Adventures In Boutiquing - Creative, Uncommon, Fun
When you are starting a business there is nothing more important than to figure out your who, what and why? In branding you need to know what you stand for and what you want to convey to others. Creating a business is all about your tribe. If you cannot communicate clearly how will your tribe find you, or you them? The Boutique by CCPCL represents creative, uncommon, fun. What does that even mean?
So I have been head down and working my behind off trying to keep track of all that needs to be done to open the store and then actually executing whatever that is. I’ve finally got to the stage where I can see everything coming together, the to do list being checked off and launch day in clear sight!
One of the things that is in the owner’s hands is establishing who the brand is. I’ve blogged, been an artist, ran my own business, all for years so I have some branding experience. This time things were different. This is 2020, branding is is now front and center where before social media it was more subtle and called for a strategy that was pretty straight forward. Did you want to be mysterious and make people curious, or did you want to expose yourself and make people feel like you were their next door neighbor. That was basically it. Today everyone sees everything all the time. Even when you aren’t deliberately showing anything. Your brand needs to be well developed and clear in your head because you are present in many places at one time, whether you are physically there or not. And don’t forget with social media being on 24 7 there are thousands if not millions of people doing exactly the same thing you do every single day, every single moment, every single second. If you don’t know who you are you’l just disappear in the shuffle. Which is why I have three words. You may have noticed them under my logo, “Creative, Uncommon, Fun.” I think they completely express who I am and what I want to put out into the world. Even this post-Covid world where everything is no longer like it used to be, these three words still hold significance with who I am and why I create and now curate.
Creative. Creating is making something from nothing but it can also be making something new from something that already exists. Why does one create? To express themselves. Whatever expression, endearment, happiness, sadness, confusion, elation, contemplative, furious - all expressions that are expressed through creating. Whether we create a circumstance, a manifesto, a situation, paint a scene, take a picture, put together an outfit, or decide to do none of the above, we are expressing ourselves. So I say it is happening every second, why not deliberately consider what you are creating, what you are participating in, and have a say in it so it reflects who you really are?
Uncommon. The definition of common includes ordinary, standard, and plain. Need I say more? Why think what everyone else thinks, do what they do, be who everyone else is?
Fun. I think one word when I think fun. Light-hardheartedness . Is it frivolous to dare be light hearted with the state of the world today? Absolutely not, I’m no doctor but I think it just may be the remedy for the anxiety, depression and discouragement that we all feel at some point or another.
So that’s me, that’s where my head and heart is. That’s what I want to contribute to the world with my art and with my boutique. What I’m interested in now is what do you think when you hear the three words? What does creative, uncommon, fun, respectively mean to you? This will be the subject of this week I want to share your feelings and looks you create from these three words?
Adventures in Boutiquing
It is July 24, 2020 and I am launching my online boutique on September 12, 2020 and I’m currently at the what-was-I-thinking phase! The process started out slow with getting my licensing and paperwork in order, sourcing my vendors. Now I am ramped up in full on crazy business mode and I won’t deny wishing, right at this moment, that I had a partner. My to do list is 20 items long and literally break a sweat at the thought of the integrating as in “integrate your excel list to Quick Books,” or “integrate Shopify to your website.” Maybe this isn’t as much as a blog post as a inquiry as to who knows how to integrate. ANY ONE! ANYONE HERE KNOW HOW TO INTEGRATE?