Giving Myself A Brand And An Identity

I'm not experienced in the field of creating brands and identities but I do have contacts with graphic design students that might be able to help me. I've emailed Adam Reeves, the graphic design student that I've previously been in contact with, he had previously agreed to helping me out with this part of my PDP but since the last module hand in we had lost touch. The email I've just sent now to re cap out relationship and plans is as follows: I will take what Adam said into consideration and answer the questions he's prompted for me to know in order to create the perfect brand for me.

Hi Adam, I'm creating my own brand and identity to promote myself and my photography work and I was just wondering whether you could give me some tips as to where I'm supposed to start? And what things do I need to consider?

His reply is:

Hi Toni, as somebody in this field who has self-branded myself too, you've asked the right person! The first thing to consider is yourself, what you're about, what kind of person you are, and making sure this is portrayed in your brand's visual identity, it wants to reflect your personality and speak in your voice. Consider colour psychology too, different colours say different things, red is loud and confident, blue is calm and innocent, while black is bold and secure, white is pure and friendly. Typography plays a massive part, certain type styles speak in different ways, slab-serifs are confident and fun and sans-serifs are modern, while script typefaces are soft and feminine and serifs are mature.

I will take what Adam said into consideration and answer the questions he's prompted for me to know in order to create the perfect brand for me.

What am I about?

I'm a young, fun loving individual who lives life to the full every single day. Happiness is the most important thing to me so I always make sure I have it. I know how to have fun but when I need to knuckle down and do work then I'm dedicated and motivated to do the best I can. I follow 2 motto's in life, "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well." and the simple idiom "You only live once." I like quirky things that make me laugh or smile, I like simple things like seeing a rainbow after the sky has stopped raining on me, I enjoy meeting new people and talking to strangers, I'm interested in putting myself into the shoes of others to see how they see and experience the world. I like researching the lives that are rapidly different to mine and sharing their stories for them. I like to think I'm very head strong and decisive when I need to be. I'm a perfectionist who needs to make sure my work portrays the best of my ability.

I sent that paragraph to Adam to see what he thought of it and whether or not it would help me in visually branding myself. This is what he said:

Judging by your cheerful, happy, positive outlook on life, this could be put across in your brand by bright colours such as yellow, lime green, orange. And light-hearted and more creative typography could be more appropriate than a serious and stern font.

I then mentioned the idea of using the hop part in my name Hopley as a way to focus my brand. My idea is to use rabbits in my logo and on my business card and highlight the 'hop' in Hopley, Adam said this was a really good idea and that when they're told to create a brand for themselves then the first thing they should do is look to see if they can use their name in any way because it's a really good way to be remembered. I told him I'd start designing logos to them send to him so he can help me convert them to an online visual then potentially use it as a final logo.