Creating an Identity, Part II

When I was four years old, my mom let me pick out my own shoes.  Well, sort of.  She would take me to Nordstroms and pick out three pairs of shoes that fit her criteria - durability, budget and style, and then she let me determine which of those three shoes I wanted.  At the time, with the power to make the final decision in my hands, this made me feel like I was in charge.  However, in looking back, I of course now realize that it was still my mom who was running the ship.  When I made the decision to work with Emma on my (re-)branding, I felt this huge weight lifted off my shoulders.  I was finally leaving it to the professional, one whom I trusted and had great confidence in, to create the perfect logo.  Little did I know that Emma would put me right back where I was when I was four: she'd give me choices, all ones she knew she could stand behind, and leave the final decision up to me.  Lucky for me, I was in capable hands with Emma, just as capable as my mom who covertly stylized my feet for the duration of my childhood. The first step that Emma and I worked on for creating a logo was coming up with a color scheme.  She initially gave me four options, as shown below:

My favorites from the initial selection were the second and fourth choices.  I loved the second choice because the colors had been pulled from a floral arrangement that had two of my most favorite plants:  succulents and rhonunculas.  I also loved the last palette - something about it felt very French and rich to me.  We further explored these choices:

And, after a little tweaking, we landed on the color scheme below:

Once we had determined the color scheme, Emma sent me some font options:

I narrowed them down to 3, 5, and 6.  Even though they're the plainest of the bunch, the simplicity of these fonts felt very Marc-Jacobesque, who was one of my main inspirations for a clean and no frills logo.

Next, Emma presented her first stab at the logo!

And, here are some ways that it could be implemented into marketing collateral:

When I first saw the logo, I immediately loved the painted flowers.  I loved the whimsical feel of them, and I thought the colors integrated really well together.  I wasn't too crazy about the heart, which felt big and bulky to me, and left no space for the typography.

So, Emma played around with the painting and font and came up with this:

I loved this idea - at first glance, you can't tell what the design within the text is, but it's bright and colorful.  I can easily integrate the flowers into other aspects of my collateral so that the whole presentation holds together.  I didn't want all of my pieces to be matchy matchy, but instead wanted them to feel a little eclectic.  However, in this first round, there was a little too much purple within the name, so Ms. Emma went back to the drawing board and came up with this:

The yellow background did it for me, and voila, we had a logo!

Not to toot my own horn, but I love how the logo incorporates BOTH elegance and simplicity with a sense of fun and beauty, all elements that I want people to think of when they see our clients' wedding photographs.  In my next post, I'll be revealing all of the final pieces of collateral including business cards, stationery, packaging...

Creating an Identity, Part I

For this week, I'm going to blog about the process of creating an identity.  I found the process fascinating and fun, and so hopefully it will help some of you all out there who are thinking about or getting ready to embark on this same journey. When Adm and I first started the wedding business, we pretty much started from bare bones.  As in, we didn't have any kind of budget for marketing, advertising or branding, and to be honest, I don't think we really knew that that was a key part of starting and running a business.  We knew we needed a web site and business cards, but we didn't know what "creating an identity" meant or that it was a necessary part of building our business.  Both of us are fairly creative people, and that was what we had focused on honing, not our business and marketing skills.  Since we had to create everything on the cheap, I did it all on my own.

I found a floral stamp at The Paper Source for $8, photographed it, and bam, put some pretty font next to it and that was my logo.  I put that stamp to good use and stamped floral patterns all over everything - stationery, envelopes, contracts, shipping labels....  I have to admit, I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with a design that had a somewhat DIY/custom feel and fit within our non-budget.  I picked the brown and blue color scheme because blue was for Carolina blue (my alma mater), and I liked how brown complemented the blue.

At some point, I think around the beginning of 2010, Adm and I decided that we were ready to create a legitimate logo and identity that was a reflection of what we and our photography are about.  We also decided that it was time to hire a professional to do this.  This was kind of huge for us because it marked the first time that we were hiring other people to do work for the business.  Up until this point, we had done everything ourselves, but we also realized our limitations, particularly the fact that we're not designers.  We brainstormed moods, themes and adjectives that we wanted our logo to reflect - emotions that we wanted people to feel (either consciously or subconsciously) when they looked at our logo and our photographs.  We did all kinds of exercises, like coming up with single sentences to describe our approach, creating a mission statement, outlining our long-term and short-term goals...  Initially, I thought these exercises were kind of silly and a waste of time, but they're really not.  They forced us to be able to articulate what we are about, our vision and what we want our clients' experience with Alison Yin Weddings to be.  While we were doing this, I kept pulling design inspiration from the web and just putting all of that away in a folder for later use.

The next task (no small feat) was to find the right designer.  We did have some restrictions - namely, our budget, and we wanted to work with someone local so we could be active and in-person participants.  That, and we're also trying to support local businesses and services as much as possible.  In researching graphic designers, I noticed there are lots of different types of designers - the three most obvious to me were designers who specialize in typography, others who specialize in collage and mixed media, and others who are illustrators.  We wanted someone who could draw so we went the illustrator route.  I realize that all of this must sound really elementary, but figuring out these basic principles literally took us months, so that just shows where we were coming from.

After several meetings with designers and countless hours looking through online portfolios, we finally stumbled upon Emma Robertson.  At the time, Emma had just moved to Berkeley from Paris, one place that provided some major inspiration for the look I wanted to create.  What sold me on Emma before even meeting with her was the personal work portion of her portfolio and her blog.  Most of the time, graphic designers create work that reflect the vision of the people they're working for, so it's not really a true reflection of what their personal style is all about.  I love Emma's illustrations and her use of color, AND her blog is full of things she likes and is drawn to - all things that were on the same wavelength as what I wanted.

Unfortunately for Emma, I basically just dropped my inspiration folder in her lap (there were at least 85 different photos of things), and told her to have at it.  Here's a sampling of what I gave her:

Below is a smattering of things that I like that I gave Emma.  I wanted her to create something that was pretty and elegant, but that also had a hand painted, whimsical and quirky feel with room to evolve over time.  And obviously, as you can tell from just glancing at the images below, I love color so that was also key.

1/2/3

4/5/6

7/8/9

10

11/12 (a vase I brought back from Paris)/13

14 (a bag I brought back from a store in Paris)/15

For the next blog post, I'll write about the process of working with Emma and coming up with our new look.

Someone's got a new do!

Baby, you lookin' fiiiiine today, did you do something different with your hair or maybe you've lost a few pounds?  Why yes, thank you for noticing!  Actually, we got a COMPLETE makeover, and it feels soooo good!

My friends, I am so excited to FINALLY reveal our new look!  We've been working for months on creating a new identity, and it's finally here!  Actually, the uber talented and creative designer Ms. Emma Robertson really gets all the credit for our new style.  I plan to blog about the entire process of creating an identity as well as show off the rest of the collateral next week, so for now, just sit back, grab a cocktail and admire the new design, made-over blog, and updated portfolios on the web site.

Vacation!!!

Whooohoooooo!!!! We're heading out of the country for a much needed and long awaited vacation to Buenos Aires, Argentina!  I've got a few blog posts scheduled and ready to go (including a very special introduction!) while we're away so the blog won't be completely dead while we're gone.  I'm sure we'll also post a few photos from our trip once we're down there. For current and prospective clients, we'll be back in the Bay Area and in full work mode on February 10.  Until then, I'll still be checking my email every now and again, but please be patient as I'll be a little slower than usual to respond. Happy January!

See ya, Bay Area!

2010 Highlights: A Year in Review!

I can't believe we're already ringing in a New Year.  2010 has been a complete whirlwind, and at the end of the year, when things are starting to slow down and we're getting ready to breathe and relax for a few months, I always like to reflect on what we've done and think about what direction we're headed in.  In pulling out images for the highlight slideshow, I can see how our style is evolving and what areas to focus on for the future.  This is part of what makes our job so fun - constantly critiquing one another and pushing each other to do better.  We absolutely love what we do and are so incredibly lucky to work with such wonderful people who trust their memories with us.  We are so grateful for each and every couple that lets us into their lives on such an important day, and we just hope that the care we take in creating their images is a true reflection of how important they are to us.

The slideshow includes images from every wedding and engagement session we photographed this past year.  Music is "Perfect In My Mind" by Gold Motel.

New Web Site and Portfolios (and Breakfast at the Carolina Inn)

Yes, I'm crazy.  Crazy to undertake two huge projects right smack in the middle of the busiest part of my season!  Project 1: Re-branding and creating an identity (more on that to come later).  Project 2:  Building a new web site and updating the online galleries.  So, after a couple months of super long days and nights where my eyes stared at images and the computer so much I started to feel like I was going to burn a hole right through the monitor (not to mention the days I stayed in my pajamas all day because I didn't have time to shower and change and the only thing I had to bear was my harried reflection in the computer...) I'm so excited to share my new web site!

Alison Yin Wedding Photography

The site is powered by Neon Sky, a popular choice among photographers in all different niches.  My good friend Brandon has worked for them for several years, and I've always wanted a Neon Sky site, and so I'm really happy that I've finally made the jump!

Initially, I thought it would be fairly simple and straightforward to transfer my site, but then I started thinking that I've created so much new work that it would be silly to create a new site without updating the photos.  Therein lies the craziness and the long hours.  You literally can go around in circles reviewing and selecting images.  I recommend enlisting the eyes and advice of just a few people (too many opinions is not helpful) and "sleeping" on your selections for a period of time.  Although this isn't exactly eco-friendly, one of my photo teachers also suggests printing out photos and hanging them on the walls because if you can "live" with your images for awhile, you know they're keepers.  Once I had my photo selections, then I was faced with the rather daunting task of sequencing the images.

A little more than four years ago, Brandon (the same Brandon from Neon Sky) and I were lucky enough to have breakfast with Pulitzer Prize Winner Kim Komenich at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.  During breakfast (which Kim treated!), Kim talked about the importance of sequencing photos.  Essentially, you're trying to create a "symphonic, cinematic experience," and so the way images flow is almost just as important as the images themselves.  See, I found my breakfast notes:

Even though we were talking about creating a photojournalism portfolio, the same message applies to pretty much any kind of photography.  I tried to carefully sequence photos based on all different kinds of factors including composition, moment, color, graphic elements, content and light.  So, here is my best attempt at creating my symphony:

Alison Yin Wedding Photography

In addition to new work and more tightly edited portfolios, the site also has more information about things like the photo booth, photo booth flip book, and albums.  Plus, it's an entirely new (and cleaner!) layout!  It's still a work in progress, but for now, I'm satisfied.