Self-Organizing Man

Ms. H. shared with me last night that I dress better now than when we first began dating. As I’ve assumed a more public role over the last two years, I’ve come to believe that appearance - be it clothing, blog design, handwriting - really means a great deal for me.

So I’ve been devouring behance of late. I love their swag. And today’s post seemed to speak to me.

“In essence, your productivity as a creative professional requires that you create an advertisement of you. Not a literal advertisement, but rather a concise message, a repetition of your goals, and a collective display of all you have accomplished and learned in the pursuit of your passion.”

Whether it is your virtual or physical portfolio, day-to-day correspondence, or your actual physical appearance, constant effort is a necessity; this may be as simple as running a spell-check or making sure you’re wearing clean socks or as complex as redesigning your entire website. For some, these things may come more naturally than for others — in theory, writers should be able to edit, and designers able to create portfolios — but all too often the adage “a dentist’s children have the worst teeth” rings true.

“You are your own PR agent, and you must manage the opportunities and risks throughout every interaction, communication, career move, and decision.”

(Read more.)

I sometimes use the word style rather than presentation. But whether it’s style or presentation, the look of what we do and the look of how we do it, really, really matters. Most of all to ourselves.