Here’s a Fun Exercise That Should Speed Your Branding Process

If you’re an aspiring or new solopreneur, here’s an fun exercise that should speed your branding process. It was first suggested to me by Naomi Niles, who designed TheSolopreneurLife.com.

1. Go to your favorite online bookseller and look at book covers, lots of them, from all categories.

2. Note which designs resonate with you, which ones align with your work, and which ones align with what you want your brand to represent.

3. Narrow it down to five to 10 covers and compare them. What do they have in common in fonts, colors, style of illustration, and mood?

The design elements that emerge will provide a potential foundation for building your business’s identity.

An Example of How It Works

To give you an idea of how the exercise works, below are the covers I chose when I went through the process with Naomi four years ago for TheSoloprenerLife.com. I’ve included the notes I made at the time.

Today is the first time I’ve gone back and looked at these covers, and this is what stands out:

1. Yellow appealed to me.

2. I liked font combinations that I deemed “modern, yet timeless.”

3. Compressed, san-serif fonts are prominent in five of the seven covers.

4. If an illustration was going to be used, I wanted to see the horizon.

The four elements became part of The Solopreneur Life’s brand.