I’ve been sitting on my rebrand (Design and Journal) for over a year now. I even posted on Instagram that I was SO CLOSE to hatching it. And then I didn’t.

I have in that time finalised my colour palette, found a pink that makes my heart sing, and even added two other non-pink colours. I’ve done a phase one redesign of my Design website, and I would say I’m 60% through building it.

But finishing it is a problem. Because because, cobbler’s shoes. Same old story! I’m fortunate to be busy. And whilst I’m crying out for a new website, eager to complete it, something needed to happen now. Why waste my new branding any longer? I love it—and who knows how long that will stay true for?

So.

  • I designed and ordered new business cards (to come next week!)
  • I updated all of my social media profiles with new avatars (both Design and Journal).
  • I updated the existing templates on Design and Journal with the new fonts, new colour palette and a slight inversion of the internal pages (which is a nod to the new design). These are by no means perfect, but at least fit with the new direction.
  • Remembered to change the favicon.
  • Wrote this.
  • Released it all into the wild.

The note I’d written about the branding before still stands:

Before. 6 years old, not representative of my skills at all anymore.

I’d never been quite happy with the way my two brands interact. In the real world my work on one is influenced by and borrows from the other, and I still want to reflect this. Jaz Journal tends to get passed over in favour of Jaz Design whenever I have time to spend on my own projects, so this time I wanted to make sure there was a common visual language both could use and then twist in their own way in other contexts.

After. Much much better! Clear. Feels like me. Borrow from each other nicely.

I use the butterfly for design because of the butterfly effect (small cause, large effect), because they are beautiful and because they are “engineered” in such a perfect way. I use the skull for my more personal, arty work because I love this idea of looking underneath and finding the core of what makes something beautiful. And I err a little more on the spooky side of things, so it covers my “quirks” 👻 I’ve been using some version of both for ten years or so, and these combine perfectly for me!

Getting social media avatars right is strangely difficult. The recommendation is to have a photo of yourself so people you meet in real life can find you, but I also wanted to have the brand in there. I will probably change these a bunch of times in the coming weeks!

There is so much more to come..! 😘

7th May 2018 | News