A Snapshot
The client: BarTies Mobile Bartending is an Austin, Texas local small business.
The challenge: The company wanted to create a branding kit that conveyed their luxury bartending persona. It was important that the business have a distinct style that was recognizable by clients no matter the context. The goal was to ensure the brand feel high-end and luxurious, without being flashy or gaudy.
what i did: I developed their brand personality, logo, style guide, custom filters, and social media templates.
The solution: All deliverables produced incorporated: clean lines; a subtle color palette; consistency between online and offline products; and a simple, timeless design throughout all elements within the brand.
All design choices were done considering they might need to translate into any future products released by the brand. This includes, but is not limited to: glassware, promotion boxes, table linens, uniforms, name tags and a website (both mobile and desktop).
The challenges: Being the only designer working with a local small business was rewarding, but labor intensive. This singularity also limited the scope of design ideas presented.
overview
photography
stationary
guidelines
at a glance
The Methodology: There were 3 focuses when developing the brand identity for BarTies were brand: guidelines, photography, and stationary.
The Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Canva were the primary applications used to develop deliverables.
The Timeline: This brand kit was developed and iterated over the course of 3 months. Throughout the following 2 years, certain templates, mockups, and other deliverables were developed within the brand guidelines to keep up with the growing business' needs.
The deliverables: 100+; including photography, stationary, templates, and other products.
brand guidelines
logo variations
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The logo was designed to convey that the business: specializes in bartending; works high-end, private, black-tie events; and is a luxury service. A martini glass was chosen to emphasize the luxury bartending aspect; the bowtie to convey the black-tie nature of the private events; and lines were kept sharp and geometric in order to reinforce the company's rigid, consistent professionalism.
style guide
typography
color palette
templates
The typography: Serif fonts were favored to soften the edges of the logo, as well as convey a sense of class that the owner desired. The single sans serif was selected for headings to complement the logo's style.
The color palette: A muted green color palette was chosen to stay consistent with the logo's pop of color; softer, forest, pastel greens were favored to avoid being too harsh. Stark black and white were avoided completely.
print and Digital Templates were developed in order to keep the brand's deliverables consistent. From invoices to Instagram Stories, every aspect of the business was designed to follow brand guidelines and maintain a strong sense of brand identity both on and offline.
photography
The photography style was designed to show off the amenities the mobile bartending service specifically offers, including, but not limited to: their staff, tailored bar set up, custom cocktails, and curated menus.
The Custom Lightroom filter was developed intentionally with undertones of rose to complement the green-focused color palette of the brand.
stationary
stationary guidelines
the stationary templates developed were done for products that needed heavy branding and were more information heavy, like invoices, employee nametags, and business cards.
the menu guidelines were developed so each individual event could have custom themes, names, and imagery integrated into the menu, whilst staying consistent across events. Every menu is designed to be the same size, same family of fonts, and same general layout.
conclusion
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what we did well
the Brand Purpose hinged on the idea that the business provides Professional Service with a Personal Touch. From there, the Brand Personality conveys a heavy focus on reliability, luxury, and consistency. The entire brand kit was developed around these core themes. The Logo, Color Palette, and Typography were intended to be simple, clean, and elevated. The Imagery focuses on the same themes, and was developed to remain consistent as well as complementary to the other Brand Assets.
the barties client was taken into consideration at every step of the process. I worked closely with the owner of the company, who was in turn hands on with his clients. This allowed us to get realtime feedback from his clientele.
what we will do better next time
the biggest challenges encountered during this project was being the sole designer. This caused time issues, lack of diversity in design opinions, and enmeshment with non-design minds.
in the future I will refrain from taking on such big projects by myself. While I am extremely happy with the final products, I believe a team could have completed all tasks in a more timely fashion for the company.