breathing interactive value itself. Slapping a logo onto a living thing isn’t going to cut it anymore, so Personal Branding has become a better way to put a face on the value, the human face itself has become the brand and now holds its equity.
About Maxwell L. Alexander: Designer, Art Director and World Class Brand Development Expert and Personal Branding Coach Maxwell Alexander has developed brand & design strategies for hundreds of companies all around the world, ranging from technology startups, wellness & fitness brands, to Fortune 500 companies and globally renowned non-profit organizations and government agencies. He is a proud alumnus of the Fashion Institute of Technology (Master of Arts) and School of Visual Arts (Bachelor of Fine Arts).
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