New Branding for Jaz Design and Jaz Journal
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:
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.
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..! 😘
Update: Business cards are go!