When We Finally Have Words

On language, identity, and the cost of being unnamed.

I’ve been calling myself a graphic designer for thirty years.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s true. I am a graphic designer. But recently I’ve started to realize that calling myself a graphic designer is a bit like calling a general contractor “a hammerer.”

I mean, SURE. It’s accurate, but it’s nowhere close to being complete.

•••

For most of my career, I lived in the gap between what I was doing and what I had the words to explain.

I could feel the scope of my work extending far beyond “I make things look good”. Even early in my career I started saying things like, “I find smart, beautiful, creative solutions.”

But I didn’t have the complete language for what I was actually doing when I helped people or organizations clarify their missions, then build layered brand systems, or translate their big, messy ideas into something people could see and feel and gather around.

So I kept using the words I had. Like, Graphic Designer.

The equivalent of introducing yourself at an event saying, “I work at a computer.”

And it always felt so, spiritually incomplete.

And without the right words, I consistently undercharged for the work. Because when you can’t name it accurately, you can’t price it accurately. And when you can’t price it, the world will continue to cheerfully accept it at a discount! (The world is very good at accepting discounts, by the way! It will not correct you.)

•••

Over the past few months, something has shifted in my language.

I was looking at a new client project (a brand architecture system for an incredible nonprofit organization). It included three interwoven layers: an established organizational identity, a new community initiative, and a time-sensitive campaign designed to scale across events and fundraising. I’d built the strategic framework, the visual system, the naming conventions, and presented it all to their board.

Weeks of deep, careful, architecturally complex work.

And on my initial invoice draft, I’d labeled it “logo design.”

I stared at that line item for a long time. Two words doing the work of a lifetime. Two words that had left lots of money on the table over my career. Thousands. Maybe more. Definitely more, if I’m being honest, which is sort of the whole point of this li’l essay.

I’ve been doing strategic brand consulting for decade and calling it graphic design.

Pricing it like graphic design. Positioning it like graphic design. Because THAT was the language I had. Those were the words I was given..

Here’s the thing about language: it doesn’t just describe our reality. It builds a fence around it. It keeps us captive and stuck, while our work and life evolves.

When we don’t have new words for what we do (or who we are / becoming), we can’t advocate for it. We can’t build a body of work around it. We can’t find our people, because they’re searching (or not!) for words that we don’t have yet either.

I think about this in my teaching life, too. I’m an adjunct instructor, and I see students wrestle with it. I think there are moments they realize they’re not just “learning Photoshop.” They’re learning visual communication. Problem-solving. Learning how to inspire someone feel something using color and space and type. But the syllabus says Digital Imaging, so that’s what we call it.

We all do this. We inherit language and then live inside its limitations without realizing there might be a bigger house available.

Think about how many job titles are just... legacy placeholders...

“Secretary” became “administrative assistant” became “executive coordinator” became “chief of staff.” Same person, in very many cases. But the evolving language unlocks entirely different levels of respect, compensation, and authority. The work didn’t necessarily change, but the words did. And then the work could change, because those words gave it permission.

•••

And then one day (sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once) a NEW word arrives in our awareness.

For me, it was creative strategist. Then brand architect.

They weren’t just aspirational labels; they were definitely, also accurate ones. They all described what I’d been doing (all along). My vocabulary and my work are still, continually evolving. And I’m so grateful to still be doing the work I set out to do. AND to have better and better language to label it.

•••

But here’s what nobody tells any of us about finding the right words for yourself: THAT’s just half of the adventure.

The other half is figuring out how to translate those shiny, new words so they actually make sense for someone else.

I learned this (again) recently, of all places, from my mom (of course!).

I sent her a draft my updated website design, with the new language I was so proud of inspired by. New words for my work that finally felt more accurate and more true.

She looked at it and wrote back, with total love:

“It looks great!! Seems very… complex.”

My first instinct was to feel a little bit defensive. She’s not my target audience.
She doesn’t need to understand what “brand architecture” means.

But then I looked again (really looked, with new eyes) and I saw what she meant. I’d found all these great new words for me. But I’d written them for me, too.

I was asking visitors to already understand my work in order to understand my work.

So, I sat with it, examined my shiny new words, and I started to simplify and translate them.

“I build strategic frameworks for moments of transition” became:

”I help organizations get clear on what to create next.”

Same work. Same me. But now with a label people could actually read and feel and (hopefully!) understand.

•••

Looking back, I think this journey has three phases, and I’ve navigated them all, in various aspects of life and work over the years.

Phase One: It’s unnamed. We don’t have the words yet. We’re living something we can’t describe. Doing sophisticated work under a old title. Being undervalued, and not entirely sure why, just that it stings a little more, year after year.

Phase Two: It’s named. New words arrive! We find brand architect or creative director or strategist (or whatever your version is). This is the moment everyone celebrates! The joy of finally seeing yourself clearly. Of looking at your work and thinking, YES! That’s what it is. THAT is who I AM. (It’s a very good moment. Highly recommend.)

Phase Three: It’s translated. We realize that having new words for ourselves doesn’t necessarily mean those are the right words for everyone else. We learn to hold our full complexity internally while sharing something else outside yourself. Something... simpler and more accessible for others to grasp and connect to. An invitation to connect rather than a thesis to defend. 🙃

I think I’m in the middle of Phase Three, right now, in this next, new chapter of work. And.. it might be the hardest one.

It requires being secure enough in who you are that you don’t need every word to to be “right” prove it. You just need enough words to ignite a new conversation.

•••

I think about this beyond my own work, too.

I think about all the people (maybe you?) who are stuck in Stage One right now. Doing work that exceeds their titles. Holding back and hiding talents and expertise they’ve never named or never considered that might be better language to describe who they are and what they do. Charging for the thing they can easily label, while giving away the (MOST VALUABLE) thing they can’t.

If that’s you, here’s what I’d like to offer:

The new language will come. Be open and pay attention. It might arrive from a book, a mentor, a podcast, a conversation with a stranger at a conference who says the exact phrase you’ve been contemplating for years.

It might arrive the way mine did (staring at an invoice and realizing the gap between what I habitually wrote and what I actually built could fit a whole second career inside it).

When your new words come, they won’t instantly create the next, new YOU. You’ve been here all along. They’ll just make you more visible and more accessible to your people.

And THEN (and this is the part I’m still learning) you’ll get to decide how to translate visibility that for the people you most want to reach.

•••

I recently rebuilt my website with this principle in mind: let the language finally catch up with the work.

If you’re curious to see how this chapter is taking shape, you’re welcome to take a look: → aaronembrey.com

And if you’re somewhere in this journey yourself (unnamed, newly named, or still learning how to translate who you are or what you do) I hope you’ll be patient with the process. It took me thirty years (and a very honest mother).

Much love, more soon,
Aaron