When I found out that my friend, Mackenzie, had a blog, I was so excited to approach her about doing a logo and branding. Over on her blog, Learning to Live & Love, Mackenzie discusses her journey moving across the country to a new city, mental health, and other anecdotes.

From the questionnaire I sent her, she desired a brand that was simple, modern and exuded peaceful, tranquil, and “homey" feelings.

She liked the idea of playful fonts (nothing with a strong script) and was attracted to creams, soft grey, pops of teal, and soft peach.

Step 1: Brainstorming

Mackenzie put together a brand inspiration board on Pinterest and from there, I arranged the photos and added colors into a mood board that set the tone for the overall feel and style of the brand.

Step 2: Logo Design

Ahh the fun part! I found different fun graphics that I could include with a range of display fonts. I can't show them here for copyright reasons, but she decided on a final design with an earthy graphic. Here was the final design in black and white.

Then I provided some color palette options for her to choose from based on the feedback I received before the start of the project.

She loved #1, so I applied those colors to the final logo design to provide her with different options. I then created various alternative logo options.

Mackenzie chose 1.2 for her main logo and 2.5 as her alternative logo.

Step 3: Branding Style Board

Next, I moved on to organizing the logo, logo variations, fonts and color palette onto the style board. Then I designed the graphic elements - "buttons" for her site, a line/divider, and signatures she could use on her About page. I also found cute textures that matched Mackenzie's brand.

Mackenzie also received a style guide, which breaks down further how the fonts should be used (headings, paragraph, decorative) and the various color codes (CMYK, RGB, hex).

There you have it! This was such a fun project and I was so excited to bring Mackenzie's brand vision to life! Below, you can see how she used the branding materials on her blog.