I chose branding as my first post because I was advised by the Keller School of Management Career Services site to begin thinking of branding myself.  That advise was taken a little too literally and I began branding myself as a business when really the advice was about utilizing LinkedIn to its fullest.

I love branding.  Studying advertising design in college taught me the idea of a look and feel that makes people understand right away is a great challenge.  We live in a fast-paced world which gets a laugh in six seconds (vine) and hear about disasters as quickly as one can type (twitter).  Developing an image, a song or a few words that tell people what you do is an art.

So, if I value branding so much why did I pick that picture for the home page of my site? What does that photo have to do with data and business?

Initial image on the christineyeager.com website

Nothing really.  Looking through my library of images I found this photo.  It was horizontal and I really like it even though it is not something I would normally seek.  It was taken in Arizona by my husband, Biff Yeager, while on a business trip.  I don’t like the desert and I don’t like heat.  I like the leafy lush woods on rolling hills.  I could rationalize the image of the desert and say this image represents a surprise, a diversity, an unexpected drama that I can bring to the table.  But that explanation, as with most rationalization, is too complicated.

When it comes to branding it takes a lot of forethought and creative intelligence to come up with something that is immediately understandable.  It takes very little effort to come up with a random image that could be rationalized but it will never be effective.

I’ve done it before.  My database company was “Atomitek” thanks to a suggestion from Tom Hannes.  Its byline was “Powerfully Simple”.  I assisted on a logo for a canvas company and created a byline of “Covering your world since 1945” and  Melanie Wallace designed a globe with a woven surface.  I will do this for my website.  So, come back every once in a while and see if I found the perfect image and the perfect byline.  If you’re an entrepreneur and you feel you don’t have the pow and zing to get people’s attention and get them to come back, let’s talk.  I have folks that help me to come up with branding that will make your chest puff out with pride.