On branding

One of the things I’ve been meaning to get better at is branding. And to a certain extent I mean less branding, like I am going to start writing my Etsy descriptions in a less inauthentic voice. But also more branding, because I need to invest in a professionally-done logo and website design elements.

This was brought up by a recent sticker purchase, from someone who has a definite (and quirky) brand. I mean, look at this. LOOK AT IT

In case you can’t tell, the sticker I bought (behind the freebie of the artist as Beetlejuice(!)) says “it’s transphObia, not transphobiA,” which I thought was funny enough (especially given the artist’s surname) to earn a place on one of the machines.

Anyway.

I am of mixed feelings about even having a company name; I got my start in cosplay but because it wasn’t mainstream yet, I didn’t want to put my real name on it. By “in cosplay” I mean I made stuff, not that I wore it. It seems fun but I’m a bit more mercenary: I saw mediocre cat and fox ears and tails and went “I could sew better things than that” and did.

The company name came from my longtime username, “silver” (from the color of a TRS-80 Color Computer if you must know) and some alliteration. On the one hand embroidery doesn’t generally involve seams, on the other hand my use of the embroidery machine still does. The logo kind of looks like I’m an alterations service though. Definitely going to have to look into a change.