Personal branding—self-promotion kit

•

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen teacher

Hello, I am elsa. I am a communication designer.

As a second career lifer, I’m more mature (in age) than my peers entering the same industry. One of the concerns potential employers may have is I am not as open minded or curious. To challenge the likely assumption, my self-branding system design is inspired by the notion of beginner’s mind (shoshin 初心), which originated from Zen Buddhism.

Particulary, the self-promotion kit is as assembly of a mini gardening set, curriculum vitae and portfolio book.

With a gardening set, I seek to engage the grower in the concept of shoshin. The kit comes with a white plant dish and soil collected from where I spent most of my time growing up, shaping the strengths in me today. No seeds have been artificially sown in the soil, but keeping it well-lit and watering it in the next months may see growth (or otherwise). The uncertainty gets the grower to embrace possibilities with a beginner’s mind, and also, to put aside preconceptions (e.g. of mature entrants to the creative industry). It also suggests the possibilities that I could bring in growing the business together.

Inspired by a Chinese calligraphy kit, both my curriculum vitae and portfolio are printed on papers similar to “xuan” paper used for chinese calligraphy.