The singularity myth of personal branding
Like a corporate entity with many sub-brands, personal brands shouldn’t be a party of one. Separation gives each mode room to breathe.
Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash
We’re taught to pick a lane. Niche down. Become “The SEO Guy” or “The Creative Strategist” and flatten ourselves into a single, digestible identity. You make your art business-safe, which kills the art. Or you make your strategy creative, which kills the authority.
The myth of the personal brand is that it must be one thing. Between the boardroom, the living room, and the studio, we benefit from letting our digital presence shift registers, just as we code-switch in daily life. By cultivating multiple identities that feel true to us, we can be ourselves at scale.
The Trinity Model
Three entities. Three jobs. Three principles. If they do the same job, they cannibalize each other. If they stay in their lanes, they multiply each other’s force.
The Lab. Logic and rigor. It must be clinically accurate. It doesn’t need to be fun. The principle is truth. Success = “Is this cited?”
The Gallery. Emotion and creativity. It can be visceral. It doesn’t need to make money. The principle is beauty. Success = “Did this stop the scroll?”
The Studio. Translation and value. It must be useful. It converts the Lab’s truth and the Gallery’s beauty into something a client can act on. The principle is utility. Success = “Did this get me hired?”
My ecosystem
I’m not trying to be everything to everyone. I built a context-switch map.
Ethical Digital Labs is my Lab—a joint venture with my husband Clif. Research on AI ethics, digital strategy, quiet tech. Zines, taxonomies, frameworks. The “we” voice.
Somethos is my Gallery—multimedia essays, glitch art, speculative design. No clients, no deadlines, no justification required.
KristinMolina.com is my Studio—the consultancy. Case studies, strategic essays, the work that shows how I think.
The separation is the permission slip. Ethical can be dry because Somethos handles the weird. Somethos can be uncommercial because Ethical handles the credibility.
For example, early last year, I created a kinetic typography piece about AI replacement anxiety. Filled with corporate speak colliding with dread, I called it “On being a hot standby in the digital age.” By October, that poetic anxiety had bled into real life. This became “AI Unwrapped,” a personal essay I wrote about AI workslop. By December, the web was so slop-ridden that the research I was trying to use it for became evidence of the problem. “The Pollution Loop” became the final output.
Your trinity
You probably already have the pieces—the side project you don’t mention at work, the dry expertise that doesn’t fit your social presence. Maybe they don’t need to match. Maybe they just need separate addresses.
The secret is to embrace the doppelgänger effect: wherever I turn, I encounter a version of myself, each one true in its own way.
What would your trinity look like?
