Personal Branding Through Visual Storytelling

Clarify Your Professional Story

Identify what makes your experiences, values, skills, and perspective distinctive—and learn how to communicate them clearly.

Build a Consistent Visual Identity

Develop a visual direction that can be applied across your portfolio, website, LinkedIn profile, presentations, and social media.

Strengthen Your Digital Presence

Learn how to create purposeful content that supports your professional goals instead of posting without a clear strategy.

Communicate Your Value

Develop a concise value proposition, professional biography, and personal pitch that you can use during networking, interviews, client meetings, and presentations.

Explore AI Without Losing Authenticity

Use AI as a creative support tool for brainstorming and visual exploration while keeping your personal narrative, judgment, and originality at the center of your work.

Leave With Tangible Materials

Complete the course with a personalized Brand Kit that can continue evolving alongside your career or business.

This course is ideal for:

• Creative professionals
• Entrepreneurs and small business owners
• Freelancers and independent consultants
• Job seekers and career changers
• Artists, designers, photographers, and content creators
• Professionals building a LinkedIn presence or portfolio
• Students and recent graduates
• Community leaders and nonprofit professionals
• Anyone seeking to communicate their story with greater clarity and confidence

No advanced design, branding, or software experience is required.

Personal Branding Through Visual Storytelling is an interdisciplinary professional development course designed to help students identify, develop, and communicate a compelling personal or professional identity.

Students will explore how their experiences, cultural backgrounds, professional skills, interests, and values can become meaningful narratives for contemporary professional environments. The course introduces accessible strategies for developing a personal brand across LinkedIn, portfolios, websites, presentations, social media platforms, and entrepreneurial projects.

Through narrative mapping, photography, drawing, visual references, design exercises, motion graphics concepts, and AI-assisted experimentation, students will develop a consistent visual and professional presence.

Rather than focusing only on logos or graphic identity systems, the course approaches personal branding as a process of storytelling, visual consistency, creative direction, and professional communication.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Identify the experiences, values, skills, and professional goals that shape a personal brand.
• Apply storytelling principles to professional and entrepreneurial communication.
• Develop a visual language using imagery, typography, color, composition, and creative references.
• Create narrative maps and visual mood boards.
• Produce consistent visual content for professional digital platforms.
• Develop content strategies for LinkedIn, portfolios, websites, and social media.
• Structure and deliver a short personal or professional pitch.
• Use AI tools responsibly for brainstorming, research, and visual experimentation.
• Produce a Personal Visual Storytelling Brand Kit for future professional use.

• Personal Brand Development
• Visual Storytelling
• Narrative Development
• Professional Communication
• Visual Identity and Creative Direction
• Photography and Self-Representation
• Content Strategy
• LinkedIn and Portfolio Branding
• Social Media Storytelling
• Mood Board Development
• Professional Pitching
• AI-Assisted Ideation

No Design Experience Required!

This course emphasizes ideas, communication, storytelling, and creative direction rather than advanced software skills.

Required Materials

Students may use:

• Paper, pencils, markers, index cards, and a sketchbook
• A smartphone with a camera
• A laptop or tablet, when available
• Personal photographs and professional references
• Optional platforms such as Canva, Adobe Creative Suite, Procreate, or similar creative tools
• Instructor-approved AI tools for ideation and visual exploration

Fall 2026: 

Dates: September 30 - November 18 | Wednesdays | 6:00 - 9:00 pm 

Total Instructional Hours: 24; Total Sessions: 8; In-Person at CWE 25 Broadway, 7th Floor

$350 + $25 registration fee

Total: $375*

*CCNY students, staff, and Alumni Association members receive a 10% discount.

Dario Fernando Bolívar Gómez 

Dario Bolivar is a digital artist with experience in animation and illustration, educator and researcher in the areas of transmedia and motion graphics, has an extensive portfolio in illustrated books, multimedia and 2d and 3d animation projects in Colombia and the United States, winner of Emmy NY 2021 award.  Dario has a Masters in Multimedia from Universidad Oberta de Catalunya, July 2015, and a Bachelors in Graphic Design from Bellas Artes, Cali, Colombia, December 1999.  His areas of expertise are Multimedia Design Animation, Transmedia, and Digital 2d & 3d Illustration.