I see marketing, promotions and media creation as art. I am an artist and I create with them. I feel things, I hear things, and I see things. I break things down into elements and am inspired by those elements. I ask questions, I feel the answers in my body and mind. I think about what I want to communicate, what I want to say based upon what I’m trying to accomplish. I find and create content, and let that inspire me as well. I often do not have a plan starting out, but let the materials and information guide me. I let them speak to me and I listen.
Then, I build a website, I write content for the website, I get the photographs and video for the website, I see messaging to communicate, I feel the messages. I create social media. I create a brand, an idea, a concept that ties everything together. I think of how I want to use that brand, how I want to communicate it visually, in written form, in video, in music, on social media.
I begin taking all these parts and putting them together, based upon what I feel, what I see, what I want to create. This is the alignment process, where I start placing all the separate elements together in a formation, in an interrelated structure. Everything is connected, everything is created with intention, united together to form a larger whole. And all the separate elements communicate to me, the larger whole communicates as well and together they are more powerful.
I started working on and experimenting with these skills around 2019. Because of the pandemic and lockdown, I began practicing in my spare time. I started taking social media, websites, visual art, music, my writing, and practicing skills like branding, messaging, communication, and the creation of the whole structure. I let my instincts be the guide, I went by feel and I just let myself have freedom with creation. I made some wonderful formations. I did not care if they made sense, I was more interested in the skills and mastery of the process.
Photo of Van Roon Martial Arts
My most transformative project was focused on martial arts. I started with a name, 2 words. I started doing research, writing, collecting pictures, interviews, quotes, videos, books, and using them for inspiration. I chose my focus on two main ideas: “martial arts mysticism” (my intellectual speciality through the years was comparative mysticism) and “warrior mind.” I was mixing martial arts and spirituality and looking at martial arts as a path of enlightenment. I took all these elements and began letting them guide my writing and content creation. I came up with a brand, a purpose, an intent with the work. I came up with original content, I came up with long-term goals. I came up with a domain name, with social media plans, and I envisioned potential visual content, such as what pictures would I take, what videos would I create, what feeling and message would I want to communicate through those images.
I’ve never talked publicly about my process of creation in our work. I don’t talk about this part of my personality at all. I’ve never shared it before tonight and I am not even sure if Paul knows about it. But for me, marketing, promotions and media creation are artwork and I am an artist. I create with them and I am created by them and for me, it is a powerful, mystical and magical process.
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Photo of Van Roon Martial Arts
