interview
Personal branding is a key

Yuri Narvin, an expert in the field of branding and a lecturer at the Institute, shared his story with us, explained the importance of a personal brand and told us about his projects.

— Do you work as a freelancer or are you a member of an Agency?

— I have two businesses that I made. One of them is the Duga Real Estate Agency. We brand developers, real estate objects — this is a very narrowly focused studio. The second project is more large - scale and ambitious — the service of creative teams "Molnia", which brings together specialists from the creative industries: designers, copywriters, etc.

I started as a web-designer in an era when the Internet, various media, and complex animation sites were just appearing in my hometown, about 18 years ago. Then it was actually a new space in which you can create your own worlds. My first professional activity was creating websites. Over time, I realised that companies are lack of corporate identity, graphics, and design. So I retrained as a graphic designer.

Then I realised that it is extremely important to understand the essence of the company, it's philosophy, values and the people who work there. The answer for this type of questions for me was the sphere of branding and working with brands. It is not work with packaging, but at the level of a deep understanding of the essence and meaning of the company.
So I became a brand producer.

Yuri Narvin
Brand producer
It is important to understand the essence of the company, it's philosophy, values and the people who work there
— How much does your experience as a designer help you in working with brands?

— For me, these are inseparable things and just different forms of immersion. It's not interesting to just create a brand concept. It is much more effective to work on an idea that will then be expressed in the corporate style, website, events, etc.

The brand is created in the image of a person,
this is why this topic is interesting to students
— Do you want to share your knowledge or are you not going to expose it?

— Every time I come to the company, I have to give almost a full course of lectures on how branding works. I taught a course for architects at the British Higher school of design.

Now I teach a course on branding at the Sound Design Institute and talk about the relevance of sound in the brand. For the Institute, I adapted a basic course for sound designers and musicians. The brand is created in the image and likeness of a person, so the topic is clear and interesting to students.