Lisa from The Pencil Nerd approached me to help with rebranding her established creative business which sells quirky stationery. She was ready to take the leap from selling online only to selling in person at markets and selected retailers and felt the time was right to update the identity.
The brand had recently gained a lot of new followers due to some PR wins and a new target audience had been identified of millennial mums. But Lisa felt that the current identity didn’t reflect the quirky personality of the products and didn’t have enough visual presence.
We started the process by having a discovery call where we discussed brand personality, values, mission and target audience. We also did a review of the current identity and a competitor analysis.
We identified that the new branding should convey the quirky, humorous and joyful personality of The Pencil Nerd. And that it was also important to get across the personalised nature of the products and elevate the packaging to enhance the gift giving experience.
The next step was for me to create a moodboard with reference images which conveyed my initial styling thoughts to make sure these aligned with Lisas expectations. Then based on the feedback I started generating ideas for the identity.
The chosen design route is a quirky, fun word marque with movement in the letters giving energy and excitement to the identity, and also combines shapes forming an abstract pencil. The bold colour palette gives added presence. The brand kit also includes a primary version of the logo with a scalloped lockup, a submark for socials and a secondary version to give flexibility of use.
Bespoke patterns using details from the identity were created to be used across the launch materials which included a thank you card and packaging sleeve.
Once all aspects of the branding were agreed I put the information together in a set of guidelines to ensure consistency when creating any future graphics.
Here's some feedback from Lisa on how she found the process
"I have followed Sharon’s work for a while and was very excited to begin working with her for the re-brand of my stationery products. From my first contact I knew Sharon would be the perfect fit for me. Sharon’s understanding of me and my brand was clear from the get-go and her enthusiasm was so lovely it really made the process a fun one."
"Sharon presented the initial mood board quickly and had perfectly captured my ideas. When Sharon presented the 3 routes, and I loved every one, it was a hard choice picking one but we both loved the same one and it turned out to be the perfect branding. Sharon was quick, understanding, and just a joy to work with. I can’t wait to work with Sharon again to keep moving my brand forward."
Lisa Orme, The Pencil Nerd
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