Stand Out: Design a personal brand. Build a killer portfolio. Find a great design job.

4. Promote Your Brand

Creating an integrated brand campaign.

Everyone’s comfort level for putting themselves out in the world to get noticed is different (although I tend to think that younger people, raised in the age of selfies and social media, are less self-conscious about self-promotion than other generations). Personally, I’ve never liked vying for attention, and to this day, I find the tasks related to self-promotion—cold calling, meet-and-greeting, and sharing my work and myself with strangers and people I’ve only just met—downright frightening. When I had my design business, I paid a full-time salesperson to initiate contact with potential clients. It’s not that I lack self-confidence, but quite frankly, the idea of being rejected hurts ...