Our Founder, and Creative Director @thomas.cumberbatch breaks down the second pillar of our BMI philosophy: MEANINGFUL. Purpose is the single most powerful driving force of impact in the world. Meaningful brands have conviction and pride in their beliefs. It shapes their identity and guides their actions. When you find and embrace your meaning, the right path forward becomes obvious. A meaningful brand is able to form deeper emotional connections with its audience and the world. At Godzspeed, we find joy in unearthing meaning and expressing it to the world. If you’re struggling to identify or communicate your brand’s deepest purpose, we can help. Hit us up for a coffee, and let us show you how living out your brand’s meaning is one of the most powerful and transformational things you’ll ever do.

This week’s theme at Godzspeed is bold. “Sharing who you are the way you really are.” We believe that bold brands have a greater advantage at commanding attention, and having an impact on the audience. More often than not, a bold brand draws from life events, art, social issues and culture to resonate with its target audience. In this blog post, we share some of our thoughts on what bold means to us at Godzspeed. We will attempt to address a few misconceptions around the word and explain the benefits of truly incorporating bold elements into your brand.

Bold brands aren’t always loud

One of the common misconceptions regarding bold brands is that they have to be ostentatious and “in your face”. While these characteristics can be helpful, they are certainly not necessities when it comes down to being bold. Bold is a decision. A decision to be authentic in order to better connect with your target audience. Every brand can be bold, this is the beauty. It’s a choice.

Bold brands are “straight shooters”.

At Godzspeed, we believe “straight shooters” or clear brands are set apart. Clarity can often be hard to achieve because of our tendency to complicate the simple. At Godzspeed, a big part of what we do for brands is bring clarity where there is confusion. We are aware that it’s possible to be profoundly deep whilst keeping thing simple and clear.

So, what does “bold” produce?

We believe that bold brands connect better with their target audience. Being bold is about telling the truth. The truth about your brands values, what you stand for and what you believe in. When this is done with clarity it makes it easy for your target audience to connect emotionally and live vicariously through your brand. When your target audience believes in the message you’re presenting and walking out boldly, it will result in them developing a deep and intimate connection to your brand. This then gives you the opportunity to educate your target audience and help them learn more about why they love your brand.

Being a bold brand will connect you with your target audience intimately and free your brand to truly elevate its soul and purpose. Let’s connect to make your brand bold. Email us info@godzspeed.com. We can’t wait to build with you. it’s time to be bold together.

Godzspeed.

Art and creativity are vital to our identity as cultural beings. We’re able to identify the ethos of eras by examining people’s inspirations in art and creativity. Art and creativity will always be influential in shaping the thoughts, opinions and behaviours of people in society. Entrepreneurship is equally vital to our advancement as a society and cultural shifts often occur when the collision between creativity and business is executed masterfully.

There’s a sense of freedom in pursuing a creative career, and most creatives dream of the day where their creative passion can become their “work”. In order for that to happen passionate creatives should consider these basic, yet impactful principles.

1. Stay inspired and create quality work

“Inspiration is the currency of creative thought”. The aforementioned statement is my personal mantra, and it reminds me to regard inspiration as an essential component in the process of thinking creatively. Inspiration catalyzes unique ideas, out of the box concepts, and high quality work.

Creatives get inspired in a multiplicity of ways. What gets your mojo going? What wakes you up in the middle of the night and drives you to start sketching? Who do you listen to that makes you want to conquer the world? What problem has you searching deep within your soul for creative solutions? What is your inspiration? Inspiration propels people into a realm where creating remarkable, consistent work/strategies becomes a “way of life”. The best quality work that you produce will always be the work that you created after being inspired. If you want to grow a
sustainable, consistent business rooted in creative passion don’t let anything extinguish inspiration. Stay inspired.

2. Build a consistent brand

There is a lot of clamour around the word “brand”, but for the sake of clarity in this article we will define the word brand as the “guiding principles, identity and promise that your company communicates to the masses in order to differentiate itself from others”.

It is vitally important to self-examine, and uncover your “why”. When you are able to uncover the reason why you create, and articulate your value system and tone, you’ll discover that your work will begin to feel unified. This unified feeling is the beginning to the establishment of your brand. In order to build a sustainable business your products, services and overall identity need to relate to a common thread (identity) that your customers are able to perceive and ultimately fall in love with. You’re not done yet though. The key to making the entire branding process successful is to remain disciplined in maintaining your brand principles and ethos. This is important because it often takes time to develop a relationship and a long lasting “love affair’ with your clientele. This relationship is vital to the success of your creative business. Establishing a well-defined and consistent brand will also help you to remain focused as you journey through the creative process. When you know “who” and “why” you are it becomes much more enjoyable to create.

3. Showcase your work

Passionate creatives often produce incredible work that nobody ever sees. Take the example of Vivian Maier, arguably the best street photographer in American history. She documented New York in the 1950’s and 1960’s in a way that seemed to peer intimately into the soul of an era. As a commercial portrait, product and lifestyle photographer I examine her work and revel at her ability to capture the spirit and heart of her subjects. We know that Vivian probably didn’t want to build a business fueled by her creative passion, because she didn’t showcase her work. In 2007, a man bought a box of her negatives, ten thousand to be exact, and discovered her incredible work. Imagine what kind of business she would have been able to build had she showcased her art.

A great business offers products and/or services that either solve a client problem or furnishes a client’s wants or needs. With the incredible tools found in social media it has become almost effortless to showcase our art, thoughts and philosophies with the public.The key is to identify the people who want what you have to offer, and to communicate with them consistently. If your creative passion produces products or solutions for a particular target market it is imperative that you do your research, find them on or offline and showcase your work to them. If people can’t see your work, they can’t buy your work.

So many of us are exactly like Vivian Maier. I too am guilty of hiding my work in the “closet” for the fear that it will be judged or thinking that “it really isn’t that good”. We all need to get over the nonsense of hiding from people if we have goals of turning our creative passion into a business.

4. Don’t be a diva, listen to your fans

Once your product or service begins to gain traction and people begin to fall in love with your art, listen to your fans. So many creatives enter into this “divalike” wannabe creative character that completely rejects criticism or client input. If you are going to turn your creative passion into a business, then you’ll need to know that your voice is not the most important one in all circumstances. The client voice is integral to the success of your business and client opinions actually matter. If I hadn’t listened to my clients or critics my work would never have become more effective at solving their problems and satisfying their wants and needs. Developing a listening posture to the point where you perceive criticism from your fans as analytical data as opposed to an ego blow, your creative business will not only startup, but flourish and bring you great joy.

Love Y’all.

Thomas.