If Late Summer Could Talk…
It’s officially late summer, and here in New England that means the days are still long and warm, the nights are starting to cool off just a tad, the ocean is FINALLY warm enough to take a dip, and yes, school is STILL out. We are still in vacation style mode here, and every ounce of my summer-loving heart is obsessed with August (so much so, that we named our youngest child after our favorite beach-going month).
Full of summer nostalgia, I never want this time of year to end…I love every little part about it. But I am a truth-teller, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that summer comes with its challenges as an entrepreneur who has three kids at home. There have been easy days, some tough days, and always at the end of summer, days when I feel like I have been juggling non-stop, and I am completely exhausted. I don’t want summer to end, I will for sure be sad when my kids go back to school, but eeek, there is a little part of me that is craving a routine and looking forward to our busiest time of year, work-wise. I also truly love the fresh start feeling that comes with fall, especially as a business owner.
I deeply feel that late summer feels like the “in-between”…in between the season where we kick back a bit with our business goals and Q4, when we finish the year as strong as humanly possible. I’ve never been a good “in-betweener”. It makes me a bit anxious. On the last day of vacation, I’m like, it’s over…let’s go home, immediately. You’re either on vacation or you’re not. I started to really feel this way this past week, knowing we just have about two weeks left of making summer dreams come true for our kids while also trying to uphold our business.
Perhaps to calm my anxiety a bit, but also to tap into a creative, no-pressure project, I decided to give Late Summer a personality, a voice, and an aesthetic…a brand, if you will. I quickly went to Pinterest, and started searching for images that represented “late summer”…I typed in all different key phrases to gather the images that supported my idea, and quickly my project started to take shape. I took it another step further and created three variations of Late Summer and gave each of them their own identities. Soon, I realized that this nothing-but-fun project had a deeper meaning, one that I wanted to share with all of you.
Late Summer is late summer. It is a defined period of time. But without too much effort, it can be easily represented in different ways, in my case through the aesthetics I was choosing and the feeling that was being evoked through each one. One season, three different ways. What does this tell us in the branding world? This solidifies that the same concept, the same idea, the same business model can exist, but can be completely unique and stand out on their own.
Chances are you are not the only person running the business you run (if you are, congrats, you are probably a billionaire delivering literally anything to anyone’s door step over night ;).
Instead, it is more likely that you are in competition with other people who have a very similar business model as you. But you can still be so completely unique through remaining authentic to WHO you are, your style, your vibe, the feelings you are evoking with your brand and how you are connecting to the people you want to connect with. This is truly what branding is all about!
I’m so grateful for no-pressure projects…such a great way to play within your space, and bonus is when they have a great outcome or lesson. SO, here’s to Late Summer…let us listen and learn while holding onto the beautiful season that it is (even when it’s the in-between).
