I started this post originally on Design Kompany’s LinkedIn, just to share what I really think and feel about design, and branding, and the things that it can do for those of us who want to get really real and down to earth about talking to others with clarity. Occasionally resonance, but more importantly, clarity.
Being real is hard because it means being okay with saying ‘okay that’s not a thing, now,’ but being real is much more honest than pretending.
Pretending isn’t authentic
Pretending to be interested. Pretending to care. Pretending to have feelings about a thing. Pretending to want to do something. Pretending to yourself that you are a thing but not really knowing at all what you are—that’s the world today with too much clutter, too much noise, too much distraction and too little Real. Design isn’t what I do, in the main, here at DK. Clarifying is. Get real. Get serious. Get honest. Not for everyone. Naturally. But for me, being real means having fun, and I love finding people who also want to be real and have real fun. It’s more interesting, after all, that way.
I like this podcast episode interviewing Lisa Haggis, about being real with your marketing and branding. This part really felt straight up like it was talking to me, directly. Someone said to her, she said, that free people are not easily offended. Haggis: ‘And I remember hearing that and I was a person who was easily offended and, and so it, it really struck me and I examined it and, and I saw the truth in it. … or afraid that other people will think about us because it wasn’t that I was afraid people would find it out about me because I wasn’t even acknowledging it was true. I was afraid other people would think that I was heart led and like, you know, soft… It’s probably true and I’m not accepting it. And that’s how I found most of the clues around the ways that I was being you know, just kind of lying to myself because the fear comes from, you know, like I think a pretty honest place… Yeah. Yeah. Well… my true background is in marketing. Like I worked early in my career in marketing positions for some small companies and some larger companies and you’re right. You know the. Like putting honesty and authenticity in the forefront, in your marketing and how you’re showing up. It is not the top priority for a lot of organizations out there. And so for me being a marketing person, I felt a lot of frustration when I was being asked to grow numbers or, you know, bring in revenue or audiences for these brands that. In my opinion, kind of didn’t deserve the attention. Didn’t deserve the clients, the customers, because they weren’t showing up in a way that made them worth mentioning worth marketing. And that’s when I really like, started getting interested in what, what happens before that part, because I know we’re going to talk about marketing versus branding later. But most people don’t understand that marketing is more than communications. Right?’
Here is another snippet I found online. I found this on a post on this website about content. The author M. Andrews writes: ‘In our heads we think and talk to ourselves (thoughts), while in our bodies we process various emotional, visceral or unconscious reactions (feelings). We can have thoughts and feelings about ourselves (our self concept), and about other people or things, such as brands… Feelings and thought play off each other. Their interplay is most intense when feelings and thoughts are aligned or “fused”: the times when people are most convinced of what they encounter is real.’
Realness matters.
This video gives us a way to go about becoming more real. It’s a summary of what Carl Jung, psychologist, says is how you can reach your fullest potential in life. Jung had said, ‘I am not what happens to me. I am what I choose to become.’