Build Your Own Path: A Guide to Personal Branding

According to Giorgio Vasari, in the early 1500s prints by Albrecht Dürer were being sold in St Mark's Square in Venice. A young engraver from Bologna, Marcantonio Raimondi, saw them, was captivated, and began copying Dürer's "Life of the Virgin" series line for line onto copper plates.

The copies were so good that people took them for Dürer's own work. Because Raimondi hadn't left out one small detail: the "AD" monogram on Dürer's prints.

According to Vasari, Dürer went to the city's government in Venice, the Signoria, to complain about Raimondi. The ruling is surprising even today: Raimondi could carry on copying. He just couldn't use Dürer's name or monogram.

Historians still argue over the details of the story. But it is known that in Raimondi's later Dürer copies, a blank tablet stands where the monogram used to be. Dürer seems to have taken precautions too: when he reprinted the series as a book in 1511, he put a stern warning on the last page. The "envious thieves" who coveted other people's labour and invention were to keep their hands off these works; they were protected by a privilege granted by Emperor Maximilian.

What was copied wasn't the picture, it was the trust

What Raimondi copied wasn't really a drawing technique. It was two letters placed inside the picture. Because those two letters made the buyer a promise: this print came from the hand of a particular master, made with particular care.

Dürer was one of the first artists to realise this. In his self-portrait of 1500, he painted himself facing straight ahead, in a pose that recalled the sacred images of the time, and wrote beside it: "I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, painted myself thus, with my own colours, at the age of twenty-eight." He hadn't waited for others to decide how he would look.

Today your name does the same job as Dürer's monogram. Above a LinkedIn post, at the bottom of a proposal, on a meeting invitation. Templates, formats, even style are easy to copy. The one thing that can't be copied is the trust that builds up behind your name.

The work behind the monogram: how to build a personal brand

Write in one sentence what you want to be remembered for

Your personal brand is the sentence people use when they talk about you. Don't leave that sentence to chance. Sum up your values and expertise in one sentence, such as "the person who explains complicated finance topics simply". Until that sentence is clear, every step you take will scatter.

Choose who you're talking to

If you talk to everyone, you reach no one. Decide whose lives you want to make a difference to: hiring managers, early-stage founders, decision-makers in a particular industry. Choose your language, your examples and your channel to suit them.

Use your mark the same way everywhere

Dürer's "AD" was the same whichever print it appeared on. Your mark is your profile photo, your headline, the way you describe yourself. Don't look like a different person on LinkedIn, in your speaker bio and in your email signature. Consistency is the precondition for recognition.

Create regularly, show up regularly

In psychology this is called the mere-exposure effect. In a study published in 1968, Robert Zajonc showed that the more often people encounter something, the more favourably they view it. Rather than flaring up once and disappearing, showing up often and regularly works better. If you're looking for inspiration, take a look at our list of 75 content creators to follow on LinkedIn.

Show your work, build relationships

Around 1515, Raphael sent Dürer one of his drawings. Dürer wrote a note on the sheet: Raphael had sent him this drawing "to show him his hand". Two of the great masters of the age got to know each other through their work. Networking works the same way: not by handing out business cards, but by showing your work.

Never stop learning

Dürer's name was already well known across Europe. Even so, in a letter from Venice in 1506 to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer, he wrote that once he had finished his work he wanted to go to Bologna: someone there would teach him the secret art of perspective. A brand isn't something you build once and leave; if you don't feed it, it goes stale. New skills, new questions and new experiments keep it alive.

Brand, mark, character

The Turkish word "marka" (brand) comes from the Italian "marca": a sign, a stamp. The English "brand", on the other hand, was born of fire. In Old English it meant a burning piece of wood, a torch. In the mid-1500s it came to describe a mark burned on with a hot iron; in particular, the mark burned on to casks that showed whose hands the contents came from and their quality.

The real surprise is "character". The Greek "kharaktēr" first meant an engraver. Then it became the name of the engraving tool and of the die used to strike coins. Next it became the impression that die left behind. In the Hellenistic period it took on the meaning of the trait that sets one person apart from others. At its root is the verb "to engrave".

All three words lead to the same place: a mark left permanently on a surface. A personal brand, too, is the mark you leave in people's minds. No logo engraves that mark, and no colour palette. Character engraves it: behaviour repeated with the same care every day, in every piece of work.

A final word

Heraclitus of Ephesus said it in three words two and a half thousand years ago:

"Ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων." A person's character is their fate.

So when someone sees your name today, what mark appears in their mind: one you engraved with your own hand, or a copy of a template everyone uses?