This is a passion project that I created to showcase my skills, the idea for the brand was to be a sustainable kids clothing for ages up to 8, with a unisex ethos and a secondhand marketplace. ‘Comfy shapes for childhood adventures’. The brand personality was to be playful, fun, cool, quirky, approachable.
Moodboard
Please note this is sourced imagery and none of the imagery is owned by me, this was just used to establish the mood and creative direction of the brand identity.
Usually I do a simple grid moodboard but in the spirit of the brand I created a looser and more playful moodboard.
Sketches
Using Procreate on my iPad I sketched out a number of explorations for this logo. Creating completely unique lettering and bespoke illustrations.
Mostly for concepting I sketch on paper, however I find to create lettering or an illustration I prefer to do it directly digitally which then gives me something I can work with rather than a paper sketch that I would need to scan and trace to digitise it.
For client projects I would likely explore more options than this however as it was a passion project and I was quite drawn to the style of lettering that I went with I didn’t explore as many options and I didn’t explore any existing fonts.
Refining
From those sketches I really just refined everything a little as I wanted to keep that handdrawn feeling and not have it too polished. The colour palette was tweaked a little from the moodboard colours so that they worked more cohesively together.
Mock-ups
My next step is laying out everything together to check it’s all looking cohesive. Then I create some mock-ups to give a true sense of how the brand identity looks beyond just on a screen. For this project I just tried it out as a mailer and explored how a poster might look.
Hey, I’m Kirsty McGill the creative behind Elm Leaf Studio. I’ve been a designer for 13 years now and building websites for most of them.
Elm Leaf Studio is a creative studio that exists to help small, ethically-minded businesses grow and thrive.
When I’m not designing I mostly spend my time running around after a toddler nowadays, and if I get a spare moment I enjoy reading, learning and making art.
