John Metta: An Intentional Brand

The John Metta Brand Logo

I recently spend some money on something frivolous.

Branding.

I, John Metta, a person living in a small house in Hood River, have a logo.

I actually worked with a graphic artist who specializes in branding to create “The John Metta Brand”

Seriously.

Yes. Yes, I know.

The Branding of Mettadore

The obvious question, and one I would’ve asked a couple years ago is this:

Why should I brand myself? I’m a person. I’m not a company!

I never would have thought of coming up with a brand because, well, I’m just me. Branding myself would be- there’s no other word for it- vain. Really vain. Who am I? Madonna?

But then I started to notice that something interesting was happening: I was being accidentally branded.

I say “accidentally” because I didn’t know it was happening, even though it was me who was doing it… on purpose. How’d I do it? Easy. I signed up for my Last.fm account using the username “Mettadore”

I signed up for my Github account using the username “Mettadore”

I signed up for my Twitter account using– well, you get the idea.

For years, I was using Mettadore as a username. One day, I woke up to discover that I was Mettadore. Who the hell is Mettadore? It’s not my name. It’s not my nickname. Where’d it come from?

You want to know what “Mettadore” really is? Mettadore is a name that came from a laughter-filled lunchtime conversation years ago while I worked at Oregon DEQ- where everyone was trying to think of funny porn-star nicknames they would have. My nickname was “The Mettadore!”

I was being branded as a joke pornstar, and I didn’t even really know it was happening.

This became clear to me when I presented at Ignite Portland and people called me Mettadore. Suddenly, there were pictures of Mettadore on Flickr and people talking about Mettadore’s presentation. People over the last few years have often introduced me as Mettadore.

It became much clearer that branding was something that I needed to take control of when I was working as lead developer for a small start-up called EcoApprentice and the CEO thought- for the majority of my time working with him- that “Mettadore” was a company. He thought he was hiring me through Mettadore.

I was an accidental brand. I was branded by my joke pornstar name and by people’s Google Searches.

Taking Charge of My Brand

Years ago, none of this would have mattered. Years ago, an online account was merely a way for you to access information that you stored, well, online. That’s not the case anymore. The reasons are part Google, part Twitter, part Facebook and all internet, but now, your online accounts are as much a way for other people to access your information as they are a way for you to access your information. And you, my friend, are information.¹

We are quickly becoming branded by the sum total of our online activities, and I decided to take the step to make that branding intentional, rather than accidental.

Step one: Ditch The Mettadore

Textmark

Well, not really. I mean, it is a really cool name- and for some reason seems to endear me to the ladies… and anything that helps endear me to the ladies is A Good Thing™, but I decided that I wanted people to know me, not my joke name. I want to be open and build relationships with people, so my I started using my real name instead of a nickname. “JohnMetta,” I decided, would be my brand.

I decided to keep Mettadore, but to use that name for stuff that was not directly me. My Mettadore Twitter account sends out any automated messages that people interacting directly with me wouldn’t necessarily care to see. My Mettadore Github account holds not my personal code, but code I’ll collaborate on heavily with other people- group code.

For stuff that is me, directly me, JohnMetta is what I want people to connect with.

I also decided that there would be no space between my first and last name in the textmark. It is still obvious that it’s a first and last name, but also connects better with my JohnMetta usernames online.

Step two: Think up a Logo

This was the hardest. I wanted a logo that reflected me, but that reflected the work that I do as well. As such, it had to have a number of qualities that were somewhat orthogonal. It had to be whimsical yet serious when needed. It had to be approachable, inviting a relationship (both personal and professional). It had to be strongly related to my name (both John Metta and Mettadore) as well as related to the various work that I do (computer programming, scientific data analysis, etc). And finally it had to be simple- like any good logo should be.

WordPress

All of this took a lot longer than I thought, and many of the initial rounds were actually based on an “M” in a circle that was very much like the WordPress logo. That beautifully elegant “W” in a circle. The initial proofs of my icon looked much more like this because I wanted the icon to be connected to WordPress. I do most of my writing in WordPress, I program for it, I maintain sites for other people using it. It’s a big part of what I do, but creating an emblem for myself that was strongly aligned with just that wouldn’t leave much room for, say Rails development or data analysis.

MettaIcon

I started thinking about the @ symbol. It’s like an ‘a’ that wants to have a bit of fun. It’s an ‘a’ that doesn’t need the ‘t’ because it’s lazy enough to not want it, but smart enough to think of a way to still have it. It was used in accounting early on, so is related to quantitative practices, but it’s also a symbol that has really helped connect people. Email is the biggest example of this connectivity, but Twitter and Facebook have both encorporated it. It’s a symbol that anyone working with data and/or computers sees everyday, and it’s simple.

It had everything I needed except that it wasn’t a letter that mattered. So, I found a graphic artist who could make something like that happen. He made an M in a swirl that simultaneously suggested an @ symbol while also being it’s own powerful representation. He created an ‘M’ with flair. An M that was whimsical but also serious.

Step 3: Colors

Color should be intentional, meaningful, a reflection of you.

But I was tired.

Diego initially gave me a list of possible colors, and I chose a random orange as much because I was so emotionally tired from the whole process as anything else. I originally chose an orange and blue combination that is almost exactly that of the New York Mets (I know this because a friend pointed it out). It was also the colors of my high school, and the orange of my graduate school. But, that was the final, so I figured I was stuck with it.

Then, I realized I wasn’t.

Stacked logo

Because I saw this excellent page on the WordPress logo which included the official WordPress Palet which is- holy of holies- orange and blue! But it’s a different orange and blue. The orange deeper and the blue lighter. I saw this and thought to myself “It’s my logo, it’s my identity, it’s my brand, so it’s my decision.”

So I decided to use that color palette to tie it to WordPress in a more loose fashion.

I also decided to take another page out of WordPress’ book and separate the words in the name by color. WordPress is only one word, but the logo often separates the “Word” and the “Press” elegantly by color. Doing so in a similar way to “JohnMetta” helps to differentiate the first and last name.

I showed a bunch of people the initial version with the old color scheme and got comments like “New York Mets,” “cartoon,” and “politician.” This color scheme elicited responses like “smart” and “cool,” much more inline with my hopes.

Should you brand yourself?

So, I’m branded now. I’ll put this stamp on everything I do, and hope that people start seeing it… and associating it with me… and associating me with good work. I’ll be intentional about the “face” of JohnMetta on the internet, rather than just letting it happen.

Should you do this too?

Only you can answer that.

You might be like my sister who doesn’t need branding because she’s basically not on the internet at all. You might be like my friend Harry, or my friend Pete- someone who doesn’t need branding because you’ll always be “that guy,” you know, “the guy who did the amazing incredible thing?” You might be good/smart/lucky enough for people to associate you primarily with some great success.

But chances are, you’re just a no-body like me. The only problem is no-body is a no-body on the internet- you just need to determine which somebody you’ll be.

I don’t know if you need branding. I don’t actually know if I need branding. But I know that I at least need whatever I become to be intentional.

So, my suggestion to you is this:

If people are going to Google you, if people are going to see your reflections, shadows, and fingerprints on the internet or elsewhere, if anyone, at anytime, is going to look for you, then you owe it to yourself to create the presentation that you want to be associated with. You owe it to yourself to give them the view that you want them to see. Because there’s a view out there… of you… right now.

You’re already branded.

You don’t have to hire a designer and go about it like I did, but you should at least think about it.

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1. This is more true, of course, for someone like me, who works daily in a connected world, interacting with connected people, and communicating through all of those online accounts (this blog being one of them). Truthfully, my little sister, without any online presence, is somewhat out of this realm. She is “Jacqueline Yates from Rochester.” Me? I’m “John Metta from a Google search” [↩]