Timeless, muted and elegant brand design for a product and lifestyle photographer
THE CLIENT
Weronika and I started working together a couple of years ago when I actually approached her to photographs some of my products. You know when you find someone who's just really on your level in every single way? Well, that's exactly what happened. She sent me some beautiful photos that now sit nicely over on my Etsy store, and after we exchanged lots of 'It was SO fun working with you' and 'Oh thanks, it was SO fun working with you too!' emails, she enquired if I'd be up for working on a total refresh of her brand. Obviously I jumped at the chance because, mainly, I absolutely adore her work. The compositions, light and textures that emanate from her work speak volumes and really aligned with the type of work I love to be involved in, so it felt like a natural fit to work together.
Before and after:
THE BRIEF
Create a brand design that reflects the sustainable and simple nature of Weronika's style, avoiding anything trendy that could date easily. Included within the whole rebrand were logo variations, submark designs, colours palettes, typography choices, illustrative elements, backgrounds, patterns, textures and photography.
INITIAL IDEAS
Here's the initial ideas that I sent Weronika. Personally I love the start of the design process because it's feels like a real playground for ideas. At this point it's not about getting the perfect results - it's about exploring and pushing boundaries to work out a clear direction to take the brand.
I'm also big on visualising exactly how your brand will look from the get go. You'll never just receive a couple of black and white logo options on a white page from me.
Although the colours and layout changed slightly, the final logo design actually ended up not too far away from this very initial one ^ Isn't that always the way?
We both LOVED the colour palette for this option ^ They felt incredibly soothing with a warm and professional edge.
After much deliberation we decided hand drawn florals were not the direction we wanted to take. It felt too feminine and 'pretty', and we were looking for something more neutral and sleek. Sometimes you've just gotta try these things to see they're not right.
The playful, bold nature of this option was a push too far for Weronika's brand, but again, always good to explore these things even if it's just to move them to the reject* pile.
*How mean is the word reject by the way? It only hit me when I wrote it just then, and now I think I'm going to avoid ever using it again. Any other words for reject welcome in the comments below.
DEVELOPING THE FAVOURITES
I can pretty much always guarantee that my clients will love different aspects from each of the initial designs, and that's totally ok. That's what the preliminary stage is all about; mixing, matching and finding our groove. Here's where we went next...
Things we loved:
The cooler earthy, calm colour palette
The typographic 'Photography' arc element
Things we ditched:
The creamy, warm hues of the first colour palette
The hand written font for 'Weronika'
At this stage it's much easier to see a clear winner because you're starting to really weed out anything that feels out of place. The first options is pretty much there now, the only thing left to do is tweak the colours, et voila...
Drum roll please...
THE CHOSEN ONE
Here she is, in all her glory. Timeless elegance with a modern, contemporary feel; the final concept chosen for Weronika Photography.
You can see more on the final project in my portfolio section.
See my work in real life:
Interested in working together to create a beautiful brand your clients will go wild for? Get in touch here.
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