Batman and Personal Branding
2/25/2010 3:05:18 PM

By Beth Robbins, Media Relations Intern

Whether you are a soon-to-be college graduate or a business veteran everyone needs to know and embrace their personal brand. Do your business documents simply blend in to the sea of 12-point Times New Roman font documents flooding all of our inboxes every day? If you’re not sure, if probably means it’s time for you to brand yourself! (It’s not as painful as it sounds.)

Creating a personal brand is a great way to stand out from competition and present yourself in a fresh, creative way. It helps create an image that can be associated directly with you or your company.

Take Bruce Wayne for example, an ordinary citizen who one day decided out with the old in with the new. Now whether it was his well- placed bat symbol or the all black color scheme, the man became tied to the image he had created. Consistency was key.

It was while I was watching “Batman” that I decided I needed to do some personal branding too. While I am not planning on fighting crime, I am graduating soon and wanted a theme I could apply to my resume, portfolio and business card.

I searched the Internet for ideas, flipped through magazines and picked out some ideas I thought were simple and sophisticated. After a few hours of shifting elements millimeters to the right and centimeters to the left, the skeleton of my new resume was set. I then went through every shade of the rainbow trying to figure out what said, “I’m an interesting, intelligent, soon-to-be on the market college graduate: you should be interested in me.” Surprisingly enough, not many colors met my criteria, but I kept working at it.

Once I was finished I sat back and admired my work. I showed it to my roommate, who, instead of agreeing with my assessment, asked me why I was showing her a restaurant menu. Exhausted, I went to bed.

The next day I watched “The Dark Knight” for inspiration and went back at it. I realized that I was taking my metaphor a little too literally and trying to completely change the look I already had. So I took the good parts from what I had, and applied the design ideas I had found. Excited to get feedback, I e-mailed it to my parents and sister and showed all my friends, who sent back some minor suggestions. The result was perfect.

Although difficult, my personal branding process was worth it. In PR you know that first impressions are important. With graduation around the corner, I need to be as prepared as possible and branding myself was a great way to do that.

That said, happy branding! Just make sure you have good software, do not be afraid of constructive criticism and don’t be afraid to summon Batman for inspiration.