Carrie, owner of Careful Cents, was looking toward a path that could include selling her popular money saving blog, and knew that she needed to make sure it had its own branding that could stand on its own. Creating the branding would help her in any future endeavors she would take with the blog, including the possibility of selling the blog.
- Carrie Smith Nicholson - formally of Careful Cents (Colorado Springs, Colorado)
After our initial discussions about her business goals and what she wanted in her new brand identity and logo design, Carrie and I were able to narrow down some specific brand drivers that would be guiding the design process. Out of several of them that we discussed, we mainly focused on simplified, approachable, and relatable. She wanted to keep her brand identity professional and gender neutral, while still personable.
From there, I worked on designing two logos that fit with her brand drivers. Each logo had brand drivers that were more evident than others. For example, the top logo stuck to her brand drivers of being approachable and relatable, while the bottom one was more driven by being simplified and professional.
In the end, we worked with her top logo choice (the top one from the image above) and made some minor adjustments to the logo based on what she felt was best for what she wanted, which included dropping the cent sign imagery, slightly adjusting the colors, and using all lowercase letters.
After working with Carrie to make the final logo changes, it was time to create the brand identity style guide. In the image to the right, you can see her new logo in a couple of different color options, including the full color and single color options. You can also see we worked on a stacked version of her logo that she can use in areas where a near-square logo is preferred, such as on social media.
In the brand identity style guide, I also outlined her different color codes so no matter if she’s printing her logo or showcasing it digitally, she’ll always have the right color codes. In addition, in her brand identity style guide, I outlined her typeface, how her logo can be used in different environments and backgrounds, and how not to use her logo so that she can keep her brand identity strong and consistent.
In an often overlooked area of a brand identity and website, the fav icon is a perfect opportunity to further expand on your brand identity. It’s the icon that visitors see on their browser and also is stored as part of a bookmark in the browser. Carrie wanted to have a fav icon that went with her new brand identity that she could use for her website. So as part of her brand identity, I included some options for her fav icon.
Fav icons are unique in that they are very small, so being able to clearly communicate your brand identity in a very small space is challenging. Here, I provided Carrie a few different options for her fav icon that would work in that tight space. Ultimately, she picked the full color coin variation (top, far right) as her fav icon which works perfectly for her website.
After her brand identity and logo design project was complete, she added the new logo to her blog and social media accounts. Within two months of completing her logo design project and her changing the logo online, she received several serious offers to buy her blog, and ultimately, sold it a couple of months after that for nearly six figures.
