A Behind The Scenes Look At Branding A Storefront
When I first had the idea for opening a storefront, I knew that I wanted the branding to be connected, but feel distinct and different from my current Mallory Shelter Jewelry brand. I had a general sense of the direction I wanted to go in, but putting pen to paper is always the hardest part, and I often struggle to articulate the vision that lives in my head.
I started by pulling together some inspiration images that I had seen and collected over the past several months. Not all of them had a direct correlation to what I was doing for the shop, but each of the images had something unique that stood out to me, and that I wanted to explore further.
Once I put these images together, I had a much clearer sense of the brand direction. Working with my good friend (and amazing designer) John DeNapoli, we began to hone in on specifics - color, fonts, etc. John also asked me to explain what I liked and disliked about certain brands. I conveyed to him that I wanted the following:
- Something that didn't feel overly feminine. I didn't want to fall into the stereotypical jewelry branding, and also didn't want to deter male clients from coming in
- I wanted the font to feel geometric, and the logo to tie into that
- I wanted to incorporate some kind of gemstone nod, without an obvious diamond/stone graphic for the logo
- I refered a lot to an old school pawn/jewelry shop - I love the lettering they used, and wanted to emulate that in an updated way
John started working, and sent over a few initial brand concepts based on what we had discussed:
We were definitely headed in the right direction. I liked the font he was using but liked the diversity between the first SHELTER font and the third accent font. I also wanted the logo to be a bit more geometric. After a bit more back and forth, we landed on a design we were both really happy with. Voilà! Shelter Shop was born.
