A Dash of Whimsy: Branding for a Creative Duo

What do you get when a stylist and a photographer come together? Besides the obvious (a super-talented duo with decades of experience), clients who really understand the value, nuances, and power of brand identity. 

We met Stephanie Bohn and Meg Mulloy of then-fledgling Bohn Mulloy & Co at Creative Ladies Night, a popular networking event here in Austin, Texas. Creative Ladies Night draws women from every creative field imaginable – interior designers, artists, potters, graphic designers and, of course, stylists and photographers – for collaboration and community. So, the partnership between Bohn Mulloy & Co and Working Lunch Co was natural: we shared a mutual appreciation for autonomy, collaboration, and learning. 

Learning is at the core of Stephanie Bohn and Meg Mulloy’s new business. The pair combines decades of experience to bring photography + styling workshops to a city bursting with small businesses and startups, and leaders looking to market those businesses and startups with polished, cohesive brand imagery.

Our kickoff meeting revealed the duo aim to teach photography + styling in intimate, full-day workshops. Ready to start marketing their first workshop, Bohn Mulloy & Co wanted a brand that would communicate the differentiators of their workshops: an opportunity to spend a full day learning from professionals who have been honing their crafts longer than most in their field. The brand identity also had to be true to their approachable, fun-loving personalities. 

After working together to identify brand personality and values, we presented Bohn Mulloy & Co with three conceptual directions. The duo immediately gravitated towards a minimalist, modern, yet whimsical concept. Taking cues from minimalist wordmarks, our concept infused a lightness of spirit through simple graphic gestures and subtle imperfections to reflect their nuanced brand personality and values.  

Armed with the colors Bohn Mulloy & Co believed represented their personality, we created a palette of earthy and optimistic colors that would give them creative freedom on social media platforms, a key feature for our visually focused client. 

The result is a logo emphasizing the “o” in each word of the company name to symbolize the partnership. The juxtaposition of a streamlined modern typeface with a custom, curvaceous ampersand reads solid and professional, with the ever-important dash of whimsy. To provide flexibility, we also provided Bohn Mulloy & Co with a round badge (primarily for social media profiles) and multiple logo colorways. 

This design package has given Bohn Mulloy & Co the necessary visual components to design their website, create marketing materials, and successfully market their first workshop, which was a sold-out success! In the future, these creative ladies will be able to create consistent marketing assets and use their amazing skills to create a vivid, engaging social media feed around their hero colors to build brand recognition in the minds of their customers. 

We should also mention that we are now one of their customers, and we enjoyed a lovely working lunch discussing brand photography for Working Lunch Co! We couldn’t be happier with our new brand photography that resulted from this collaboration. Look for it to feature on our site soon! 

laying the foundation: branding for a new development

A solid foundation is the key to success. In the case of Westgate on Wardlaw – a luxury townhome development in the up-and-coming west side of downtown Greenville, South Carolina – this was true both literally and figuratively. 

Westgate on Wardlaw came to Working Lunch Co. with the unique challenge of marketing a lifestyle and product that didn’t yet exist. With the long lead times of construction and the large investment home purchases represent, the developers knew they would need to build a strong brand foundation for Westgate on Wardlaw in order to generate demand long before the first open house.

Enter our comprehensive Working Lunch Co. Brand Identity Foundations Package – on a rush timeline! With the goal of delivering a brand identity before Westgate on Wardlaw’s final review with the city, we quickly set to work. 

Our first meeting revealed Westgate on Wardlaw’s intention of celebrating the area’s industrial heritage and the property’s unique location, literally at the gateway from downtown to the buzzing west side. Through our collaborative design process, we explored possible design directions and ultimately landed on a sophisticated interpretation of industrial elements, like brick and iron structures. The final logo, inspired by steel I-beams, is a custom monogram that is both modern and classic, echoing the same characteristics of the property design and surrounding neighborhood.

To deliver a cohesive brand suite, we paired the logo with a simple, lightweight, modern slab serif typeface and a color palette of brick red and inky graphite, complemented by softer modern accent colors. We also expanded the brand suite by developing  an inventive custom pattern based on the monogram that is reminiscent of traditional iron gates. 

We delivered this comprehensive package in record time so that our clients could apply the new brand to their website in time for their meeting with the city. Based on the new brand, we also developed large scale property marketing signs that would communicate the essence of Westgate on Wardlaw’s luxury west side lifestyle to passersby before and during construction.

The result? All but two residences were sold prior to Westgate on Wardlaw breaking ground. We can’t wait to visit Greenville to see these beautiful townhomes come to life and to take our clients to lunch, of course!