Something I promised myself was that my blog wouldn’t just be a place to teach you the technical shit, but where I would show you what I am going through during my journey as I feel we’re all on a similar path, and one day I will be much further ahead and someone else will come here and be like oh wow, she struggled too!
In todays “journal entry” I’m going through what I’m describing as a loss of self, and it has been oh so turned up because of one thing: branding. That’s right, branding Hodgepodge3D has given me a literal complex I swear to every dramatic bone that exists in my body it is a true statement.
You see, I recently took a branding course. A really fun, interactive, and eye opening course. Something to note about the course, is that it was created specifically for branding and it utilized ChatGPT to give you this sort of like, walkthrough like quiz all geared towards helping you figure out your branding. You completed two of them, but the second one was really about your style, your design, keywords, all of it. While I was doing the quiz, struggling to pick just one of the multi-choice, and instead flooding ChatGPT with information as to WHY multiple applied to me, it kind of slapped me in the face when I realized: I’m branding myself.
I am everything of this brand, in every corner, crevice. I am every letter, every breath. Hodgepodge3D is me.
Once this kind of realization settled inside of me, I began to grow anxious. I have always struggled with what I thought branding should look like. I am a creative on one hand, and so of course I want a website that is eyecatching and WOW! Something that is just pulling you in and dragging you under the read more waters of my posts, but another part of me is strict on readability, minimalism on my elements etc. A true battle of maximalism and minimalism. It’s not easy – not to mention trying to pick out color swatches is just absolutely terrible. The problem is that I just seem to like so many different things, aesthetics, etc.
From bold and colorful, to retro, modern, fantasy, each of these genres has something to offer. A real look to it! And I think I just haven’t narrowed it down for me. Unless you can count “holographic, celestial, cottagecore, whimsigoth, modern-fantasy branding as a description. I’m envisioning something clean and legible, but with little chaotic nods to my style. In my mind, it could totally happen, and could totally work. The question is just….. how?
I sometimes fear that due to how picky and how overwhelmingly indecisive I am, I may never settle on branding. And sometimes I wonder if maybe the branding I have just needs a glow up. Maybe there is nothing wrong with it? Or maybe I need to sit down and analyze every inch of it. Sometimes, it feels like my entire brand hangs on the cusp of understanding my branding. That if I don’t have colors, fonts, a look – that I can’t even begin. I do truly wonder if anyone else feels this way, and often times I wonder just how many others are feeling like myself. Not being able to decide what that looks like, the feeling and more is hindering my website from being updated and amazeafied! A word I just literally made up, I hope you guys use it. But truly, branding is stressing me out and if it is stressing you out too, I do not blame you because right now it feels more like a discovery of myself, than my brand. And that? That is super scary.
What I can say when I invision my branding is: legibility, clean organization, uhhhh celestial touches? Magic. For sure purple, blue and green being incorporated. Something that can either be adjusted when holidays are near, or a complete theme update when it is time. Maybe, I can have it all. Kinda.
Anywho, its 4:55 am. In between paragraphs and jumbled thoughts I have been cleaning, and the scent of that coconut scented cleaner is still lingering on my nose. I want to take a nap for now, but I have this deep set anxiety that if I go to bed, I wont be able to get anything done. But alas, as I type this, my eyes are closing with the overwhelming stress and the day dreaming about all of the mopping I need to do is hitting me…. zzzz
