Re-Envisioning my 'Personal Brand'

It looks like my summer has reached the frightening halfway point -- the time when you look at the calendar and think, "Well, at least I got a month and a half or so left until classes start..."

This is definitely one of those times when you look back at that 'do-to' list you made at the end of May. Yeah...I got plenty left to do it seems.



It sounds crazy, but one of the tasks I'm determined to do before September rolls around is finish painting "Starry Night" on a pair of Keds. It's a long story, but I'll admit they are for a girl -- a girl who is dating another guy. So yeah, there really isn't anything 'fun' about this little side story.

In fact, the only reason I'm painting these shoes for my girl (space) friend is because she kindly asked me to after viewing a pic of my 'Genesis Shoes' on Facebook.



Yeah, I painted these last summer. It was my 'artsy' summer project. I try to be humble about them, but it's kinda hard. You can't really wear the Sistine Chapel on your shoes and not expect to come off as a douche.

This happens to be a perfect segue into today's blog post -- sorry it took longer than most. Last summer was the proverbial 'summer-after-freshman-year' when I tried to 're-define' my personal brand -- the socio-cultural label I would want to be labeled with if I wanted to be labeled in the first place. In pre-college terms, this means your 'stereotype.' What you find outside the halls of your white-suburban high school is that there are exponentially more 'labels' than you thought. You find that music taste defines you more than your father's salary. You learn that understanding 'fashion' doesn't just mean printing "AM. EAGLE" on your chest in block letters. Your individual body type actually requires you to understand how certain clothing looks on you. If your fare-skined like me, don't you dare wear orange -- ever.

So, last summer I tried to define my personal brand by attempting to be artsy. The only real art classes I've ever taken have always involved Adobe software -- never paint brushes or canvas, and God forbid I touch clay. Even in high school I managed to take "Visual Communications" (a.k.a. entry-level Photoshop) without the pesky "Drawing 1" prerequisite.



Besides, these icons just look more fun. Why would you ever want to touch a real paint brush when you can digitally airbrush? Well, believe it or not, I wanted to break the norm I had set for myself and 'try something new.' The end product was a pair of $10 Wal-Mart canvas shoes with the hands of God and Adam painted on them (via my sister's old acyclic paint collection). It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment to step back and marvel at these shoes -- I felt artsy and hip and relevant for once! It was probably the only thing I did during my summer that was at least 80% 'bloggable.' All that other stuff is...well, me bitching probably.

In retrospect, I really doubt painting a single pair of cool shoes and attempting to paint a second pair for my girl (space) friend really defines who I want to be socio-culturally. Instead, I found myself tearing up watching a Geico commercial.



I just want to 'be myself' sometimes.

-Brent