In this episode, Alex answers a reader question on developing your own creative style.
He shares his experience of how he develops his own creative style over the years of being an illustrator, an author and a creative coach.
Alex also shares two important factors in finding and developing your own style, which are: finding your target audience and providing what your target audience wants.
Don’t miss it!
5 Key Points:
Find your target audience. Ask yourself these questions : What kinds of clients you’re doing your creative work for? What kind of people are you working for?
Provide what your target audience wants. Create something that will have an impact in the market and in the world, but do not forget to also create the work for yourself. Create something that you love and your audience will also love what you create for them.
Accept feedback. You need to be aware of the creative work you’re doing and what the world wants. By accepting feedback, you will learn to refine your own creative style to ultimately develop your own.
Don’t fear rejection. Seek out rejections and do things that risk rejections. Push yourself to the limit until you’re able weed out the things that you don’t need and improve the things you need to achieve your goal of developing your own creative style.
Try different things. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try different things. See what kinds of things bring you to life and see what kinds of things you hate, and then commit yourself to narrowing down the things that will help you develop your own voice.
Podcast Show Notes:
- [00:36] – Alex introduces himself again for those of you who haven’t had any chance to listen to previous episodes. He shares his background – who he is, the companies he worked for and his current projects and other things that are making him busy.
- [03:55] – Alex reads a reader question from Kate Johnson, a Writer and a Growth Manager : Is there any way to define voice or style, except a large volume of trial and error?
- [04:42] – What is style and why is it important?
- Style is a unique selling point (UPS) which will help you market yourself as a creative professional making you stand out apart from the rest.
- People who stand out in their fields tend to have a very strong style.
- [06:36] – Alex shares his experience on how he develops his own style, what works and how did he narrow it down.
- [04:42] – What is style and why is it important?
- [09:39] – The two factors of how Alex’s style came in : 1) What the market wants and 2) the ideas of the audience.
- Understanding your audience as best as you can is very important for how your style develops.
- [10:45] – You need your work to really speak from the heart. Create for yourself and not just for the audience. Create what brings you to life. If you don’t feel what you do, your audience won’t feel it either.
- [09:39] – The two factors of how Alex’s style came in : 1) What the market wants and 2) the ideas of the audience.
- [12:50] – Understanding your audience is figuring out the direction of where you’re standing.
- [13:54] – Alex shares the other elements of understanding style.
- [16:12] – Alex’s advise that if you’re in the early stage of your creative career “nothing is too small or too low for you.”
- [17:17] – The idea of trial and error and how does it affects your creative style.
- [18:36] – Alex share’s a blog post he wrote, ‘The 300 Rule’ , and how it can help in your creative style.
- [21:38] – Alex gives advice to creative people who are still finding their own style : “You only live once. You have the privilege on working on something that very few have the fortune to. If you have the ability to create art everyday, you should pour yourself into that with everything that you have.”
- [22:41] – Feedback will help you be aware of what the world is saying about your creative work and ultimately help in finding your own creative style.
- [25:38] – Alex’s fair share of rejection and how it helps him mold his present creative style.
- You need to seek out rejections and push yourself to the limit.
- [28:32] – If you can’t still figure out your own creative style, try different things and see what works to develop your creative style. Start broad and refine it overtime.
- [25:38] – Alex’s fair share of rejection and how it helps him mold his present creative style.
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