Branding & Design
Stand out from the crowd
Ruby Slipper Designs is honored to embark on your organization’s branding journey.
What is branding?
A brand identity is an essential way to differentiate yourself from your competition. It influences your audience’s experiences at every point and subconsciously affects how they view your professionalism, relevance, and trustworthiness.
When done well, it is an interwoven tapestry of design, language and experience, all combining to cultivate a strategic and distinct connection with your audience.
Benefits of enlisting a branding agency
- Uniquely differentiate
- Ensure better marketing
- Emotionally connect with customers
- Increase customer loyalty
- Increase your value
Our method
To start, we embark on a brand audit, research your customers, your competition, and explore how you wish to be perceived. Then we brainstorm and conceptualize — hitting the drawing board with our stack of research as we dive into the artful process of creation.
Our branding services
Our branding and graphic design services include logo development, business cards, letterhead, brochures, product labels, signage and more!
Case Study: A Branding Tale
Ruby Slipper was asked to be the branding agency for two nature preserves—each very unique and individual properties in the foothills of Ashland, Oregon.
Field trip!
The team kicked off the branding assignment with a foray into the nature preserves. Basking in sunshine, riding a sweet ATV, exploring the paths, all led by resident expert, Maia, the property overseer.
She showed us native plants, invasive species, signs of old farm-steading, cougar and bear claw marks on trees, an abandoned mine, horses that have taken residence on the property. We stopped to check the multiple cameras mounted on trees. Through those we saw countless bears, cougar, deer, all meandering through the forest.
Dive into the research
After this exhilarating day, Ashley—Ruby Slipper’s brilliant graphic designer—and I got to work. We researched nature preserves, both local and national, and evaluated their color palettes and logos. Many featured oak trees or leaves, some tried to show 8 different elements, others were quite simple.
Revisit the target audience
This is not a nature preserve for the casual visitor or the outdoor enthusiast. This is a preserve for scientists, naturalists, and students. It’s private property, with pre-authorized access only. The identities we craft need to emotionally connect with both high-echelon scientists and kindergartners.
Time to brainstorm
Our branding agency team met at Remix in Ashland, and amassed a list of everything great and small that we saw on our field trip or had learned over the months of working with Maia. Tiny creatures like yellow legged foothill frog, dusky wings butterflies. Native flowers like the cat ears lily and blow wives. Majestic madrone trees, oaks, conifers. The big animals—Roosevelt Elk, great gray owls, black bears, deer, wolf, and cougars.
Synthesize and create
Each one has a balance of unique elements—from grasses to mountain profiles to creatures that roam each preserve. The color tones are taken right from the elements, as of course, nature is a central concept. These identities show key concepts for each locale: a dominant tree (Ponderosa Pine and Oak), an animal roaming the land (black bears and cougars), and the profiles of the mountains where these preserves are located (Grizzly Peak and Buckhorn Peak). They are beautifully balanced and colored to give a sense of each preserve.
“The website is absolutely wonderful and really communicates the identity of Charlie, and the Institute, beautifully! You were the driving force behind pulling all of it together. Really, you are awesome and I appreciate you and all you do so very much!”
– MAIA BLACK, GRIZZLY PEAK & SAMPSON CREEK PRESERVES
Interested in branding & graphic design?
Contact us and hop on the yellow brick road with Ruby Slipper!