Melissa is a young designer currently studying at university. Her concern and passion for the environment has led her to develop a self-brand that has enabled her to stand out amongst her competition and relate to something that is of importance and unique to her.

Melissa’s self-brand has contributed to her rational values of expertise and experience, as she has gained clients who have identified that they “like what she is about” after viewing her work on her website and social media accounts. She reflects on how this has helped her develop skills she requires for future employment.

Her emotional values are demonstrated as she states that her self-brand is of extreme importance to her work as a freelancer, giving her the ability to show her personality without meeting her. She states that, “it lets an employer know about my values, my humour, my everything. It’s me in brand form”.

However, self-branding wasn’t an entirely positive journey for Melissa. She encountered difficulties in presenting her brand consistently online, specifically in terms of maintaining a certain appearance and colour palette across different media platforms. She stated, “it’s a lot of work and being up and happy all the time is sometimes hard”.

Melissa strived to overcome these challenges, as she began implementing a consistent logo across her social media accounts. She continues to maintain a clean-look, comprised of a ‘faded’ colour palette with witty captions, such as “stop sucking” for the image shown, to compliment the seriousness of the issues she’s demonstrating.