What If The Market Targeted You?

When I started my company, I didn’t have a logo.

My only priority was getting my book into people’s hands,
getting my message into people’s hearts and getting my name into people’s
heads. Everything else was secondary. Including design.

But about a year into my career, I noticed something pretty
interesting.

My brand identity started
taking on a life of its own.

Any time my book title, website address, company name,
biography or surname showed up in the media, the editor would just go ahead and
throw an image of a little nametag right next to it.

The thing is, I never asked them to do that. It just
happened.

The marketplace was filling in the gaps.

They saw something that wasn’t there. Just like the human
brain makes statistical estimates to complete the visual picture, people
finished my story on their own.

Because the nametag was something that was already there.

It was the universal experience. The nametag made it easy
for people to tell themselves a particular narrative. It was the handle by which the
brand could be lifted.

So in the end, I never had
to design my logo.

Because the audience defined it for me.

And it hasn’t changed since.

What if the market targeted you?