forward
If you know WORKSHOP8, you know that we provide architecture and interior design for multifamily, single family, and commercial projects. You might also know that we do urban design and community engagement. What you may not know is that we also provide print, web, and experiential graphic design. And it is all my fault.
When Joseph decided to open his own architecture firm in 2001 and I was pregnant with our daughter Carmen, we realized that we could accomplish more if we worked together, rather than maintaining separate businesses. Fast forward 14 years and we are still going strong with the exception of a few inter-office flareups (like yesterday). . . and our daughter is now in high school.
Now to the story of a logo. . . I want to tell you about creating the Casita Brewing Company logo. Casita Brewery will be part of the Stanley Marketplace. Proprietors, Javi and Jennifer Perez (also a married couple), asked WORKSHOP8 to help them with the tenant improvements for their brewery and tasting room as well as the branding. Here is a story about how the logo was developed. . . you’ll have to stay tuned to find out how the space turns out.
chapter 1
Javi and Jennifer had an idea, they wanted a logo based on the Mexican Style sun and moon.
chapter 2
I thought it might be difficult to pull off, so I suggested some other ideas. But Javi said, “Well, Brandy, those are nice, but I want my original idea for a sun and moon!”
chapter 3
Typefaces are fun, so I did a font study to determine Jennifer and Javi’s preference.
chapter 4
We also have to understand what others in the same space are doing, so the next step was a logo study to determine what Jennifer and Javi preferred and to understand current trends in their industry. The research phase helps us to distill our concepts into a “logo brief” in which we all agreed we were looking for the logo to convey: craft brewing, warmth, home, unique beer flavors, and the Mexican culture.
chapter 5
The first Round One logo concepts were conceived of by Melissa, Graham, and Adam and, just for giggles, we even took a stab at using fiverr (quite unsuccessfully). I always design in black and white before adding color, I believe a logo has to work in black and white first and foremost.
chapter 6
We reduced the logo concepts to our 3 favorites, made some tweaks to the designs, and mocked up a few products.
chapter 7
Then we started adding color. Lots and lots of color.
chapter 8
Finally, a logo (the best one) was selected. It is Melissa’s design.
We still didn’t know what colors it would be, but Javi was exited and after doing some research on the brewer’s star, sent us this quote and image:
“We want our brewery to be balanced. We don’t want to look like a macho/masculine club. We want a balance of flavor and energy. A balance of the feminine and the masculine, hops and malts. Casita can be ‘home’ to men and women alike.”
chapter 9
Then Javi asked for more color studies. We all liked the wide variety of colors so much, and they speak to the elements of the homeyness and Mexican culture, that was difficult for Jennifer and Javi to select just one!
chapter 10
Then we started looking at business card concepts based on several themes: Mexican blankets, bright colors, vintage lucha libre posters, flavors of Mexico, Day of the Dead, and quintessential Mexican cobalt blue tile.
While we were exploring business cards, we were also looking at complementary interior design concepts trying to tie the whole thing together with a cohesive “vibe”. The brilliance of combining logo and space design under one roof, is that the concepts can really start to feed into each other. Check out our Casita pinterest board to see all the images that inspired us.
chapter 11
And then there was a lot of deliberation between Javi and Jennifer and their brewmaster about how many colors to use in the logo and business card and what color paper to print on. Javi really wanted to use multiple colors, but Jennifer was feeling like the cobalt blue was the way to go. I gave them more comps to help them decide.
chapter 12
We finally arrived at the selected business card design by yours truly!
post script
Now we are moving into finishing up permit documents for the brewery. The interior design is still in negotiation: Javi really wants to use a lot of colors like those he and Jennifer love so much in Oaxaca, but we suggest it will be a stronger branding message to limit the palette to something similar to the very first image I pinned to our Pinterest board of this cute little cobalt blue and turquoise Casita trailer.
Our passion for both the built and graphic environments leads us to offer a full range of creative services to our clients. This benefits developer and entrepreneurial clients in that we can offer them “marketecture” (marketing and architecture)—a collaborative design approach that allows clients to fully integrate their branding with their architecture and interiors.
I believe our value as design professionals is to help our clients refine and edit the ideas that excited them in the first place. Sometimes we are convincing and sometime we aren’t, but that is what makes every day and every project a fun, new challenge.
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Brandy holds a BFA Magna Cum Laude from CU Boulder with an emphasis in conceptual sculpture. After graduation, she was represented by a few local galleries, worked for a graphic design company, then provided graphic design for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. She had a candle-making business called Sugoi Studios, and then her own graphic design studio, blink creative. She says she still misses her polk-a-dot logo with 9 dots (her lucky number).
As a bonus, here is little musical interlude for you: story of a girl by Nine Days and then 1985 by Bowling for Soup.
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