I am so excited I think I may actually burst. We have finally cracked the update to the Flourish brand identity and I cannot tell you what a thrill it is to be so close to launching our gorgeous new website.

It’s not fair to call this a “rebrand” because I think that implies you’re making fundamental changes to the essence of the brand focus and brand identity. And that’s not what this project has been about. It’s more about taking the Flourish identity to the next level whilst retaining all the things that make us who we are.

So the energy, colour and quirkiness stays, but elements of the design have moved on, and our focus is now on styling brands and all the communication that goes with that – from the websites and blogs to the printed brochures, postcards and other pieces of direct mail. We create irresistible brand identities and help our clients communicate with flair and passion, simple as that!

So the design emphasis is less on growth and all the associated images that come with that – from the leaves and flowers to our lovely packets of seeds (sob!). That’s definitely still a lovely side effect of what we do for our clients but we hope that the emphasis on brand stylists gives us a very unique space in the market and one that truly plays to our strengths.

I can’t pretend that the journey to get here hasn’t been tough. I think I speak for us all when I say it’s been incredibly tough to gain the clarity, objectivity and inspiration we rely on for all of our design work. It’s always difficult doing your own stuff, and I thought this time might be easier than when we first launched Flourish in 2010, but I can honestly say it hasn’t been. It’s been really hard work.

We’ve definitely broken the back of things now. We have our slightly modified colour palette, we have a lovely new range of fonts and we have some utterly gorgeous icons. We’ve developed some new patterns and we’re working on a few more. We’ve printed up some beautiful gift packs for our current and prospective clients as well as a whole lot of printed literature.

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Tagged as in The Flourish Identity

Oh my goodness this is a delicious project. Quite literally too!

The utterly lovely Rachel Lucas is a blogger, food writer, entrepreneur and baker of delicious brownies. Rachel’s brownies currently have cult status in the equine world where you’ll find her brownie vans at horse shows and events across the country. She now plans to take her business online and we’re going to be the people to help her get there. Our first stop is to create a gorgeous brand identity, one that pulls out the personality of Rachel’s business and her delicious brownies.

We had a great meeting on Monday, bursting with creative ideas and there is just so much material to go at with this brand, I think our only challenge is going to be reining our ideas in! Sugar Moon is about big, bold flavours and the team were certainly impressed with her brownies. We want to create something with personality, something that maximises on Rachel’s family heritage (her grandfather was a baker and has handed down an exciting range of cookbooks and other ephemera) and that people can really engage with.

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Tagged as , sugar moon in Branding

We had a fantastic time working with the lovely Matt Pereira on our video for the Branding Masterclass. It is worlds away from our vain attempts at creating a video with my dad’s camera!

For the latest video we wanted to ensure the scenes reflected the spirit of the class, for example we decided to film in Fiona’s house as most members of the class will be working from home.

We created a Vision Board on the wall which is a technique Fiona learnt in New York, only to be achieved with Washi tape. We have always created and refer to Vision Boards throughout the design process because it enables our customers to focus on their brand communication and gives us clarity on the brand message and how we show that through design. It is also a method our Masterclass students will be using shortly.

The video appears effortless however as with all projects of this nature, there were last minute tweaks and changes to the script and the set up of the scenes.

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Tagged as in Flourish Stuff, Uncategorized

Remember me introducing you to Pomegranate? This was a project that really touched my Persian roots and I have been so looking forward to introducing these designs to you.

Pomegranate will sell contemporary homewares and gifts initially online but also in the future through their own shops in some very glamorous parts of the world. The brief was to create a contemporary brand identity with an Arabic twist, take a look and see what you think.

Concept One

Bold, iconic and simple.

We created an icon that represents a flourishing pomegranate, showing the petals of the flower as well as the seeds within the fruit. We then paired this illustration style with a very distinctive font that hints gently towards an Arabic feel without being blatant, and introduced tactility through woven imagery and a simple weave pattern.

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Tagged as , pomegranate in Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio, Logo Design

I am so thrilled to be able to share this beautiful new blog design for Lisa Cox.

Lisa is a fabulous Garden Designer based in Leatherhead, Surrey, but whose flair for creating gardens that suit their owners has meant that she works both throughout the UK and internationally. Lisa has been blogging now for several years, and you may remember our initial blog design? This latest iteration reflects where Lisa’s business is right now and works with her blogging style just perfectly!

Chloe has made sure that Lisa’s new blog fits within Lisa’s brand style and website design, whilst at the same time giving another dimension to her brand. I think it’s really boring when your blog looks the same as your website: it’s supposed to have another voice, another take on your business. So we’ve used the distinctive handwriting font and the same colour palette but introduced some new texture, pattern and illustrations.

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Tagged as , garden designer, garden designer blog, lisa cox, the room outside in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio

Thinking big doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone but don’t let that worry you, it is a muscle that can be flexed and toned over time.

To get started, all you need is a little desire to explore possibilities, about 10 minutes of undisturbed time and, if that’s the way you like to get creative, a big piece of paper and some pens.

Take a small idea, perhaps something in your business that you are already working on and see in what ways you can make it bigger.  Sometimes it can be easier to take a concept that’s less close to home to start your big thinking muscle work out, so pick an idea or product that’s in the public domain if you find that more accessible to begin with.

Place your small idea in the centre of your page, for those of you who are already familiar with mind-mapping this is a great opportunity to apply that tool here.

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Tagged as in Big Thinking

Remember the mood board from this morning for interiors and giftware company, Pablo Blue? Well I am delighted to say that we have just presented them with their brand identity concepts and they love them! They (and we) have a favourite and Chloe is currently making some tweaks over the next week before we send them round 2.

I’m not sure whether or not to tell you which the favourite was – would love your thoughts too!

Concept One

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Tagged as in Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio

Pablo Blue are a startup gift and interiors business on a mission. We’re going to be creating a gorgeous brand identity (which is so very nearly ready to share with you) and so I thought it was about time I did a little introduction.

Here are a few snaps of the mood board. What I love about this is that we wanted to create something that looked serene and lovely, but that had a little twist, a little edge to stop it feeling boring. It would be all to easy to create something very tasteful, very understated, and dare I say it, bland. We wanted to create something with a lot of serenity and a little jolt, a little punch to keep things interesting. And that’s the point really with the lovely neon table (from a Sofa.com shoot) and the electric colours of the bird in the glass dome. It’s about taking something and putting a twist on it to keep things fresh.

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Tagged as in Branding

I’ve been thinking a lot about flourescent colours recently. It all started when I went to New York and I seemed to notice a lot of “flouro” as they call it over there – in shops like Kate Spade and Purl Soho and also just in what I was drawn to. I serendipitously picked up a pink neon pen for my scrapbook from Muji, and then as soon as I hit the styling class, there were splashes of neon everywhere.

Isn’t it funny how that sort of thing happens? You have a germ of an idea in your head for a while and then suddenly, bam, it hits you all at once!

Back at home Easy Living magazine featured neon and then, lo and behold, the king of middle England Johnnie Boden sent me through a catalogue with neon on it! And you know what? I really think it works.

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Tagged as in Colour Psychology, Inspirations

Do you ever feel as though you’re holding back on creating the business you really want because you’re afraid of scaring people off?

Putting your neck on the line and saying “this is who we are, this is what we’re good at” can be scary, because to do it well, you need to be different, shake things up a bit and go against the grain. You need to be confident (and experienced enough) to know who your profitable clients really are and the things you need to change in your business and your branding to grow your business. You need to be bold enough to stand out.

And that means you need to be strong enough, and focused enough, to put people off.

Take Lisa Cox‘s business for example. If she hadn’t been clear about what makes her special as a garden designer, do you think she’d have commissions from Leeds and France? I’m not sure – especially given that she hasn’t done all the “normal” things a garden designer is expected to do to make it, like have a show garden at Chelsea. Lisa’s business has an international reach because it’s compelling. And it’s compelling because she’s stamped her personality and her beliefs and values into her business. And she communicates with passion and flair. But that means that she won’t appeal to everyone.

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Tagged as in Branding