Last fall I began the process of hiring a design firm to re-brand my business. My look had been pretty much the same since 2018, with a few minor changes. While I’ll always love the first “look” I knew it was time to make some changes based on the evolving identity of the business and our decision to create some specific educational programs.
I think that there are a couple of things that prevent business owners from being able to realize the development of a brand identity. The most obvious to me is a fear or inability to commit to a look that isn’t perfect or exactly as they may have imagined it to be. Your brand won’t have a perfect identity. Ever. That’s because your business will continue to grow and change and in about 5-10 years you will probably want to refresh things.
A good re-branding campaign will take some visual cues from your current identity to morph them into something new for you. It’s a good idea to try to hold on to something that your customers identify with. I don’t recommend to a complete 180 on them, unless you’re starting from a point that you are really unhappy with.
After a few years I began to feel like my look was a little too rustic. At this point my target customers were mostly wedding clients, so I elected to move to a soft font that is familiar and a bit more elegant. The font is Caslon. You’ll see it represented on the covers of some magazines. I chose to move to all lowercase letters to soften the look further.
The barn swallow is our “thing” to hold on to. When I first started growing flowers during summer vacations between school years I was working out of a little farmhouse with an old barn in New Hampshire. The swallow dashed in and out of that barn over my head all the time. I loved them and was delighted to find a new pair in the little old shed when we moved to our current place in New York.
The Third Chapter:
For our update we worked with The Homegrown Studio .
Among other things, we held strong to our “please don’t make us look too ‘farmy’” philosophy and asked that the bird be held on to and that it be used to help us show more movement.
We wanted our brand to communicate growth and change for clients (now mostly other small business owners and flower farmers) who are movers and shakers. We wanted the bird to also help us show the delivery of products.
We wanted fonts that were solid and anchored, but not too rustic. The vast majority of our customers, now, are in the flower world and not so much the rural Adirondacks.
I also wanted our new identity to reference our gardens and perennials and plants that are featured prominently as products or in programs here (like the tulips and roses!).
The branding / identity development package that we choose was the “full” package offered by our designers. It included:
A discovery call and presentation and refinement of the presentation
A primary logo design process including an initial offering of 3 original concepts and 2 rounds of refinements.
Secondary logos, word marks, illustrations, a color palette, fonts, etc. to support the brand identity, plus 2 rounds of refinements.
3 basic print applications of the new look to help us apply the identity. Plus 2 rounds of refinements.
Delivery of the full package of all elements in the various colors and styles and in multiple formats.
The project took several months to complete. We began in late November and worked with The Homegrown Studio a little each week from then until mid February. They would send us some things to look at each week, beginning with the discovery presentation. We’d share what we liked or disliked and we’d move on. They were wonderful to work with. And everything was very smooth from my perspective.
Cost: $6k
Have questions about our brand/identity projects? Let me know. I’m happy to share more with you.
