Design & Dine Recap: Debbie Millman’s Perspective on Social Media & Personal Branding

Thanks to Kelly Strine for writing this blog post!

The 8th annual AIGA Baltimore Design Week kicked off with a special Design & Dine with the legendary Debbie Millman on Friday, October 11, 2019, at Topside’s beautiful Garden Room. Founder and host of the Design Matters Podcast, Debbie has interviewed over 500 artists, designers, and industry experts. This special Design & Dine was no lecture. Instead, it was Debbie’s signature conversational interview style with 30 of Baltimore’s industry professionals. Had it been recorded, it could’ve been the next episode of Design Matters.

The casual discussion explored how we portray our lives on social media and in our own personal branding. Debbie has “very, very strong feelings about people as brands,” and why we sometimes hide the truth––or downright lie––in the social media versions of our lives.

Personal Branding

Debbie has studied the evolution of branding, and how we’ve grown with it, for the past 17 years. At its core, branding is about mark-making and building consensus around that mark. Through quality and consistency, shared views and opinions regarding products and services can be accomplished.

If we fast-forward through the history of corporate branding, we come to a more recent phenomenon: personal branding. Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands, with an intentional effort to influence public perception. Sound familiar in the design industry where everyone wants to position themselves a certain way in the marketplace?

Photography Credits: Bryan Burke
Photography Credits: Bryan Burke

Humans are Messy

As Debbie so bluntly put it, “Humans are messy.” We have a lot of feelings. But brands don’t have that kind of depth. Sure, brands can evolve, but brands are rooted in consistency. If humans run the emotional gamut and can reinvent themselves, but brands are built on consistency, can personal brands be successful? Can consensus be built?

From a technology standpoint, we’re living in an ever-connected environment. We’re always just a tap, click, or voice command away from whatever we need. Yet we’re oddly disconnected in our interpersonal relationships. Why? Isn’t social media supposed to make us feel more connected?

Our Online Personas

In many cases, people use social media as a highlight reel. We share what we are proud of and the happy moments and hide what we are ashamed of. That’s natural, right? But if you’re only seeing the highlights of other people’s lives, it’s much easier to feel left-behind or alone in your own life. The things that we don’t share tend to be the things that build a better connection with others.

For those of us who maintain a personal brand, Debbie challenged us to consider how social media impacts our branding. If we hide certain aspects of our lives to position ourselves a particular way, we start to pull away from our authentic selves. We start to create an online persona who is our ideal selves, but ultimately this can lead us to feel even more disconnected from ourselves and others.

Photography Credits: Krystal Carpintieri
Photography Credits: Krystal Carpintieri

How do we combat the disconnect? Here are a few ideas:

  1. Digital minimalism: More and more people are disconnecting from social media to live their lives IRL (in real life). Taking a break from social media or ditching it altogether is one way to reconnect and build better relationships with others.
  2. Be authentic: Rather than showing only the highlights, show your authentic self—challenges and all. People connect with honesty. But the key is to help; not commiserate. If you’re going through a difficult time, chances are someone else is going through it too. Share resources or seek support, rather than just complain.
  3. Set an intention: Ask yourself, why am I posting this? Am I looking for self-validation? Sympathy? Is it a humble brag? Being honest about why you’re posting sends a clear message to your audience. Did you land your dream client after working your tail off on the pitch? Yeah, I’ll celebrate that win with you. But do I care about your “picky” client? Nah, I don’t need your negativity.
Photography Credits: Bryan Burke
Photography Credits: Bryan Burke

Social Branding

As Debbie notes, branding is always evolving. The most recent anomaly is social branding, which is marketing for social change. Social branding projects, such as the Me Too Movement and Black Lives Matter, are designed to change a culture. So, whereas personal branding fails at the individual level due to the complexity of human emotions, social branding succeeds due to the social change people can rally around. Social branding builds consensus.

Continue the Conversation

Where do you stand on personal branding? Is your personal brand a true brand in that it builds consensus, or is it more of a brand identifier to set you apart in the marketplace? Do you tend to hide the truth on social media in hopes of creating an ideal online persona? Share your thoughts in the comments below, we want to hear from you!

About the Speaker:
Debbie Millman
Twitter & Instagram: @debbiemillman

Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, curator and host of the podcast Design Matters.

Meet the Speaker: Zombie Yeti

Born and raised in the cornfields of northern Indiana, Zombie Yeti had no choice but to escape the maize via a steady diet of comic books, cartoons, movies, music and video games. It describes its work by defining a new term; a self-proclaimed movement called ‘Esoteric Americana’. On the surface, its style reflects its love of comic books and cartoons – with a dash of humor and an emphasis on story, character, silhouette and line. While beneath, its aesthetic results resemble a twisted take on representations of traditional art.

Zombie Yeti has had the pleasure to work with top tier companies such as Under Armour, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Hasbro, and many more. It has also produced works with many greats in the music world such as Foo Fighters, DeadMau5, Deftones, Kid Rock, Incubus, Paul McCartney, Primus, Faith No More, Melvins, and many more. Most recently, it created the art packages for the Ghostbusters Pinball Machines. It also likes Circus Peanuts…

Where do you draw inspiration from?
Everything and anything. Or anything and everything, depending on your preference. I’m pretty sure I’m the result of everything I love (nature, film, music, video games, etc) somehow digested, moderately catalogued in my brain (ie, thrown on the floor), and perversely skewed with bile through my personal preferred perspective.

I don’t think that’s unique, but I think the perspective can be.

I try to look for the things other people aren’t focusing on. Part of that is growing up in the punk, anti-conformist realm of the 80’s and 90’s, and the other part of it is that I don’t see any other way to attempt to stand out if you’re doing the same thing as the other folks. There’s no challenge in trying to be someone else.

If you want to grow, you need to challenge and fail. I’m really good at failing! It’s probably my biggest strength.

What advice would you give to your 20-something self?
Relax. I’m you/me from the future!!! Quickly, I beg of you to take out every possible student loan you can. Take that money and invest it all in a new company called Google. …Also, in the future you will be sent back to the past to give yourself advice. Often. It’s VERY costly, but for some reason, interviewers will pony up!

On Failure…

I can assure you failure is indeed a viable option. The only caveat is you have to use your failures to learn what works and throw away what doesn’t.

So don’t huddle in a corner afraid to try something. Instead, take that time of inaction and use it to see how quickly you can fail and learn.

On Business relationships…

Be yourself and trust your gut. Look for people you like to work with and respect, and avoid the greedy people who want to use you for their benefit. If you present yourself in a shiny, marketable, safe, package, you’ll always have to play that game.

Instead, do what you are passionate about and if someone recognizes it and offers you an opportunity, they WILL trust your vision. Make real relationships in your business life.

On Life…

Make more time for your kids. Time moves too quickly with your head down. Look up and pay attention to your surroundings more.

When did you first realize you wanted a career in design?
I actually never wanted to. I thought Graphic Design was making flyers and brochures for local businesses. I avoided it like the plague. I had always loved drawing and creating since before I could speak, but I genuinely didn’t ever expect to make a career out of it. I don’t regret taking the long way though. I learned a lot of things that led me to have the time to focus on what I’m doing now.

In 2008, I was Creative Director for a design company. A designer by the name of Joshua Smith (aka Hydro74) reached out to me one day out of the blue. He used to try to look over my shoulder and steal my sketchbooks in middle school. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was because he looked up to me.

Anyway, he wrote me and told me of his life journey and how he was inspired to pursue a career in design, and he thanked me for inspiring him. Serendipitously, his message was the spark that re-inspired me to pick up a pencil for the first time in 10 years. From then on, I haven’t put down a pencil/stylus.

Favorite Quote/Philosophy:

“The Princess is in another castle” – Toad

As a kid I didn’t imbue any higher meaning to this statement. But as time drives on, I foolishly look for substance in the mundane.

If I had to find meaning in this now, my take-away is that when you reach your goal, you’re a fool to stop.

Don’t mistake a goal as the ultimate victory. Continue to challenge yourself to do more and never stop learning on your own terms. It’s about the journey, not the end.

Baltimore’s 5th Annual Design Week is back! Register now for Raising the Game: Creativity Through Collaboration at Under Armour.

Meet the Speaker: Sean Flanagan

Sean Flanagan has over 10 years experience creating effective, award-winning work for clients big and small; and has created entire advertising and branding campaigns executed from print to interactive, from broadcast to outdoor.

Sean started at Penn State University, earning a degree in Advertising, and going on to pursue a Master’s degree in Graphic Design at the Pratt Institute. From there he has worked at a variety of Baltimore-based agencies including Frank Strategic Marketing and Siquis before moving to Under Armour, where he is currently a Group Creative Director, leading their Team Sports Category and Content division.

Where do you draw inspiration from?
Film, TV, Photography. My obsession right now is lighting and how to shape and control light. So I look at a lot of films and the DPs of those films and try to reverse engineer the lighting setup they used. Cinematic lighting in movies can do so much with the range of emotions we feel from the picture.

What advice would you give to your 20-something self?
Don’t be a jerk!

Look, it’s ok to be passionate, it’s ok to have confidence, and it’s really ok to defend the work. But perhaps try to have a little bit more emotional intelligence and empathy for the people you’re in the trenches with and especially the client. Really just try to have a wholistic point of view of everyone’s motivations with regards to the project.

What does the graphic designer role look like in 20 years?
I’m not sure in 20 years there will be a job called “graphic design”, let alone five or ten years. It’s too limiting and narrowly focused. So much of what we do these days is experiential and driven by engagement. I’d say in 20 years we will all be called engagement designers, or engagement directors.

When did you first realize you wanted a career in design?
I did it all wrong! I don’t think I was aware of design as a career until late in high school. So by that point it was too late. I had no high school work to use to even attempt to apply to decent college programs. Until then I was just a kid that could draw pretty well. Then in college, the closest thing I did to graphic design was editorial cartoons for the Penn State Collegian. After I made the move to studying advertising as a focus, my talents skewed more towards the visual side than the copywriting, so then I was stuck trying to reverse engineer this whole thing to get the knowledge I needed, which included getting a Masters degree at Pratt for graphic design, and many more student loans.

What’s the harshest criticism you’ve ever gotten about your work and how did you handle it?
When I was at Pratt, there was a year-end design show where you got a section of a large room and you displayed a year’s worth of work. At some point, a team of professors would walk around critiquing each student’s body of work. When it was my turn, a very vocal professor proclaimed that my work was just too “advertising-y.” He meant this in a negative way, and for a minute it stung, because at that time, I had my mind set on being as pure a graphic designer as I could be. But eventually in my head I was like, “you know, you’re right,” and that’s when everything kind of clicked.

Is there any designer or piece of design that you’re digging right now?
Zombie Yeti of course!


Baltimore’s 5th Annual Design Week is back! Register now for Raising the Game: Creativity Through Collaboration at Under Armour.

Meet the Speaker: Zombie Yeti

Born and raised in the cornfields of northern Indiana, Zombie Yeti had no choice but to escape the maize via a steady diet of comic books, cartoons, movies, music and video games. It describes its work by defining a new term; a self-proclaimed movement called ‘Esoteric Americana’. On the surface, its style reflects its love of comic books and cartoons – with a dash of humor and an emphasis on story, character, silhouette and line. While beneath, its aesthetic results resemble a twisted take on representations of traditional art.

Zombie Yeti has had the pleasure to work with top tier companies such as Under Armour, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Hasbro, and many more. It has also produced works with many greats in the music world such as Foo Fighters, DeadMau5, Deftones, Kid Rock, Incubus, Paul McCartney, Primus, Faith No More, Melvins, and many more. Most recently, it created the art packages for the Ghostbusters Pinball Machines. It also likes Circus Peanuts…

Where do you draw inspiration from?
Everything and anything. Or anything and everything, depending on your preference. I’m pretty sure I’m the result of everything I love (nature, film, music, video games, etc) somehow digested, moderately catalogued in my brain (ie, thrown on the floor), and perversely skewed with bile through my personal preferred perspective.

I don’t think that’s unique, but I think the perspective can be.

I try to look for the things other people aren’t focusing on. Part of that is growing up in the punk, anti-conformist realm of the 80’s and 90’s, and the other part of it is that I don’t see any other way to attempt to stand out if you’re doing the same thing as the other folks. There’s no challenge in trying to be someone else.

If you want to grow, you need to challenge and fail. I’m really good at failing! It’s probably my biggest strength.

What advice would you give to your 20-something self?
Relax. I’m you/me from the future!!! Quickly, I beg of you to take out every possible student loan you can. Take that money and invest it all in a new company called Google. …Also, in the future you will be sent back to the past to give yourself advice. Often. It’s VERY costly, but for some reason, interviewers will pony up!

On Failure…

I can assure you failure is indeed a viable option. The only caveat is you have to use your failures to learn what works and throw away what doesn’t.

So don’t huddle in a corner afraid to try something. Instead, take that time of inaction and use it to see how quickly you can fail and learn.

On Business relationships…

Be yourself and trust your gut. Look for people you like to work with and respect, and avoid the greedy people who want to use you for their benefit. If you present yourself in a shiny, marketable, safe, package, you’ll always have to play that game.

Instead, do what you are passionate about and if someone recognizes it and offers you an opportunity, they WILL trust your vision. Make real relationships in your business life.

On Life…

Make more time for your kids. Time moves too quickly with your head down. Look up and pay attention to your surroundings more.

When did you first realize you wanted a career in design?
I actually never wanted to. I thought Graphic Design was making flyers and brochures for local businesses. I avoided it like the plague. I had always loved drawing and creating since before I could speak, but I genuinely didn’t ever expect to make a career out of it. I don’t regret taking the long way though. I learned a lot of things that led me to have the time to focus on what I’m doing now.

In 2008, I was Creative Director for a design company. A designer by the name of Joshua Smith (aka Hydro74) reached out to me one day out of the blue. He used to try to look over my shoulder and steal my sketchbooks in middle school. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was because he looked up to me.

Anyway, he wrote me and told me of his life journey and how he was inspired to pursue a career in design, and he thanked me for inspiring him. Serendipitously, his message was the spark that re-inspired me to pick up a pencil for the first time in 10 years. From then on, I haven’t put down a pencil/stylus.

Favorite Quote/Philosophy:

“The Princess is in another castle” – Toad

As a kid I didn’t imbue any higher meaning to this statement. But as time drives on, I foolishly look for substance in the mundane.

If I had to find meaning in this now, my take-away is that when you reach your goal, you’re a fool to stop.

Don’t mistake a goal as the ultimate victory. Continue to challenge yourself to do more and never stop learning on your own terms. It’s about the journey, not the end.

Baltimore’s 5th Annual Design Week is back! Register now for Raising the Game: Creativity Through Collaboration at Under Armour.

Meet the Speaker: Ellen Lupton

Ellen Lupton is the Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. Her most recent exhibition, organized with Andrea Lipps, was Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial. Some of her other recent exhibitions include How Posters Work, Beautiful Users, and Graphic Design—Now in Production (organized with Andrew Blauvelt). Lupton also serves as the director of the Graphic Design MFA Program at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in Baltimore, where she has authored numerous books on design processes, including Thinking with Type, Graphic Design Thinking, Graphic Design: The New Basics, and Type on Screen. Her upcoming book Design Is Storytelling will be published by Cooper Hewitt in 2017. Lupton earned her BFA from The Cooper Union in 1985.

Favorite creative hobby, outside of design?
I love to paint. I studied painting as well as design at The Cooper Union, but I gave up painting because I thought it was incompatible with the seriousness and professional purpose of graphic design. I rediscovered it later, and it brings such joy to my life.

If you could work on any project in the world as we know it, what would it be and why?
I’ve been working on a novel called Miss Helvetica. I’d love to have time to focus on it and finish it.

When did you first realize you wanted a career in design?
When I went to art school in the 1980s, design wasn’t a field that young people knew about. So I figured out what it was when I got to art school. For me, typography was the hook. I discovered that typography is the link between writing and visual art.

Favorite Quote/Philosophy:
Think more, design less.

Favorite design era or style:
I love the visionary designers of the 1920s: Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Piet Zwart, Moholy-Nagy. These designers were thinkers, makers, and world-changers.

Is there any designer or piece of design that you’re digging right now?
Check out the Moholy-Nagy exhibition at the Guggenheim!


Baltimore’s 5th Annual Design Week is back! Register now for Design & Dine: An Evening with Ellen Lupton (catered by Woodberry Kitchen at Artifact Coffee).

Meet the Speaker: Anthony Paul

Anthony D Paul
Director of User Experience, idfive

Anthony is the Director of User Experience at idfive. With 15 years of experience in web application design, development, and research, he’s built productivity systems for the NSA; extended atomic brand systems for Yahoo and others; launched hundreds of digital properties; and helped lead teams, users, and decision-makers through many sense-making activities. Anthony understands macro business processes to recommend changes and tools to improve employee, content administrator, and end-user experiences. In addition to working on client projects, he teaches graduate level workshops and maintains a regular speaking schedule across North America on topics including remote team management, user research and facilitation, user experience and information architecture artifacts, web accessibility, and other industry best practices.

 

What advice would you give to your 20-something self?
Start funding your Roth IRA.

What’s your dream design job? If you could work on any project in the wide world, what would it be?
I enjoy simplifying complex data visualization and productivity interfaces, whatever they may be for. My past favorite was visualizing worldwide DDoS/bot activity. A future dream job would be something like working on Tesla’s in-car digital dashboard. I’m also impressed with the direction health tech is headed, with biometric analytics and visualizations aiding in diagnoses and progress tracking.

How do you define success in your career as a designer? What factors have led your success so far?
Steve Jobs said our mission as designers is to “dent the universe.” My driver has always been to do good with design, and to feel like I’m positively affecting someone. Success is being able to recognize when you aren’t seeing your positive impact anymore and changing direction.

What’s your favorite creative hobby, outside of design? Are you working on any side projects right now?
Everywhere. I travel, cook, do wood-carving, garden, and make hot sauce.

 


Baltimore’s 5th Annual Design Week is back! Register now for Designing for Stress Cases: Understanding the Everyday Relationship Between UX and Accessibility.

Meet the Speaker: Kelly Driver

Kelly Driver Senior Interactive Designer, idfive
Kelly Driver
Senior Interactive Designer, idfive

As a Senior Interactive Designer and user experience researcher at idfive, Kelly works to understand an audience before she designs for them. By applying testing and research to her design methods, Kelly bridges the gap between design and UX—an increasingly vital task in our industry—to ensure her projects work just as well as they look. Kelly’s created beautiful and functionally effortless work for a variety of national and local clients including Special Olympics, Johns Hopkins University, and Deutsche Bank. Kelly holds a B.A. in Studio Art with a concentration in graphic design and a minor in Art History from the University of Maryland, College Park and an M.F.A. in Integrated Design from the University of Baltimore. A firm believer in the importance of community involvement and the value of inspiring others, Kelly’s also an undergraduate adjunct professor.

 

What advice would you give to your younger self?
I continue to remind myself to never stop trying new things and to never stop asking questions. Even if you think you know the right solution, explore other directions. Also, get a mentor who you can go to for anything. Mentors are invaluable.

What’s your favorite creative hobby, outside of design? Are you working on any side projects right now?
I love crochet. I taught myself and each year I try to learn something new. This year I have my heart set on learning how to make socks!

What’s the harshest criticism you’ve ever gotten about your work and how did you handle it?
The harshest criticism I’ve ever gotten was that my work was boring. It was hard to hear and also annoying because I felt it wasn’t constructive, but I’ve let it become a learning lesson on how I give critiques for other designers work.

What’s your biggest pet peeve as a designer?
Being sloppy. I’m really detailed in my file structure and organization, and having to pick up files that are a mess drives me insane.

 


Baltimore’s 5th Annual Design Week is back! Register now for Designing for Stress Cases: Understanding the Everyday Relationship Between UX and Accessibility.

Meet the Speaker: Nikki Villagomez

Nikki Villagomez
Nikki Villagomez

Nikki Villagomez, a South Carolina Native, is a nationally recognized speaker on typography. After earning her BFA in Graphic Design from Louisiana State University, and a stint in New York City, she moved back to her home state to become a full time freelancer. In addition to founding the AIGA South Carolina chapter, Nikki has been an educator teaching Graphic Design and Typography at the University of South Carolina and the University of Akron. After working for four years in Ohio for Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, she relocated to the company headquarters in Charlotte, NC to serve as the Creative Studio Manager. In her free time, she writes about about how culture affects typography.

 

Where do you draw inspiration from?
Inspiration has never been something I seek out; it is more about being acutely aware of my environment. I have found that it is really important for me to have a balance. If I’m able to achieve that balance on a regular basis, being inspired is there.

This became very apparent when I became an in-house designer. It took about two months for me to start realizing I needed an outlet. Being strapped to two typefaces and 13 Pantone colors day in and day out made me realize I needed a way to balance the structure of my job.

I started my blog which let me delve into the beautiful world of typography. Every morning, I get up early to research how culture affects typography and post my findings. This regularly gives me the balance I need at work. In addition to my blog, I have found that attending conferences like HOW, AIGA, TypeCon, and Creative Mornings has been incredibly valuable for inspiration and connecting with other graphic designers who have helped me along the way.

 

What advice would you give to your 20-something self?

Work hard and go after what you want. It sounds so simple but it is easy to go off course by the actions of others and getting caught up in change. Continue to set goals, both long term and short term, and stay focused on achieving those.

 

When did you first realize you wanted a career in design?
I had never heard of Graphic Design growing up. When I met with my Academic Advisor my first week in college, she asked me what I wanted to study. I told her that I was thinking about Art Therapy. She said LSU has a great program for that and showed me the curriculum. There was all this Science and Math that I had to take and I immediately said ‘No’. She then told me about this other program called Graphic Design and the curriculum included classes like Painting, Ceramics and Photography instead of Science and Math. That was it. I literally declared my major the first week I was at LSU and 5 years later received my BFA in Graphic Design.

 

Favorite Philosophy:

You are not entitled to the fruit of your labor, you’re only entitled to the work itself.

 

What’s the harshest criticism you’ve ever received?
My senior year in high school, right when I found out I had received a full scholarship to play tennis in college, I was told by one of my teachers that I would only be known by my social security number and I’d never be able to balance sports and my education. That comment hit me hard but was determined to prove that I could do both—and I did! It was a great experience in that it taught me to not seek out approval or permission from others.