Homework Hi y’all! I’m Hayley & I’m so happy to be here! My Brand is better known as Sad Beige & I find most people don’t know my real name so I’m including both 😂 I guess in that sense the Brand IS Strong. Much like the leopard print, I get tagged in EVERYTHING beige. My Brand’s Why: I love creating funny, authentic content that goes beyond a good knee-slap; I like creating comedy & poetry that points to things & concepts larger than myself in order to push people to dig into trends & consumer habits & really interrogate stuff. I like making creative pieces that wedge themselves in people’s brains and that make people THINK. My 3 Brand Pillars: ETA because I’m a comedian and writer, my topics tend to vary, so I’ve gone with more Vibes than Content-Specific pillars, because I like to be open-ended & I’m trying to steer myself OUT of a box. Even though algorithms love a box, haha. - Earnest — I can’t help it so might as well lean into it! I’ve climbed Cringe Mountain enough to get to the point where I’m comfortable being the earnest person I am online, without apology. I own it. I’m earnest! - Open — I never want to act like if people don’t get something that they should be embarasssd. I’m a librarian IRL so that’s a core value for me. My ethos is very much “not everyone knows everything & asking is GOOD” — this also means I’m open to being wrong and changing my mind about things. - Funny With a Conscience  — Because I write about silly and serious things, I take care to be mindful of what’s joke material, and what isn’t. Likewise, I try to support causes I believe in with my work, a rising tide lifts all boats etc. - Branding: you’d think it would be beige, but I just cannottttt. Since my book came out I’ve been using a lot of sage green to go with its style but I’m not married to it and I find myself gravitating towards grass green more. But then I launched my clothing website with buttercup & purple so maybe I steer into that…. I admit this is hard for me simply because of how I film content — in my car before work. But!! That’s why I’m here! To level up & do things like plan ahead!

Hey all! My name is Gaby Castro. I’m a musician (primarily a clarinetist & instrumental music producer) & a witch, with expertise in tarot and astrology. I also really love fantasy genre related things, video games, anime, and cosplay (I see these things as a big part of my identity)! Before I get into the main points of the homework, I should preface this with a little backstory about my content creation journey so people might understand where I’m coming from. I started out my content creation journey making YouTube music videos with my clarinet quartet, Four Play Clarinet, which we started while I was getting my Masters in Music Performance at Cal State Fullerton (2015). The music videos were covers of well-known pop + electronic music, with the main features of the song being arranged into the clarinet parts while we worked with music producers who wrote backing tracks & produced electronics alongside recorded clarinet, at least for the majority of the covers. Initially, we had a composer friend from school helping us with the arrangements, but we (myself and another member of the quartet) ended up writing a lot of the clarinet parts ourselves! The success of that channel is kind of what catapulted my career as a musician and, as a point to share one of my favorite pieces of content I’ve ever created for the homework, here’s one of the music videos we did covering Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics. It’s one of my favorite music videos we ever did! https://youtu.be/5Cd7dyiuYrY?si=WAoNA5tZI6gOGQpL Unfortunately, as members changed & COVID happening as we were beginning to plan out live concerts, things with the quartet fell apart and we officially disbanded in 2022. Ever since then, I’ve kind of been trying to figure out what content creation looks like for me and debated a lot whether I actually want to create content at all, and the conclusion I came to is that I definitely want to give it more of an honest effort, though I’ll be honest, I’m coming to this course feeling very BLOCKED.

I’m Yohanna Báez, a working artist, writer, and the founder of ArtistTracker. I’m developing Field Notes, a 'build in public'/web series about how working artists sustain their practice. My brand’s why Artists create culture, but often lack the money, time, and support to keep making it. ArtistTracker/Field Notes helps working artists build sustainable careers while protecting their creative voice. My three brand pillars 1. Sustainability: What helps artists keep going? Honest conversations about money, time, paid work, rest, and the practical conditions that sustain an art practice. 2. Access: Who gets opportunities, and why? Exploring how funding, institutions, networks, geography, and visibility shape artistic careers. I help artists understand those systems, assess opportunities, and recognize barriers that ARE NOT personal failures. 3. Agency: How do artists retain control? Examining authorship, technology, data, ownership, and creative independence (this synthetic flood is here!). I explore how artists can use tools and build relationships while keeping control over our work, our voice, and our decisions. Across all three pillars, my central question is: Does this help working artists build a sustainable life with more choice? I am most proud of putting myself out there with this video I recorded on my laptop and edited in CapCut months ago, but FINALLY posted to YouTube about 5 minutes ago (the fear is strong!). I am at the summit of cringe mountain, open to your feedback: