Sculpting a modern take on the luxuriously romantic
The award-winning cycling club, Club Roule, and the apparel company, Roule Cycling, had a marketing problem. With a shared name, the apparel company could not expand because other cycling clubs refused to wear anything that sported the name and branding of a competing club.
The solution was to rename the club to allow the apparel company to grow and even look towards a future of potential brick and mortar shops. The name Endless Summer came from the clubs most loved ride of the same name–it felt like it best embodied the heart and soul of the diverse members and the club's community spirit.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
CUSTOM LETTERING
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Spreading their wings
PREVIOUS BRAND IDENTITY
When Emerald City Flowers began considering a brand refresh, they had already been in business for a very successful year. When they launched, they grabbed a ready-made logo off the internet with accompanying colors and fonts - and just went for it.
While this first visual identity was working ok for them, it was hard to read, there was nothing distinctive about it and, in fact, they quickly found it popping up all over the internet in conjunction with other brands. Since they were trying to build a luxurious, distinctive brand that specializes in custom creations and experiences, they knew they needed something specially designed just for their unique brand.
Laying Down the Foundation
With a myriad of brick-and-mortar florists along with a number of online options that customers can choose from, Emerald City Flowers would first need to define who they were in order to then stand out. We began the process by taking an in-depth look at the business to build a strategic roadmap together before launching into the visual design.
Through discovery, research and a strategy workshop, we developed a guide to provide the foundation for the entire brand and the clarity to begin the visual side of the process.
We dug into several areas, including: their brand and founder story, mission, vision and values, positioning, target audience, customer profiles along with their needs and pain points, customer buying journey, touchpoints, business goals, opportunities and areas for focus and growth.
Building the Brand
We also looked at what was working with the current logo. Green felt like a natural fit in their brand color palette and an element of hand-drawn illustration spoke to the handmade quality of the florals. The typefaces used should feel related to luxury hand lettered invitations, fashion magazines and high-end European beauty products.
Colors would be soft and muted over a foundation of crisp and modern black and white. Colors would include greens and pinks, with variations exploring the pastel end along with deeper, saturated tones and the inclusions of foundational tones in grays, blacks and whites with enough depth for the signature blush tones to stand out.
Sculpting the Identity
The overall direction of the visual identity blends approachable with modern luxe for a timeless style that is intended to grow in its iconic nature with time. The typeface that makes up the foundation of the visual identity is inspired by classic yet modern fashion type and has been further sculpted for softness and a custom mark that speaks to the romantic, sculptural nature of the floral designs, each created by hand.
Primary Logo
The type-based primary logo helps to establish name recognition while conveying the brand style through a fashion-inspired serif typeface with interconnected letters. The logo speaks to those who appreciate style and luxurious items of beauty while the interconnected letters are inspired by the sculpted nature of the floral arrangements created by Emerald City Flowers.
Secondary Logo
This iconic secondary logo symbolizes the bending and manipulating of petals to create the romantic, sculptural designs that Emerald City Flowers is known for. The clean, modern design is intended to stand out, capture attention and stand the test of time and have the flexibility and readabilty to be used in almost any situation, for both digital and in print. It’s squarish dimensions make it ideal as a profile icon on any social media platform.
Emblems
Simple emblems were created from the logo mark to further the responsive nature of the logo system for uses such as social media profile badge and additional materials such as stickers for delivery boxes and t-shirts for crew members to wear on installation days.
Illustrations
The custom-designed rose and greenery illustrations speaks to the sculptural nature of how Emerald City Flowers creates their floral designs through bending and sculpting petals and leaves. The rose is also the classic flower that will always be their favorite and makes up the foundation of their most-loved blush tone designs. The illustrations can be used alone, abstracted into a texture or used in a seamless pattern for items like custom tissue paper or non-seamless pattern along with colors to create special luxe moments, like in their stationary, envelope pattern and the letterpress texture. The illustrations also appear as background elements in the clients website.
Labels and Care Cards
The secondary logo was specifically designed to be iconic, bold and modern in a way that would both speak directly to the brand but at the same time, be instantly recognizable on the floral delivery box labels, cards, stickers and the custom arch-shaped care cards.
Photography
Multiple brand photography sessions captured the owner at work, the team and the designs - both in detail and in the forms they would have for sale at various sizes. The style was light, airy and elegant with minimal props to remain modern in feel but just enough little touches in color, texture and surroundings to provide some environment for each moment to live in and feel unique to the Emerald City Flowers brand style.
