Restored 316 - Logo & Brand Identity
I'm beyond thrilled to finally unveil the new branding I've been working so hard on behind the scenes for Restored 316! When Lauren first contacted me I resonated so strongly with her story and our first call proved to me right away that we'd be a great fit. So without further ado, I'm so excited to share a peek into the process behind Restored 316's new look!
Brand Background
Lauren founded Restored 316 in 2008, building her brand from her passion, steadfast faith, and dedication to building a life where she could be fully present while raising her children. Her business produces versatile feminine WordPress themes, developed with top notch design, clean code, and meticulous organization. Beyond the stellar themes, Restored 316 offers outstanding customer service and support that go above and beyond, as well as a thriving members-only Facebook group.
The Restored 316 target audience is women who are passionate about achieving their dreams, building a successful online business, supporting other small businesses, and creating a life they love around their small children. They need a beautiful online presence, but are intimidated by the tech side of things and are limited the cost of high quality website development.
Restored 316 - Brand Style
Why Rebrand?
Lauren had a beautiful hand-lettered logo at the time, so why rebrand? For one, she'd heard consistent feedback about her logo being difficult to read. Second, being a designer she'd always tackled the majority of her branding herself. As a result she felt she couldn't really step back and look at her brand strategically.
Deciding to work with Melissa is probably one of the best decisions I've ever made in my 8 years in business.
Lauren Gaige • Restored 316
Lastly, she wanted to find a design partner who really resonated with her vision and could bring her brand to life in a whole new way that matched how Restored 316 had evolved. She needed branding that exuded professionalism and high quality but was also friendly, authentic, and full of heart. Needless to say, I'm so thankful she found me!
The Logos
The Restored 316 brand identity appeals to aspiring female business owners and seasoned ladypreneurs alike. Its refined and feminine style reflects the quality, passion, and professionalism behind the brand while uniquely custom elements set the brand apart with playful touches and speak to the story and heart-centered approach that makes this brand so special.
Restored 316 - Primary logo, secondary logo, & mark
The custom lettering of the logotypes and mark give the brand a gorgeously sophisticated yet friendly appeal, while the secondary marks subtly add depth to the brand.
Restored 316 - Secondary Marks
Behind the Master
This master logo for Restored 316 centers around the logotype—monoweight custom script lettering with a butterfly perched atop it. It’s incorporated with typography revealing the year Restored 316 was established. This lockup will be used as a special statement for the brand, where there’s ample space for it to shine.
Restored 316 - Master Logo
The logotype is feminine and professional, yet genuine and friendly. It’s designed to work well at large and small sizes alike, as well as over images and with the brand’s custom patterns.
Custom Icons
The Restored 316 brand identity includes a set of gorgeous custom icons. These icons depict typical web and small business imagery, yet add a unique twist by pairing each one with botanical elements.
Restored 316 - Custom Icons
These icons add a lovely new layer to the brand, and can be used to accent the brand’s blog categories, accompany sections of text, and are even incorporated into the brand’s custom patterns.
Patterns Galore
The Restored 316 brand finds a new level of depth and distinction through its use of custom patterns. The icon and butterfly patterns use the brand’s palette to create uniquely lovely and versatile graphics that can be utilized throughout the brand. The striped pattern employs a more subtle and classic elegance, and is used as a tertiary background in various contexts throughout the brand’s collateral.
Restored 316 - Custom Patterns
Brand Collateral
Speaking of brand collateral, I include 3 pieces of collateral with my brand identity package. This allows me to bring the brand to life even more, show my clients how it should be used, and provide them with a few branded items to get them started. Lauren chose custom icons, a blog graphic template, and an Instagram post template.
As you can tell, brands can get a lot of mileage out of custom icons. They can be used in patterns, to represent various facets of the brand, and to add visual interest to other types of posts as you'll see in the templates below.
Restored 316 - Blog Graphic Templates
The blog graphic template brings consistency to Restored 316's blog feed, provides a lovely graphic to feature when sharing her posts, and helps the Restored 316 stand out and build brand recognition on Pinterest. The subtle shift in color and change of icons is just enough to add variety, and frees the brand from needing to purchase new stock photography for every post. In a market saturated with bloggers who are using and reusing the same stock imagery, this is a fresh and fun approach.
Restored 316 - Instagram Templates
As for the Instagram template, I promised one but couldn't help overdelivering—especially when I had all these beautiful brand assets to work with! Instead, I crafted a system of templates that suit each type of branded post Lauren could need. There's ones for quotes, hashtag features, new theme releases, blog post announcements, and more. You can really see the brand come into its own here, and I absolutely adore the refined warmth it radiates!
Kind Words & The Best Vibes
Collaborating with Lauren on the Restored 316 rebrand was such a pleasure, and I'm thrilled to include her take on the experience as well.
“Deciding to work with Melissa is probably one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made in my 8 years in business. As someone who also does design, I was hesitant in the beginning to hire out and completely let go of that design process to someone else, but time and time again I’ve been shown that I absolutely made the right decision.
From the beginning to the end, Melissa’s professionalism and process have been top notch. She took the necessary time in the beginning to really discover the heart of our brand as well as the future plans we have for it to design something that matches perfectly! She has her process completely nailed down, and I absolutely loved knowing exactly what and when to expect anything throughout the process.
Every week I would wait in anticipation to see what she drafted up and each week I was more and more excited than the last. I’ll never forget my heart about to burst out of my chest as I ran across the house to grab my husband to show him the first draft. I was over the moon excited and couldn’t believe my eyes! She had taken everything I ever dreamed of and completely blew my expectations! Melissa is a truly gifted artist and her ideas are innovative and unique, which is exactly why I hired her.
I can’t thank Melissa enough for all her hard work and professionalism through this process. I’m beyond grateful for her and her skills. I’ll certainly be back in the future for any future branding work!”
You can also read Lauren's post regarding her side of the rebrand story and bring her new identity to life on her website. New identity in hand, I can't wait to see what the future holds for Restored 316 in this exciting new chapter of their brand story!
