The Artist Persona (6 freaking tips to craft your identity)
How would you describe your artist identity?
This is something I never gave much thought to because I didn’t think it was that important — I mean, the craft is what matters most, right?
True, but your identity plays a pretty big role too.
Your artist persona is an extension of your art or music. It’s something your audience can connect to and it adds authentic layers to your creative brand.
So this is my guide on how to create your musical or artist identity.
Now let’s do this!
What is an Artist Persona?
An artist persona is your identity as an artist, musician or creative. It’s a culmination of your personality, skills, personal style, unique story and experiences.
It’s often what makes you authentic as an artist.
Clarifying your artistic identity guides your decision-making and artistic vision. Plus, it’s a creative process in itself (which is fun).
Why Should I? (perks of a clear persona)
Boost your brand clarity
Expand your art’s impact and story
Add more intention to projects
Have a clear aesthetic and mission
Be more recognizable
Be more memorable
Boost your self awareness
Have a clear vision and mission
Feel more artistically confident
Make decisions quicker and easier
People follow people, not just music
How to Find Your Artist Identity (6 freaking tips)
1. Clarify Your Artistic Style
Your craft (and how you do it) is the foundation of your persona. So it’s important to get clear about it.
This includes things like your genre, your medium and the software or tools that create your signature sound or aesthetic.
And this isn’t always easy. For example, I’m a musician and a digital creator, but I could never be — never choose — just one thing. I write many genres. I have many passions and many projects. I am many things.
And each of these styles has a different personality and a distinct mood (and often different goals too).
Sometimes, I feel like I need multiple personas just to pursue all of my creative projects. Eventually, this may happen. It’s part of what I did with my personal brand — employed a multi brand approach.
But my advice (if you’re like me) is to pick just one style to start with.
Clarity about who you are as an artist is step one.
2. Define Your Visual Identity
Everyone has a look — especially artists. We’re naturally creative and like to be expressive.
So if you’re looking to boost your artist persona, don’t forget about your external image. Here are some things to think about for your artist visual identity:
Your fashion sense
Your branding aesthetic
Your content
Your hair style
Your body art
The stuff you like doing
Explore more:
➤ Fashion and Creativity are Good Friends
3. Who Are You Outside of Your Art?
“I’m a digital nomad. So I love to blend songwriting with adventures abroad, and you’ll find this theme in my musical style, lyrics and content.”
Your artistic identity is an extension of your self-identity.
Who we are outside of art and music influences who we are as a creative. And the opposite is true too. So when crafting my artist persona, I like to remember my human identity too — you know, who I am without the nuance of style, image and creative projects.
Here are some aspects to consider:
Interests and passions
Habits and hobbies
Fears or weaknesses
Personality traits
Past experiences
Your artistic values and beliefs
Your definition of success
Your inner circle
Your environment
The content you consume or create
Explore more:
➤ How to Look Within
4. What Makes You Weird?
Your quirks are your superpower. So what are they?
This could be related to your art, unique interests, personality, skills, experiences or musician traits.
For example, if you’re naturally funny, add this side of you into your branding and content. Or if you love to nerd out on Lord of the Rings, throw that into the mix (something airplanefactswithmax does well).
Whatever makes you amazingly ‘weird’, own it!
This is your unfair advantage.
It’s the umami that nobody else can steal or do quite like you.
So what makes you weird?
Write those things out and start leveraging them by using them in your music, content and brand imaging.
And stay patient too. Sometimes, a quirk isn’t always obvious. Circle back to this step periodically — your personality and unfair advantages are constantly evolving.
Explore more:
➤ Embrace Your Freaking Quirks
5. Try An Alter Ego
In a perfect world, who would you be?
Visualize and write down every small detail. How do you want to be seen as a musician or artist. Bring that image into your imagination. Now let’s create it — as an alter ego.
An alter ego is an alternate version of yourself. This Batman Effect lets you wear a different identity. This can boost your creativity and confidence. This is also a great strategy if you want to stay anonymous as an artist.
Sometimes, it’s hard to fully express our true selves. So here’s how to quickly create an alternative artist ego:
Identity your current traits
List out your ideal traits
Create a persona to close the gap
Embody your persona
Explore more:
➤ How to Create An Alter Ego
6. Identify / Create Storylines
“Life is a movie and you’re the main character, the director and the writer. And you have storylines — share them.”
A major part of your artist persona is your story. We all have storylines and sharing them builds a strong artist identity.
But you probably have multiple stories and layers going on.
You have your main story, of course, But then, you have supporting ones too. In music and television, this is called A, B and C plots, which are secondary plots that support the main one. This enriches the whole storyline and makes everything feel more authentic, engaging and relatable.
Natasha Brito talks about this on her Instagram (and in her course, The Iconic Artist Blueprint).
But here are some quick tips to creating a powerful storyline:
Make it real — share your ups and your downs
Have a mission — bring the audience along
Have a ‘villain’ — something you and your audience can ‘fight’ for
Have a supporting cast — who you collab with, the brands you associate with, whathaveyou
So what’s your movie? Share your story and build your identity around that.
Later ✌️
Your artist persona is an extension of your craft. While your art or music takes center stage, your identity plays a key supporting role.
Clarity about your artistic style, personal quirks and story all help to create a unique but authentic artist identity.
But remember, this should be fun too. IMO, it’s all creative play.
