Music Career Strategies: Brand Identity Development for Artists, Songwriters, and Producers

Branding is what the world sees, how you present yourself to your audience. Your brand identity is what informs and leads that branding: The genesis of it all. It is that deeply rooted, extremely personal layer of your musical development that is rarely discussed, let alone taught. You may sense what your brand identity is, you might feel it without being able to articulate or visualize it. When you bring anything to life in language, it becomes real, and that’s what we will do together in this course.

We begin by diving into the basic principles and distinctions of branding and brand identity, uncovering the underlying mechanisms at work. We will open your eyes to why it is that you engage with, and consume, the things that resonate with you. By reverse engineering successful, and internationally recognized brands, you will learn how to apply their fundamental tactics to your own career.

This new level of understanding and shift in perspective prepares you for the deepest work of the course. We will direct you on the development of your own personal mission statement and what we call the “resonant frequency.” This set of guiding principles is foundational, a north star, critical for any student pursuing a life and career in music. 

After building your brand identity from the ground up, we transition to selecting your brand identity positioning, giving it context and depth with your origin story development, and bringing it all together into your music and production through sonic branding. 

Halfway through the course, we bring your identity to life through photography, videography, and your own personal brand identity guide, providing you the tools to effectively communicate with anyone who becomes a part of your creative team. 

For your brand identity to effectively resonate with others, it must be integrated throughout your entire brand experience. We will teach you how to let your brand identity speak through social media and websites, live performance, as well as PR and media, all the touchpoints where people might interface with you as creative professionals. 

The course concludes with a look at how artists, writers, and producers evolve over their careers and how your identity can, and will, shape your own career evolution.

Throughout the course we’ll hear from a diverse set of writers, producers, and artists, learning from their own personal journeys and experiences.  

By the end of the course, you will be able to: 

• Define what a brand, branding, brand identity, and brand image are
• Discuss the basic principles of how branding applies to artist and creative career paths 
• Reflect on the brands you consume and understand consumer/creator relationships 
• Create your own brand filter as well as analyze other brand filters
• Generate a mission statement and “ultimate why” 
• Analyze and synthesize both “hero” and “authenticity” branding in relation to external and personal brands
• Create connections between brands and songwriting/production
• Develop content which accurately represents a brand
• Discuss and navigate the use of still and moving image in relation to branding and careers
• Create a lookbook and personal branding guide  
• Engage external partners such as photographers, videographers, and PR firms
• Create connections between branding and social media, personal websites, release strategies, and live performance
• Synthesize brand messaging specific to your career path 
• Test and measure brand effectiveness 
• Build a “true north” plan for your future which is guided by your mission statement and brand