Brand Refresh
You may have noticed that things have changed a little around here. In fact, at the start of the year I made the decision to refresh my brand. The end result has been an updated logo, a revamped website and a general overhaul of my current branding to make sure it is consistent and to bring out more of my personality.
My branding has actually been something that I have been tinkering with for quite a while but it wasn't until I invested in two courses, Illumination with Kate Cullen (to work on the visual side of the branding), and Audacity with Jess Collins (to delve into the copywriting) that things started to really fall into place.
One of the biggest obstacles, however, was the worry that there was a contradiction between my branding and my photographs. What I mean is, as a photographer, my images already have a defined style - they are vibrant, colourful, strong and detailed. But heres the issue, I viewed my branding, which I felt was a physical representation of my own personality, as being softer and more gentle. It didn't feel right that the branding didn't quite represent the photographs that I take. I hadn't realised how much this apparent clash had been holding me back.
Consequently, I spent a lot of time feeling confused and wondering whether I would be better off completely changing my brand. My head has been saying I should let the current branding go, to move on and build something new. But deep in my heart I knew that I couldn't do it. I love it too much! When I rebranded 3 years ago, I put my heart and soul into my brand and I ended up with something I loved, something that was distinctly me.
The fact remained, however, that my business brand and my photographic style seemed at complete odds. Was there anything I could do to consolidate the two? The answer, I assumed, would lie in any similarities that I could find.
Going back to basics, I resorted to pen and paper and made a list of how I viewed myself, my approach to business and how I interact with my clients and then compared it to my style of photography. I was hoping to pinpoint the similarities so that I could use these as the foundation for the brand.
After a few minutes teasing out the similarities it suddenly struck me that my brand already represents both me and my photography. I don't think I really quite appreciated the reason why I was so drawn to the business name in the first place. Copper AND Blossom. That small word, "and", resolved everything that I had been worrying about! The brand is soft AND strong, it is quiet AND bold, it is analytical AND creative, it is detailed AND whimsical as well as being so much more. The copper with its hard edges, is balanced by the soft blossom and when combined they create something completely unique. Just like you receive something completely unique when you combine my personality and my photographic style. My brand identity is exactly what ties the two together. The hard and the soft, the copper and the blossom!
With this reassurance, I made a start on reassessing the foundations of my brand, starting with my brand colours and my logo. The brand colours didn't need too much work. I was already happy with my colour palette but I still made a couple of small tweaks. What was causing me more of an issue was my logo. I loved my original logo but the more I looked at it, the more I saw the flaws. The colours weren’t quite right and the quality was too low. I made some decisions regarding what I was happy to adapt and what I wasn't willing to compromise, and set about making some changes. The end result is something much more refined and I couldn't be happier!
Although the structure of the logo remains very similar, I decided to completely replace the floral details. I wanted vibrant and joyful colours to provide a link back to the photographs that I create and I also wanted more detail. I opted to use individual floral motifs to give me additional control over the final result which could then be used individually elsewhere. Final tweaks included additional refinement to the hexagons themselves and a tiny change to one of the fonts. And there you have it! I am totally in love with the end result and looking at it just puts a smile on my face! It's vibrant, detailed and joyful just like my photographs and I finally (FINALLY!) feel that my branding encapsulates everything that I wanted - it's a representation of me, it's a representation of my photographs and I really hope that it speaks volumes to my potential clients.
There is still a lot of work to be done to bring out my brand personality across the rest of the business but I feel so positive to have taken this first huge leap. I feel so much happier and proud of my brand identity and I'm really excited to see what happens next!