The Client Impression

When clients make the decision to trust me to make the right decisions on behalf of their brand, there’s some nervousness. I don’t ask clients what their favorite color is, I ask how they want their brand to be perceived by its audience. This video shows a moment when the client realized what strategy looks like when it’s executed.

Strategy (Brand Attributes)

Prior to the design stuff, I worked with BK Cosmo to determine their brand attributes. I needed to better understand what the culture was, who their "customers" were, what their voice sounds like, how people feel when they interact, what impact they cause, and what makes them stand out. Once I knew this vital information I used it to shape everything else moving forward.

My team and I designed the primary logo for the BK Cosmo brand based on the established brand attributes. After the primary logo was done we moved on to create a standalone mark that would serve to idenfity BK Cosmo. Normally these steps are reversed, but the US Board of Education requires that "College of Cosmetology" be included as part of the primary logo, so we created a logo with this inclusion in mind before moving on to the standalone mark.

Once the logo was created we moved on to create the primary typography and color palettes that would be used with the BK Cosmo brand moving forward.

Website

I designed and developed the BK Cosmo website with a few objectives in mind:

• The website needed to adhere to the brand identity guidelines that I mapped out in an earlier step

• The website needed to have a clean user interface and be simple to use

• The website needed to present relevant information in a clear & concise way

• As a priority I structured the website for users searching for an opportunity for education. I solved this by presenting information and call-to-action's relating specifically to education across the site, thereby guiding the user to where I wanted them to go.

• Student recruitment and maintaining connection with potential students was a secondary priority. I solved this by placing newsletter signup forms in strategic locations across the site.

• This client also wanted to talk about their partnerships and certifications - I solved this by creating clean and consistent logo marks that represent those partners.

• I built out an e-commerce store to sell products from BK Cosmo's partner, Demalogica. I also optimized 50+ store products for use in the online store. I removed backgrounds from existing product photos, then placed those products onto a golden background that was consistent with the BK Cosmo brand.

• I set up an integration to Mailchimp to capture email addresses when users enter their email into newsletter forms or into store checkout.

Business Cards

My team and I designed new business cards for BK Cosmo to hand out to potential prospects. Business cards often serve at the first impression for your clients, so they should be designed well.