I spend an awful lot of time looking at the digital media of creative businesses of all kinds. First, the positive. As a general rule, the quality of images that I see has dramatically improved over the last ten years, exponentially better over the last five. The value of Pinterest’s IPO speaks to the power the image represents today. Hard to imagine any creative business could be relevant without a terrific Instagram feed. The bar has definitely been raised — your work must be displayed beautifully in high quality images or you will be run over. Most creative professionals have embraced the challenge and we are left with images of tremendous work spilling out everywhere.
The question then is what is next? If all pictures become pretty, pretty will stop being enough to be dispositive. Pretty will be necessary as an appetizer but the meal has to be something else. What that something else is is, of course, story. Not the story of any particular project, which is always interesting, sort of — seeing project after project is fun as you look into how you, the designer, contemplated the challenge and met it. Rather, it is your story as an artist and what drives you to get to the place where you find a solution to what is in front of you, far more than the solution itself.
The question then is how to tell that story, your story, visually in a way that connotes your talent, wisdom and experience, while at the same time demonstrating what drives/compels you to create in the first place. You can scream to the rooftops how much you love to do what you do, but unless you are captivating in your passion, you will not reach those who you need to care about what you do.
No doubt, you can write a book, produce a video, blog, vlog or web series, though these are simply tools. The idea is what can you share that provides a window into what you are all about. When you care deeply about the “thing”, whatever it might be, it becomes resonant.
Need an example: check out this video from Jacobsen Salt. Salt??? Yes, salt from Oregon. When you care and believe as Ben does in the power of salt, then you can charge what he does and build the size of business he has (i.e., it is not small, think millions not thousands). A little price comparison for you: a 3lb bag of Kosher Salt costs $4.99, a 5lb bag of Jacobsen costs $250. The reason the value is there is the story and the way Ben tells it. Of course, there is all of the digital support to make the business go, but it is driven by the compulsion to make great salt. No better commentary on the power of niche and how to make the point of the earth’s bounty, over and over again. Great stuff.
In my mind, the ability to define what drives you to your niche and how you are obsessed with its translation has to be front and center today. Some have tried to do this with a “things they love” or a well-crafted bio, and those are great, just not enough in today’s visual digital world. I do wish that I had the specific answer as to how to craft your story in the most effective, powerful way, sadly I do not. What I do know though is that it is on-going and never a single moment. Just as so many of you are constantly posting on Instagram, YouTube, etc., so too the storytelling of what lies underneath. Perhaps your website has a grand statement and social media moments in service of the statement. That part is up to you. Vulnerability (i.e., the willingness for the disbelievers to hate your work) is the key though. Pretty shuns no-one, least of all the disbelievers. Time to leave pretty as a stand-alone and find your way to specificity, authenticity and integrity. Be the essence of who you say you are.
Pass the salt.
