Personal Brand Archetypes

Brand archetype

The Sage

The Sage brand archetype is a thinker. A philosopher. Their top priority is cognition and critical thinking. They seek to understand the world around them and doing so is their grandest adventure. To do this, they bring to bear great intelligence and analytical skills. They can be quick—sometimes too quick—to offer a fact or quote in any situation.

The sage brand seeks knowledge and shares that knowledge with others. In so doing, they aim to build a strong, loyal following that will keep them going forever. The sage brand dislikes misinformation, ambiguity and misleading claims. Sage brands exhibit higher than average insight.

Sage brands excel at using language and symbolism. They often differentiate themselves by publishing case studies and other pieces of literature that display their knowledge.

  • Wisdom
  • Intelligence
  • Expertise
  • Information
  • Influence
Promise
To provide wisdom & guidance
Goal
to educate, creating the perfect product or service
Strategy
to become a thought leader, constantly seeking information, knowledge and truth
Weakness
The Sage can come across as a know-it-all. If a business is driven by a Sage leader, their image can be compromised by incompetent executives, and they can be seen as out of touch.

How the Sage 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 Sage, the register to aim for is:

  • deep
  • analytical
  • factual
  • researched
  • humanist
  • trustworthy
  • wise
  • decisive
  • scholarly

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 Sage 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:

  • Lies
  • Misinformation
  • Ignorance
  • Inaccuracy
  • Stupidity

The blind spot: The Sage can come across as a know-it-all. If a business is driven by a Sage leader, their image can be compromised by incompetent executives, and they can be seen as out of touch. 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 Sage palette leans towards teal, dark green, tan, and grey.

#6C8290
#B3BDC6
#BCD4DF
#534E45
#C8BAA8
#E3E4DE

Type direction

Typefaces for the Sage should feel solid, historic, and classic fonts such as Times New Roman.

The Sage characters you already know

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

Yoda

Yoda is the most sage of sages. A mentor to many, but a lonely character.

Prof. Xavier

Dr Xavier is humane and benevolent, but his wish to test his knowledge to its limits can also be destructive.

Morpheus

Morpheus wants to free the world from untruths

Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Star Trek

Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid

Is the Sage 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