Complete Brand Identity Design: Catered by Patti Caces

Posted on April 24, 2015 by vgrunewald

COMPANY ANALYSIS:

Catered by Patti Caces is an established professional catering company in Central Florida that has thrived on its solid reputation. Although there is not a significant digital presence, the company maintains a successful business with both wedding and corporate clients. Their mission is simple: to take care of their clients. They do so by serving high-quality (and delicious) cuisine while providing high-quality service. Based on their reviews, I’m not surprised they’ve been successful with little digital marketing — word travels fast when you have happy clients. Establishing the brand online, however, will certainly help the company reach and engage a much larger audience of potential clients.

The company’s current goal is to further expand their list of corporate clients in the film industry by providing on-set catering and craft services during local productions. With this in mind, the target audience of their new brand identity campaign should be these corporate clients, while still being inclusive of their wedding clients. In order to reach this diverse group of clients, I recommend the company follow best integrated marketing communication (IMC) practices. IMC is the development and execution of a cohesive multi-channel identity campaign that immerses the target consumer in a consistent experience every time they encounter the brand. We want every consumer who encounters the name “Patti Caces” to immediately associate the name with professional catering, quality customer service and delicious products.

Currently, the company appears to go by a few different names online, including 1st Choice Production Catering, Catered by Patti Caces, and simply, Patti Caces. Fragmentation in the company name might create confusion among consumers. According to a Bloomberg Business article, fragmentation is the number one enemy of successful brand marketing. The solution? IMC. Catered by Patti Caces needs to promote a cohesive identity across all of their marketing channels, including consistent use of company name, messaging, visuals and voice, in order to build a solid, recognizable brand.

MY STRATEGY:

To relaunch the Patti Caces brand with a wide online presence, I’ve designed an IMC campaign that will help establish a modern visualization of the brand. I designed the company’s brand identity with the name “Catered by Patti Caces” in order to take advantage of the company’s existing name recognition while keeping their services obvious to new potential clients. The overall feel of the brand design is bright and crisp, appearing well-established yet energetic and fresh. I kept the designs flexible, focusing more on the company’s dedication to product and service than the types of clients they serve. The campaign successfully draws attention to the Catered by Patti Caces name while highlighting their on-set catering business, a service that might not be immediately known to their other established clients and so needs further promotion.

DESIGNS:

Logo:

The logo should encapsulate the brand’s essence while still being simple and flexible enough to appear in a variety of print and digital forms. I designed the logo in two parts: a symbol and a text portion. The logo could be used as a whole or split depending on need, and can also be arranged vertically (as it appears here) or horizontally. The color palette is bright, fresh and appropriate. The symbol is telling, yet simple. Each circle represents a tier of the Catered by Patti Caces business: professional service, baking and cakes, and quality cuisine. The circles link, representing the business being built on all three of these values. The text portion of the logo features a modern font pairing that places emphasis on the Patti Caces name. I created the tagline, “Motivated by quality, inspired by you, since 1988,” to again highlight the values while emphasizing the well-established nature of the business. To remain flexible, the tagline need only accompany the logo when appropriate. The logo provided is currently set to a digital-appropriate resolution (72 dpi), however a higher resolution image appropriate for print could be easily provided at the company’s request.

Full color logo for Catered by Patti Caces

Grayscale logo

Reverse/dark background logo

Banner Ads:

The banner ads I created utilize the logo and continue its color palette and typography in order to remain visually consistent. These banners are for use on the Catered by Patti Caces website and could also be used to advertise on other appropriate websites. The specific promotion focuses on both the quality nature of the company’s products while highlighting the on-set catering service. The ads are simple, featuring large, enticing images and bold type. The call to action here is to learn more about the film catering arm of the business that many clients or potential clients might not think of when they think of “Patti Caces.”

Leaderboard banner

Enhanced leaderboard banner

Cube banner

Button banner

Animated cube banner (if not playing, please click to reopen in new tab)

Social Media:

I created a social media branch of this campaign as these platforms are known for potential high levels of engagement with brands. I’ve provided several cover page options for Facebook, as well as an option for Twitter. I also designed a transparent overlay that could be used on images posted to Instagram or Pinterest. To promote engagement with the brand, I created a hashtag (“#closeupready”) users could add to their own posts and share back with the Patti Caces social media pages. Despite differences in design, the overall look and feel of each is consistent with the brand identity I created.

Facebook cover image (Option 1)

Facebook cover image (Option 2)

Facebook cover image (Option 3)

Twitter cover image

Overlay graphic for use on Instagram or Pinterest

Potential graphic to share on Facebook

Email:

I designed an email to accompany this campaign that could be sent out to the company mailing list. Again, the promotion draws attention with gorgeous food photos, while inviting recipients to learn more about the film catering services. To be inclusive of other types of clients, I’ve included a smaller promotion related to weddings, a recent client testimonial, and a call for clients to follow the company on Pinterest, an important IMC channel for businesses such as this one (more on that to come). As you can see, the email continues with the color palette and bold typography inspired by the logo for visual consistency.

Sample email featuring my campaign

Website:

Now that I’ve created these various “touch points” where consumers can encounter and engage with the Catered by Patti Caces brand, there needs to be a central point where these consumers can ultimately learn all they need to know about the business. Today, that point is overwhelmingly a functional and updated website. The website homepage is designed very much like other pieces of the campaign with large photos that can draw in potential clients. Although bright and colorful, with color palette and typography consistent, the content is provided in a simple, easy-to-use fashion. A rotating image gallery would include current promotions (such as the one I’ve designed for the on-set catering business) while the body of the site would direct potential clients to various pages featuring services the company provides. Client testimonials on the homepage can also help attract potential clients by giving them just enough to convince them to reach out to the company for more information. The footer of the website would also provide potential clients with various ways to engage with the company, including basic contact information, signing up for the mailing list, or following on social media.

Website wireframe design

Full color webpage design based on wireframe

SUMMARY:

Aside from the various marketing channels I’ve designed for above, there are several other opportunities for further visual IMC out there. An e-newsletter that includes recipes, information about new products or services, photos and reviews could help remind potential clients of the company’s services so that they think of Catered by Patti Caces first when they have a special event. As mentioned before, Pinterest is a great place for visually interesting companies such as this one to subtly promote their business through the posting of photos, recipes, decor or event planning ideas. This could be a great opportunity for the company to not only show off their expertise, but to attract new clients.

In summary, it was a great pleasure to design a brand identity for Catered by Patti Caces. After reading through their entire website and seeking out reviews of the business, I knew a dedicated, client-focused business such as this one needed to have a greater brand presence not just for the good of the company, but for the good of those potential clients out there. With this in mind, I tried to design a visual identity and brand campaign that would appeal to a wide audience and portray the company as one that is experienced, welcoming and attractive to work with. Through this creative process, I learned a lot about designing for a real client and look forward to similarly challenging work in the future.

Editing video and adding graphics and animation in Photoshop

Posted on April 3, 2015 by vgrunewald

Disclaimer: This blog and its author are not affiliated with Ojai Olive Oil Company in any way. Designs featuring their likeness are for educational use only.

This week, I edited video for the first time and I did so in Photoshop. Before this week, I didn’t even know you could edit video in Photoshop, so I was impressed with the number of features and fair ease of use. I followed this lynda.com tutorial to edit the provided video. The video features the founder of Ojai Olive Oil Company discussing the history of his farm’s olive grove and the olive oil production process. There is a lot of beautiful scenery throughout however the speaking portion of the piece is pretty dry and the accompanying soundtrack is a little hokey. The video and audio are provided on a single track, so unfortunately, the music had to stay.

I first edited the video to shorten its length. The original video is about two minutes long. According to an article posted on The Next Web, testimonial or “talking head” videos should be between 60 and 119 seconds in length for marketing purposes so that it will appeal to a wider audience online than just those who really want to learn more about the company. I edited out some superfluous frames from the start so that my opening screen – the first thing consumers see when they come across the video – is intriguing with the image of a sign pointing the way to learn more about Ojai Olive Oil. I also cut out the entire second portion of the video that discussed the olive oil production process since the video cuts off in the middle of the description. After editing my video, it’s now 68 seconds.

I created a new logo for the company to include in the video since their current logo is outdated and not very flexible since it includes very detailed imagery. I updated the logo with new typography (Dancing Script and Roboto Condensed from Google Fonts) and included the brighter colors from their website color palette – deep blue and gold – for a more contemporary design. I created a couple olives in Illustrator and brought them into Photoshop to dot the i’s in “Ojai.” For my title screen, I faded the logo in on a semi-transparent background and then changed the logo style and opacity to move it into the bottom right corner of the screen for the majority of the video – this is called an ID bug. I also faded in a brief line of text to describe the contents of the video – “About Our Ojai Farm.”

For the founder’s interview, I included a feathered, semi-transparent lower-third in gold with the gentleman’s name and title to give him credibility. I moved and faded out the lower third once he was off-screen so the viewer could take in all of the gorgeous scenery featured at this point in the video.

To end the video, I faded out the founder as he wraps up a discussion on the colors of ripening olives. As a cute transition between the interview and the closing slide, I created a separate, taller layer scattered with the olives I created for the logo and triggered an animation to show them falling down the screen. This then fades into the now full-color logo and company contact information.

Overall, after I understood how the animation tools worked, I enjoyed using Photoshop for basic video editing and animation. I also see how video editing can become extremely time consuming, editing out frames and adjusting fades and effects by the tenth of a second. The animation I played with is fairly smooth, but I believe for motions more complex than simple direct movements or rotations across the screen, Photoshop probably isn’t the best program.

Understanding Logo Design … in (gasp) Photoshop!

Posted on February 12, 2015 by vgrunewald

This week, we learned about logo design. Although logos are traditionally created using Illustrator, my instructor brought up a great point: what if (gasp!) you don’t have access to Illustrator? It was certainly a unique challenge but once I had my idea, I bootstrapped Photoshop to make it work.

We were given a choice of client and I chose “Company B”: A non-profit based in Los Angeles dealing in green initiatives and looking to partner with local businesses to spread awareness. After playing with a lot of different word combinations, I settled on the name “Conserve California.”

We had overall freedom over the logo design, however we had to include at least one logo mark provided by my instructor. I decided on a combined logo mark and typographical mark, with the logo mark being an image of a tree. I decided on a tree because the image automatically symbolizes the environment. I selected a fragmented ball shape from the logo marks provided to be the leafy top to my tree. The ball just so happened to be green, a color symbolizing health, and in this case, the healthy environment my client is trying to create and preserve. The many different shapes in the mark could represent all the different initiatives my client works on. Also, Los Angeles is notorious for smog, so a leafy green tree is the ultimate symbol for clean air. Overall, I decided a tree would not only be an appropriate symbol, but one that is simple and with timeless meaning.

Chosen logo mark from those provided

Because the logo is for print and web, I worked with a 7” x 5” canvas at 300 dpi, to keep the image crisp. This resolution is too high for the web, but Photoshop’s “Save for Web” option helps to correct for that.

I wanted to use Photoshop’s vector graphics as much as possible when designing my logo so that it could be easily resized without losing too much quality. For this reason, I relied mostly on custom shapes. After cropping and clearing the background of my selected logo mark using the magic wand tool, I got to work on the tree trunk and roots. I very much enjoy logos that have hidden symbols (such as the FedEx hidden arrow (see more of these logos here)) because I feel the designer spent extra time thinking about how to make the logo more interesting. For my tree trunk, I used a rounded rectangle and a water drop shape in brown to form the trunk of the tree – the brown color being in the same tone as the logo mark’s green. I then placed a smaller white water drop shape inside the base of the brown one, creating (on a white background) the appearance of curved tree roots. The white water drop essentially becomes the hidden symbol – hinting that my client not only focuses on clean land and air, but also water. When it makes sense, I figure the water drop could be recolored to the color of the background if not white (but not black since that would imply dirty water).

My tree logo mark – see the hidden water drop?

For the word mark portion, I used modern sans serif fonts with clean lines to reflect my streamlined tree: free font, Coolvetica, from dafont.com (a bit more of a modern take on Helvetica) and the thin version of Helvetica Neue. I used the thin font for the word “Conserve” because by the letters being thinner, you are literally conserving ink when printing.

Since my tree is vertically oriented, I decided to follow that direction by placing my word mark below the tree (however it could go to the right of the tree if a horizontal orientation is needed). I chose to share one letter ‘C’ between the words ‘Conserve’ and ‘California’ for two reasons: stacking the text in this way offers a contemporary feel (I adjusted the leading and kerning to align them just right) and by using just one ‘C’ instead of two, you are “conserving” C’s. This represents saving natural resources since ‘C’ is the chemical element for carbon and reducing carbon emissions is a hot topic in the green industry.

Typographical mark

I created a tagline I felt would encompass all of my client’s green initiatives, current and future, by not focusing on one specific campaign, but on my client’s overall goal: “Preserving nature’s resources for the future.” I believe my logo is general enough for use in the green industry in order to stay relevant, even if the tagline changes.

Since my logo is fairly simply and uses smooth typography and minimal colors, I believe my logo will work well in a variety of formats, including in small form on business cards, on the web, embroidered on shirts, on a dark background or in grayscale. I resized my logo to a very small size to see what it would look like and I think the tree by itself would be effective as a favicon or app icon.

Logo on reverse background

Logo in grayscale

As long as my client’s business stays within the realms of the green industry, I believe my logo would hold up, however outside of that, I’m not sure if the meaning behind the tree symbol would carry. Their company name is “Conserve California” so if they do decide to conduct business outside of the green industry, I’m sure they’ll need a complete rebrand, not just a new logo.

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