I love, love, LOVE working with other creatives because when we put our heads together it just explodes into magic! And that was precisely the case working with Maz to design and develop her new Brand & Website for Marion Creative.
Maz is a copywriter, illustrator, and creative coach and we just had the most *dreamy* time creating her whimsical new site. Here’s how Maz describes her business:
“I write copy and create illustrations that give you goosebumps. It’s as if I’ve plucked it all right out of your brain (spoiler alert: I have a machine for that, JK).
You put your heart and soul into everything you do. So I make sure the words and illustrations I craft reflect that.
Together, we’ll tell the story of who you really are and inspire your audience along the way.”
When Maz came to me, she had a DIY SquareSpace site that was old and out of date. She felt embarassed about her website because it had no design features, was very basic, and really didn’t serve the unique type of business she was trying to create.
Maz was looking to create a place where she could offer her copywriting, illustration, and creativity coaching seamlessly all in one place. She also wanted to stay away from traditional copywriter sites that felt boring and really provide her audience a different and unexpected brand experience.
She wanted to create a place where her clients felt creative, appreciated, supported, equal, comfortable, inspired, educated, important and empowered and make it easy for them to work with her to create impactful copy that amplifies their mission so that they can change the world.
Inspiration & Mood Board
We developed an eclectic, unexpected color palette in order to appeal to a trendy, urban and earthy type of entrepreneur.
Brand Adjectives: International, Artistic, Relatable, Unexpected, Vagabond
Mood Board Options
We were inspired by images of warmth, whimsical artwork, faraway destinations and nature. We also brought in some metallic hues to create an unexpected edge and contrast the warm color palette. The final color palette featured a range of calming greens inspired by nature complemented by warm pinks and yellows to bring in a vibe on energy and nostalgia.
Logo Exploration and Design
We wanted to stay away from traditional copywriter logos featuring a pencil or inkwell and develop a concept that was fun and unexpected. We developed 3 logo concepts for the brand featuring whimsical and nature inspired elements paired with grounded, professional fonts to convey both a playful and trustworthy vibe.
Logo Concept 1: This concept uses wings to illustrate the idea of flying and associate Marion’s copywriting with giving her clients wings. The deeper concept here is that when it comes to copywriting, people know in their hearts what they want to say but don’t always know how to say it. Here, Marion is the guardian angel that swoops in and shows them the way.
The little unexpected element here the asterisk that subtly refers to copywriting without being too on the nose.
Logo Concept 2: This super concept embodies a minimalist vibe with colorful letters to give the concept life. The variation creates unexpected playfulness while still remaining professional.
This concept showcases an asterisk to hint at the copywriting paired with a handwritten script font to allude to the illustration aspect of the brand.
Logo Concept 3: This concept is the most unexpected of the 3 by pairing whimsical elements with a buttoned-up, serifed font that is very professional. The crystal ball imagery symbolizes the trust people have in Marion when they come to her for advice and for them to be able to see with a special third eye exactly what their copywriting needs, like a magician or wizard of copywriting.
Variations included moon phases where the final phase of the moon on the right side is formed by the letter “C” in the word “Creative.”
This powerful concept represents the phases of business and of creative and copywriting and how everything comes full circle.
Final Logo Design
The winning concept and final logo design was Logo Concept 2!!! This one was so fun to play with – in the final version we updated the colors of the all-lowercase letters to be nice and bold and high contrast so it would POP. We right justified the word “Creative” in the handwritten font and kept the perfect little 60’s style asterisk.
For the favicon we kept the same font and combined Marion’s initials in the lowercase letters “mp” with a simple, yet perfect asterisk floating in the upper right hand corner to hint at a little magic.
Brand Design
The final brand design included a primary logo and an alternative logo design to be used as a favicon and logo mark.
We selected custom pattern textures in whimsical, hand-drawn polka dots and used the patterns in playful, unexpected ways throughout the site to create movement.
We also developed custom design elements featuring Marion’s beautiful, professional brand photography paired with custom, amorphous illustrations, hand-drawn dots texture and the familiar asterisk to create stunning little micro-collaged design elements across the site.
For the buttons, we brought the asterisk motif into the design and developed 3 unique button color combinations to use in contrast to each other on the website. The buttons feature 3 square corners and one rounded corner to add an unexpected element and soften the visual appearance.
For typography, we used serifed fonts with rounded edges that create a warm, inviting environment paired with a script font to create whimsy and movement. The font pairing features Karla for header text, Maven Pro for body text and Wild Spirit as an accent font.
Website Design and Development
Next we designed and developed a fully custom website for the Marion Piper Creative brand. The website was built with ease of use in mind. Maz was planning to regularly add blog posts and resources, as well as update the site often with new copy, so we made it a total cinch email for her to update any and all text on her website.
We used asymmetry, wavy lines and animated textures throughout in order to draw the audience in and provide an interactive, whimsical experience.
Enjoy some sparkly eye candy with final result!
Take a tour of Marion Piper Creative with Mel:
Launch Results: MARION EARNED $5K JUST 1 MONTH AFTER LAUNCHING HER NEW BRAND & WEBSITE
Here is what Maz has to say about her brand & website launch:
“I WOULD RECOMMEND MEL TO ANY AMBITIOUS WOMEN WHO ARE READY TO STEP INTO THEIR POWER AND SERVE THEIR CLIENTS WITH MORE ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM.”
- My new website has brought me so much confidence, I’m SO excited to share it with people and they love it.
- What I loved most about working with Mel from our very first call was her process. I always knew where we were at, what was coming up, what was expected.
- The timelines were so clear and it made me feel really comfortable and like I could trust her with the vision of what I was trying to create.
- I brought in about $5k of revenue in my first month which just blew me away.
- What I really love about Mel is that she held space for me to dive deep on the kind of business that I really wanted to create.
It was such a joy working with Maz to launch her fabulous new brand and website and I am THRILLED to say that both Maz and I are delighted with the results.Be sure to head on over to Marion Piper Creative for all your copywriting, illustration and creativity coaching needs. And/or just to take a peep at all the cool animations and quirky lil designs on there 🙂
You can check out the full design for Marion Piper Creative here in our portfolio along with some of the other sparkly brands & website we have developed.
xo – Mel
