From The Studio

Liezl Croft is an utterly lovely wedding and family portrait photographer. A force of South African fabulousness, creative, warm, friendly and with an eye for fun she asked us to create a brand refresh and blogsite that would reflect where her business is today as well as (of course) attracting and retaining lots of new clients.

And whilst we’ve been working with her on her printed literature now for several years, I was delighted when she asked us to give her blog a brandover. Having set up her business less than two years ago, Liezl had previously created her websites herself and felt that her business was at a level where she was ready to step things up a gear.

As well as being a cracking lifestyle photographer, Liezl is also very crafty and I think you’ll see that come through in the look and feel of the site.

We’ve worked on creating direct mail for Liezl in the past (which we won a design award last year for) but this project gave us the chance to really flex our creative muscles! We designed to create Liezl a WordPress based blogsite – a website and blog rolled into one which would give her the chance to showcase her photography without being too onerous to manage.

We put together a colour palette that created an aspirational feel, whilst plenty of texture and elements like the bunting creates a sensory quality and follows on from the work we did previously on the mailers. We all love the icons that Chloe created for each category, and the beautiful pattern that sets off the blog. I’d always known that Liezl’s work was beautiful, but what I hadn’t appreciated was the enormous difference the right surroundings make to her images.

If you take a look at the difference between the old blog and the new, I think you’ll agree they’re night and day apart.

Liezl’s old blog

I don’t want to embarrass anyone by going into this too heavily, let’s just say that the design of the blog had a long way to catch up with the quality of Liezl’s work…

And the new blogsite

Liezl has been so much fun to work with on this project and we wish her lots of luck with the new site and branding. It’s too early to measure the financial success of the blog – it’s been live for less than a month, but visits have doubled and the feedback to Liezl’s Facebook and Twitter page was overwhelming! Do hope on over and take a look (and do leave her a comment too, it’s so lovely to receive feedback when you’re writing your heart out and you know how lonely it can be when you’re first blogging)… You’ll find Liezl’s website and blog at www.liezlcroft.com

Tagged as in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio, Web Design, Websites

Would you like a sneak preview of the Branding Masterclass branding? Oh go on then…

With less than two weeks to go until the launch of the fabulous online Branding Masterclass the team in the studio are working incredibly hard dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the brand identity and blogsite. You can see the brand elements below.

You’re going to see a bit of a nip tuck to the Flourish brand identity over the next couple of months as we prepare for a very exciting extension and refocus on our own brand. I’ll be sharing more about the story behind that soon, but in the meantime, this gives you a flavour for where we’re headed. The Branding Masterclass needs to reflect and work with our brand, but it’s also a brand in it’s own right, with it’s own attributes and characteristics, so we needed to keep it all similar but not the same.

The colour palette focuses on creativity, communication, logic and clarity. The graph paper gives a nod to work (yes, it will be a lot of fun, but I will be working them hard too!) and the icons give direction around the site.

The class will be held online via a password protected blogsite, so we needed to create a clean and easy to navigate design that  inspired the participants to focus, reflect and take action. Here are a couple of screengrabs:

The login page

We wanted to keep this simple – it’s about getting people to do what you want – login or register for details of the next class. For the people that aren’t registered, obviously this is all they’ll see…

And the class pages themselves

I was in two minds about whether to show you this, but it just looks so beautiful that I couldn’t resist! I am desperate to overhaul the Full Bloom blog design now (yes, I know again but there is so much I’d like to change…). There are still a couple of changes to make but what I hope you can see is how light, airy and neat everything feels. The perfect setting to the inspirational and powerful nature of the content

Registration for the masterclass will close at midnight on Sunday 5th February so if you’d like to get involved, then don’t forget to book – go on, do it now, while you remember… Full details on the website.

Tagged as in Branding, Case Studies, Flourish Stuff, From The Studio, The Flourish Identity, Workshops

Shameless plug alert! We have some wonderful business owners signed up to join me on 6th Feb for the Branding Masterclass but as the Early Bird Offer ends on Sunday I thought I’d give you a quick reminder of the reasons you need to book your place if you haven’t already:

1. Staying ahead of the game. You can never, ever say that your brand is “done”: markets move on, competitors spring up out of nowhere, your skills grow and develop and customer needs change. You need to be able to respond to that quickly and I’ll show you how in Week One.
2. Developing your brand identity to keep it fresh and inspiring. Whether you have a lovely logo and website or not, you’ll gain oodles of value from our forays into colour psychology and the mood board session in Week Two.
3. To ensure you get maximum bang out of this year’s marketing buck. This year is going to be tough, no doubt about it, but that doesn’t mean you need to slink back into the undergrowth and wait until it all passes. Get yourself out there and take advantage of the fact your competitors are shrinking away! We’ll create a powerful marketing plan in Week Three.
4. Because I’ll help you blow your clients away with every communication. We’ll map out your customer journey from the first enquiry to the last invoice and make sure you create a wow at every stage. You’ll love it!
5. Ratcheting up the effectiveness of your website. Because unless you have created your website in the last six months and you know there is nothing you can do to improve it you’ll get loads of value out of the website planning/ overhaul sessions in Week Four.
6. Reconnecting with your business and inspiring you to really get out there and make the most of this year. So it’s going to be tough? Well then let’s get focused and get ready to flourish! We’ll give you a number of exercises over the course of the four weeks to help reignite your passion for your business (even if you don’t think it’s waned), re inspire you and build your confidence.
7. It will help your business thrive this year. Not just grow, not just get your name out there. But really thrive. I’ll help you identify how to attract more of the profitable clients, communicate with flair and passion and inspire people to want to work with you.

A masterclass to inspire, motivate and reconnect you with your business

Tagged as in Branding, Flourish Stuff, Powerful Branding, Workshops

Whether you’re sharing my fighting spirit and optimism from my last post, or you’re feeling a bit jaded after the seasonal festivities and a lack of direction I would love for you to join me on my Branding Masterclass. It’s an online class that starts on 6th Feb and runs for a month. You can [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Fiona's Book, Flourish Stuff, Inspirations, Marketing, Workshops

I know it’s oh-so-tempting to go into lockdown mode come early December. Those marketing projects you have at the back of your mind can wait until after Christmas whilst you deal with the general madness of the festive season. And I do understand that thinking, but it doesn’t make good business sense. Why? Because that [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Web Design, Websites

These posts are a bit like busses aren’t they? You wait for one In The Studio This Week and then two come along at once! Harriet Tipping is a very lovely nutritional therapist who has just about to launch her business, Nutribeing. She already had a logo but no brand identity to speak of, so [...]

Tagged as , blog design in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio

It seems like forever since I’ve shared a snapshot of some of our work from the studio doesn’t it? We’ve been incredibly busy over the last month or so working on some really exciting projects and I’m delighted to share a couple of them with you this week. First up… A stunning website design for [...]

Tagged as , website design in Case Studies, From The Studio, Web Design, Websites

Yesterday saw the first of our Focus and Flourish workshops that I’m running with the fabulous Elizabeth Cairns. And whilst I’m still slightly shattered from such an action packed day, we had such amazing feedback and I saw such leaps forward in each guest that I just had to share some of the highlights of [...]

Tagged as in Workshops

It’s around this time of year that most of us start looking forwards to what we’d like to get out of our businesses next year. And ahead of the first of my Focus and Flourish workshops I have been mulling over a question I ask myself a lot: what does success look like to me? [...]

Tagged as , focus and flourish in Big Thinking, Workshops

Above: Kate Griffin‘s mood board. The photographer that didn’t want to be photographed – oooh the irony! I love running our branding workshops. I love the combination of creativity and tangible business benefits that come out of the day, and the way that people walk in with a slightly muddled head around what their business [...]

Tagged as , branding workshop in Branding, Workshops