Personal Brand Archetypes

Brand archetype

The Jester

Even a serious business can have the element of fun and the Jester brand archetype understands this the best. Fun and energetic, Jester brands expose the truth with a joke.

  • Playful
  • Humorous
  • Positivity
  • Togetherness
  • Funny
Promise
To entertain
Goal
to have fun
Strategy
to empower consumers to let go and live a little
Weakness
Jester brands can easily be typecast, and they can easily overdo the irreverence angle

How the Jester sounds

Tone of voice is the most immediately useful part of an archetype, because you apply it every time you write anything at all. For the Jester, the register to aim for is:

  • clever
  • politically incorrect
  • irreverent
  • over the top
  • high energy
  • fun loving
  • self-deprecating
  • expressive
  • silly

Write a post, then read it back against that list. If it does not sound like those words it will not sound like you either — and that gap is exactly the friction that makes publishing feel like work.

What the Jester fears

Every archetype is defined as much by what it avoids as by what it wants. These are the things this one instinctively moves away from:

  • Boredom
  • Negativity
  • Seriousness
  • Gloom
  • Misery

The blind spot: Jester brands can easily be typecast, and they can easily overdo the irreverence angle Naming it is what stops it running the show — an archetype used well leans on its strengths and plans around this one.

Colour direction

The Jester palette leans towards fun and bright colors like purples, pinks, blues, and yellows.

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#512C3F
#B54549
#D5785A
#CAB448
#B2BE4D

Type direction

Typefaces for the Jester should feel fun, youthful, and playful.

The Jester characters you already know

Recognisable examples of the pattern, described rather than pictured — these are other people's characters.

Jim Carrey

Jimmy Fallon

Robin Williams

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean

Melissa McCarthy as Megan in Bridesmaids

Matt LeBlanc as Joey in Friends

Leslie Chow in the Hangover

Is the Jester actually you?

Reading an archetype and recognising yourself in it are different things. The test scores you against all twelve and shows you the whole spread, not just the winner.

Discover Your Archetype

The other eleven