Personal Branding

Back in the spring of 2007, I started the exercise of personal branding.

I love doing branding and identity projects, but there aren't many opportunities at the moment. I have learned over time that the best way to keep myself fresh is to do it constantly and persistently. So I follow the paths of Oprah and Martha Stewart and started the exercise of personal branding.



My extensive exploration of self is my research on understanding my brand, and it is from these analysis that I came up with the logo that you see today, from which I have developed my color system and branding guidelines.

The Logo

The logo is composed of three circles: small, medium and large. The three colors are the origin of colors, and represents design (magenta), technology (yellow) and marketing strategy (cyan) respectively. The execution is simple because I had a Bauhaus education.

The logo is placed everywhere where I exist, and extend beyond the seeminglee.com domain and into all the collaborative communities. I use the logo to 'stamp' holiday greetings. I also use it as my avatar on all my social networks. Because the logo scales well, it is also used as the favicon on my main hub.

Fun today

I was doing some experiments with video projection the past couple of days and I thought that it might be fun to brand myself directly on my body.

So here's my current advertising campaign running on Flickr: this is the closest I've been able to get my logo on the product—myself.









©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Library Public Notice: 8: Design Iteration 4: Combining photography and Illustration / 1998 / SML

Library Public Notice: 8: : Design Iteration 4: Combining photography and illustration / 1998 / SML, originally uploaded by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML.

Yale Art 366a / 1998
Visual Studies / Paul Elliman
Notice above copy machine to get people to handle books with care when photocopying.

+ It's fairly amazing what can happen when you combine the language of the real (photographic) and illustration / iconic.
+ It's also interesting to me now looking back that I appear to be fascinated with patterns and magenta since at least 10 years ago!


Process (8 pages)
+ 1: Design Iteration: Patterns / Odd-man out
+ 2: Design Iteration: Patterns / Odd-man out (Detail)
+ 3: Sketches
+ 4: Design Iteration 2: Missing pages as illustrated: 1
+ 5: Design Iteration 2: Missing pages as illustrated: 2
+ 6: Design Iteration 2: Missing pages as illustrated: 3
+ 7: Design Iteration 3: Missing pages using a real book
+ 8: Design Iteration 4: Combining photography and illustration

Related SML Universe
SML Ideas
SML Notebook
SML Projects

Copyright Notice
Copyright 1998, 2007 See-ming Lee. All rights reserved.

SML Copyright Notice

©2007 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Ideas Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Library Public Notice: 8: Design Iteration 4: Combining photography and Illustration / 1998 / SML

Library Public Notice: 8: : Design Iteration 4: Combining photography and illustration / 1998 / SML, originally uploaded by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML.

Yale Art 366a / 1998
Visual Studies / Paul Elliman
Notice above copy machine to get people to handle books with care when photocopying.

+ It's fairly amazing what can happen when you combine the language of the real (photographic) and illustration / iconic.
+ It's also interesting to me now looking back that I appear to be fascinated with patterns and magenta since at least 10 years ago!


Process (8 pages)
+ 1: Design Iteration: Patterns / Odd-man out
+ 2: Design Iteration: Patterns / Odd-man out (Detail)
+ 3: Sketches
+ 4: Design Iteration 2: Missing pages as illustrated: 1
+ 5: Design Iteration 2: Missing pages as illustrated: 2
+ 6: Design Iteration 2: Missing pages as illustrated: 3
+ 7: Design Iteration 3: Missing pages using a real book
+ 8: Design Iteration 4: Combining photography and illustration

Related SML Universe
SML Ideas
SML Notebook
SML Projects

Copyright Notice
Copyright 1998, 2007 See-ming Lee. All rights reserved.

SML Copyright Notice

©2007 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Ideas Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Life Celebrates Diversity

Life / 2007 / SML Graphic Design

LifeCelebratesDiversity.org

Life Celebrates Diversity (Facebook Group)

Life Celebrates Diversity (Flickr Group)

Manifesto

Life.

Life celebrates diversity.
Life celebrates differences.
Life celebrates humanity.

Regardless of age, attire, or build.
Regardless of class, color, or culture.
Regardless of education, flavor, or gender.
Regardless of hair style, income level, or interest.
Regardless of life style, location, or philosophy.
Regardless of profession, physique, or race.
Regardless of religion, role, or sexual taste.

Life is equilibriumism.
Life is everything and nothing.
Life is all of us and none of us.

—See-ming Lee, 2007.07.07

Identity + Manifesto

• Life = All colors = Whole Spectrum
  Cyan, Yellow and Magenta are the primary color pigments utilized in printing technology and is capable of creating every single color you see today. SML Tech Talk: The color black (K in the CMYK) is added into the mix because the ink or pigment we use today are not capable of reproducing a true black mixing CMY together. Additionally, firing a single black drop will create less of a dot gain then firing three-times the amount of pigment.


• Life = He | She | It
  Throughout history, mother nature has been described as a male (cyan), a female (magenta), or genderless. The context from which you look at life changes--from the inside, from the outside and everything in between.


• Life = Magic
  Life is magical (yellow) and full of its wonders. It creates the synergy between a man and a woman, the yin and the yang, the ideological state of equilibrium.


• Life = All of Us = None of Us
  Life is all of us because it encompasses everything that you see / hear / feel / touch / taste. Life is none of us because it is formed as a united decentralized network of people regardless of (A-Z).

Copyright Notice

Copyright 2007 See-ming Lee. All rights reserved.

Friends and family

I have been through a whole lot last year. 2006 is officially the most miserable year of my life. If we can chart our life in a Cartesian graph, with x = time and y = (-1, 1) to signify absolute negative to absolute positive, I hope that last year remains to be my life's absolute minimum.

While I enjoy the happy times (>0), I do think that it is important to have frustrating times (<0). Without the down points, one could not possibly appreciate the many wonderful things in life that we take for granted.

If I draw another graph, with x = the y-axis of my Life graph, y = number of friends, the resulting graph looks like a Bell curve. When I am at my lowest point, most people drift away, until finally there remains only my family and one handful of folks who are my friends. Similarly, one gains many friends as life become positive, but as one drifts towards fantabulous times, one also gains many enemies, and as such y would also tends towards 0.

If we consider the ratio of number of friends / time, we have the rate of friend acquaitance, and at least for myself, that's the happiest of all times. Mapping this, it appears that the sweet spot would be around -0.3.

Nerd point aside, we find something equally interesting. To find one's closest friend, either fuck up your life, or become extremely successful. You can immediately identify who's friend and who's foe. Obviously, you cannot control your life (as you are not a controlled subject). However, examining one's history will allow you to discover.

While I have been in very desperate moments, I am grateful that I have identified my friends. They have been there to support me in every way possible. I am also deeply grateful to those who have the patience to work with me. I don't know how I could have gone through all these without them.