So very excited to introduce you to Derma Solutions…
a fresh new brand we have had in the works.
Derma solutions are skincare distributors based in South Africa – who not only focus on getting quality skincare products into the hands of the skincare professionals [or the end users] hands, but who also believe very strongly in helping skincare professionals build their business too.
So awesome to be a part of helping this brand come to life, and I thought you may enjoy a sneaky look into how this brand evolved.
Where it all began.
A brand’s visual process starts by making sure that the brand strategy aligns with the business goals [after all – there’s no point having a pretty brand that wont achieve the brand goals].
Once a clear focus is in place, we start building up the visuals of a brand.
finding the brand direction:
Well, firstly we get clear on the brand strategy, the thinking and foundation your brand is built on.
Then we start bringing the brand to life visually.
In Derma’s case… there were three different “looks” that made the best sense for this “clean, fresh, natural” brand…
spekboom | Web layout | Box | evolve | Basil | the great hiring Co
The first look definitely conveyed their initial request:
Clean, with a pop of fun!
It caught their attention, and they even liked the pop of coral in the brand palette!
spekboom | nourish | naturegabe | cleo | skincare website | potplant illustration | bottle | verde
when the client saw this option, she was instantly attracted to it from a personal point of view. But… whilst she loved it for herself, she wasn’t convinced about it for the brand.
Further discussion helped us understand that they needed it to have more vibrancy – and that the palette was too subtle for what they wanted the brand to achieve.
good vibes only packaging | natural | nourishing | spekboom | abstract | card + pattern | one stop shop | gatsby
This brand direction caught them totally off guard.
They hadn’t anticipated something along these lines at all, but the longer they looked at it – the more this direction worked for them.
A combination of vibrant colours, that still felt approachable – combined in an elegant, yet approachable way!
Logo development
Now that we have a clear direction, it was time to start exploring the main brand mark + how some of the sumbarks could look:
we then went through a process of refinement + narrowed the options down to these two options for the brand mark:
which logo option would you have chosen?
Patterns
I love the fact that we had used the idea of the spekboom as our inspiration for this pattern.
So you’re wondering how I went from “spekboom” to this pattern????
Let me give you a sneak peek into how I decided to utilise the leaf shapes + turn it into this organic pattern for the Derma brand.
Image Credit: spekboom
Taking the spekboom shapes, it was time to explore some of the options of how those shapes + patterns could come together…
Here’s what that looked like:
Bringing the brand together
Building up the brand identity + pulling all the pieces together to start creating the Derma brand experience…
A style guide was created to make sure that we consistently apply the branding elements:
and here are a few examples of how it came together:
Kicking off with the business card:
Here are a few snippets of their stationery:
// the Letterhead,
// a loyalty card concept
// favicon [for the website]
because we all need a little thankyou card [you know, for those personal handwritten notes]
The next phase of the Derma Project, was to create a website + online store!
The website
The website needed to serve two different audiences:
// Derma’s clients: the salon’s who sell the derma products
// The end users of the product [or the salon’s clients]
Both needs needed to be factored into, but thankfully we had build up a solid strategy upfront – so aligning the website to their needs was a pretty seamless process.
thanks for joining us on the journey.
Wanted to take a look at some of the other branding projects wee worked on?
