Artist Branding: Image

Technology has leveled the playing field in terms of what I call personal image transportation or more precisely how artists package themselves and get their message out into the world. It seems like anyone with a video camera can get a film to Sundance, a high school rock band can easily have a slick CD package that makes them look like a million bucks.

On the positive side, open access to what would have been considered cost prohibitive packaging allows smaller voices to compete with larger ones. On the negative side, since everyone seems to have matching accessories in terms of marketing: a glossy brochure, a slick CD package, a flashy website, a book, etc., it’s extremely hard to tell the difference sometimes between an advertisement for Coca-Cola and an advertisement for an individual artist. With the mass branding that has washed over into the art world, savvy fans are become apt at recognizing it and quickly being turned off by it.

As storyteller and story coach Susan Klein says, “Full color glossy brochures does not a career make. Anyone can look good on paper.”

Unfortunately, most artists seem to consume themselves with their packaging rather than paying attention to two areas that should require much more attention:  their voice and how they interact with others.

Myth Six 1d: You will get "discovered."

The movie “Lost in Translation,” is about an extremely successful advertising actor named Bob Harris (Bill Murray).  He gets paid millions of dollars to travel to exotic locations and have his photo taken sipping drinks. He also spends most of his life alone in a hotel room, away from his friends and family. He’s rich, but he’s miserable. He’s well traveled and he’s completely lost. The two tag lines for the film are “Everybody wants to be found” and “Sometimes you have to go halfway around the world to come full circle.”

Bob Harris would be considered, by most standards, to be someone who had achieved most of his goals. Why then is he so miserable? 


Artists don’t often think about what the driving force is behind the things they want so bad. What is significant to you? What has meaning for you? What are you most passionate about? Or in the words of storyteller and career coach, Susan Klein, “What makes you creatively salivate?” 



If you don’t think about these things first, it’s easy to wake up years down the road and realize you’ve been chasing someone else’s dream or doing things you never really wanted to do. Like Bob Harris you may get 1.2 million dollars for each commercial, but you might be incredibly miserable. Before you even begin to think about what success means to you and before you sit down and write down a bunch of random goals, you should know what is behind your driving need to succeed. 

Susan Klein

Born and raised on Martha's Vineyard, Susan Klein is an internationally-known, professional storyteller, and author of Through a Ruby Window, a collection of stories about the Vineyard in the ‘50s and ‘60s.  As owner of Ruby Window Productions, Susan offers acclaimed Story Wisdom® workshops for lawyers, educators, writers, and speakers, and coaching and editing for the page and stage through An Alien Eye. Susan is a director/producer of numerous award-winning spoken-word recordings, an the 2007 recipient of the Creative Living Award presented by the Permanent Endowment of Martha’s Vineyard and the National Storytelling Network’s coveted Circle of Excellence Award. www.susanklein.net