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Rich Fleischman is a Minneapolis-based food and portrait photographer. Rich began his WM consulting journey with a Branding & Marketing Plan in which we recommended that his logo and website could both use a fresh perspective and a new coat of paint. Being a few years old, his site wasn’t up to current web standards. And since the site wasn’t responsive and scalable to the gamut of mobile devices, Rich was missing out on a chunk of web traffic that could be working in his favor.
With all of this in mind, Rich decided to move forward with a new Logo and a Web Template Customization. When someone starts design work with us, we always begin with the logo. Your logo — paired with your work — is the foundation of your brand. Every other marketing piece, from your website to your print mailers, to the signature you use in your emails, should channel that cohesive branding. Rich was looking for a mark that was both clean and distinctive. I created a first round of options for him with this in mind.
Rich narrowed the first round down to a couple options, expressing that he wanted to keep the mark simple and make the ‘F’ more recognizable if we’d be using a drop cap. So I created a second round that would be understated but memorable, and most of all extremely legible since Rich’s last name is somewhat of a doozy (something I can definitely relate to).
Rich ended up choosing this last option, loving the clean appeal and sense of depth that it created. His only qualm was that this option didn’t have a cool monogram to accompany it like the other options. So as we moved into color exploration, I dove into some monogram exploration as well.
Rich selected the above palette, pairing a steely blue with a pale gray, and after many monogram options, we finally settled on a winner.
With his new logo all taken care of, we moved onto Rich’s website. We discussed the different template sites we typically recommend — Squarespace and aPhotoFolio. I tend to recommend Squarespace over aPhotoFolio because while aPF’s Design X is a mobile-optimized template, it doesn’t display quite as well on mobile devices. Squarespace offers an array of templates which are equally customizable and responsive to different screen sizes, so your exact site will transform itself for an ideal viewing experience, depending on the screen size at hand. Rich chose to move forward with Squarespace and we commenced with the customization.
Rich was pleased with how easy it was to upload and arrange the pictures on his new site, as well as the big beautiful images it displays, the intuitive functionality, and the ease with which we were able to migrate and integrate his former WordPress blog into Squarespace. Overall, working with Rich has been a pleasure, and it seems that the feeling is mutual:
Melissa was a breeze to work with! A great listener, I felt she really understood my hopes for a fresher brand logo and look and my concerns as well (I have a long consonant and vowel heavy last name). She was always right on top of everything for me and the process moved along briskly, but not hurriedly. As I have been working on a new website as well, Melissa was able to coordinate a seamless look with the new logo and new paginations, taking the guesswork out of the process. I’m very happy with her work, and thoroughly enjoyed working with her!
I’m looking forward to working with Rich again soon, and can’t wait to hear how his new branding works out for him.
Further Reading
Bam! Plan: Liz Moskowitz
Expert Advice: Photographer Logos
Expert Advice: Web Design Basics For Photographers