This portfolio example explores how I employ the design thinking process through the lens of artist branding.
“WENDZELLE” started as my production and songwriting moniker, then morphed into my brand.
Working as an in-house songwriter and producer at a small studio was somewhat akin to working at a startup - you wear many hats. After a number of years on the musical side, I branched out into artist management and visual design, crafting digital marketing assets and brand identities for up-and-coming artists.
Without knowing it at the time, my brand development process closely resembled that outlined in Design Thinking. When I found myself working full-time in the tech field, I fully embraced Design Thinking and haven’t looked back!
Empathize
Whether cultivating an artist’s brand or writing her music, the first step was getting to know the artist. Similar to UX research, I employed interviews and field studies. Unlike UX research, I delved into ethnography—quite literally “living life” with my artists to gain a deeper understanding of her, her close relationships, and how she interpreted the world around her.
A flyer advertising one of my artist’s shows in Seattle. We used images like the moody palm tree photo in the background in the ideation phase of her brand exploration, mixing the tone of her fun summer anthem with her moody brand imagery.
To craft a brand, it’s also imperative to know the needs of the artist’s audience. The audience comprises the “users” of an artist’s brand. Understanding her audience required quantitative data analysis of streaming and social media platform data.
Define
Much like the define phase in design thinking, defining an artist’s brand involves synthesizing the information gathered during the empathize phase into a problem statement. The only difference? We call them “brand statements”.
For my own artist brand, the empathize phase might uncover that I love to wear black and listen to Nirvana. I have a passion for human behavior, diverse cultures, and writing music about social issues. It would also reveal that when I heard Billy Steinberg perform his rendition of “Like A Virgin”—a song he and a male co-writer penned for Madonna—I wanted to scream with how consistently the music industry relies upon men to author women’s stories.
With my audience at this stage of my career comprising late-teens to mid-twenties women looking for songwriters with whom to collaborate, my brand statement might sound something like the following:
My focus is writing music for women, by women - taking back our voices and our narratives. I’ll write a bop of a pop tune that doesn’t sacrifice reality for the sake of catchiness. And I’ll do it all in studded black leather combat boots.
Ideate
The ideate portion of brand building involved creating mood boards focusing on the type of imagery that represented the artist’s brand statement.
Mood boards in the ideate phase for the WENDZELLE brand. This is always my favorite part of developing a brand - finding the visual imagery to suite the idea.
When I starting releasing my own records, somber anecdotes and commentary on serious social issues saturated my lyrical content. My love for ‘90s grunge sparked angsty imagery, like graffiti soaked brick walls, the clutter-filled corners of dark rooms, and mid-twenties gals in flannels and dark eyeliner holding up middle fingers. Sonically, however, the music was fun—upbeat pop songs with bouncing beats. As such, a pop of vibrant color was in order, and the black and yellow WENDZELLE palette was born.
Prototype
Once a clearer brand image is formed in the ideate phase, we move onto prototyping. The prototyping phase often involved building a brand presentation to show stakeholders involved in the artist’s career. Examples of these stakeholders include managers, executive producers, and label representatives. The example shown here is a branding slide deck I created for an artist whose debut single was a track I wrote and co-produced called “Empty Spaces”.
Background on the artist’s inspirations and core themes
Inspirations
References to our style of imagery in film and music visuals
A low-cost photo session with a photographer friend of the artist’s tied our “prototype” together. I’ve found that giving stakeholders really clear visuals sets explicit expectations from the beginning and eliminates surprises along the way. It also ensures that non-creative stakeholders—who sometimes struggle with imagination—see what the creatives envision.
Test
In the test phase, I held meetings with stakeholders to present the branding deck. Presentations were generally kept short to leave plenty of time for Q&A and constructive feedback. I often left these meetings with plenty of feedback from stakeholders - many of whom held conflicting opinions. After synthesizing feedback and retaining a firm grasp on the artist’s desires, I’d iterate further and test again.
THAT'S THE PROCESS
THAT'S THE PROCESS
Thanks for tuning in & learning about my journey through artist branding. 🖤