Enchanting Planting, a garden and landscape design company in Orinda, California, has been my customer for decades now. I designed their logo back in the 1980s and we all have really loved it through numerous reprintings. Recently they came to me for a reprint of their business cards and also needed new stationery and envelopes too.
Prepared to reprint with minimal changes — adding the URL and email address were all they wanted added — I sent some new paper samples down to them because their old paper had been discontinued from the mill. While I was at it I threw in a few other samples of business cards and other work we have been doing at the shop, just to let them in on what we have been up to recently, which, if you follow this blog, you know has been pretty thrilling.
Well, imagine my surprise when they called back completely gaga over everything, especially the very thick black cards with foil stamping. They didn’t even know anything like that existed in the world. WELL! You have to know how I love to bite into something like this. A complete updating of their look was in order all of a sudden, yet they did still lovethe motifs I had used initially, which you can see below.
This is, you know, a conversation. To redesign or design from scratch a new logo and branding requires some introspection…What do you love? What do you want to ditch? What’s different about what you are doing now as opposed to what you used to do when the first logo was created. What is the mood you want to set up with your cards? Who are your customers now? What are they like? What should the color palette be? Etc., etc….These questions guide the direction of the logo design process.
We chose to keep the happy image of the flower basket, but to put it on in a gleaming apple green foil. We chose to use thick, thick Museum Mount black paper instead of the former cream colored, much thinner stock, and to lose the jungle patterned border. I redesigned their logotype, too, using a more modern font. This, and the contact information, we stamped on in gold metallic foil. And I put the phone number is a swoopy, romantic type that calls to mind the movement and grace of leaves in a breezy garden. Then, the coup d’gras — EDGE PAINTING in the same apple green. Look:
It’s quite clear that there is NO garden design company in the world with cards that look anything like these. As distinctive and gorgeous as the work Enchanting Planting does all over the Bay Area, they now have business cards that set the stage for what they stand for and what they create in people’s homes and yards.
It’s so much fun to work with my clients, many of whom have been with me since I opened in 1984, and who feel like old friends to me. I’m always so happy to hear from them again and again over the years. They are clients AND friends. Makes my life very grand. Knowing they are proudly passing out the work we have done for them here at Studio Z Mendocino and helping them to get their names out in the most elegant, edgy, beautiful way…why does that give me such a thrill? But really, it does. I love them and I love the work we get to do for them, and they are excited and proud of their printed things…it’s such an interesting, engaging, creative relationship. How much better could it possibly get than this?
