EleStory Rebrand
EleStory is a girl’s clothing brand that is thoughtfully designed and handcrafted in San Francisco. They are best known for their Mommy & Me collection (a line of adorable, matching outfits for little girls and their mothers) and their one-of-a-kind special occasion garments. The company’s founder, Judy Jou (who is a friend and former co-worker of mine from Pixar), approached me in March of 2017, wanting to do a complete re-design of their logo and brand elements.
Judy personally designed the original EleStory logo four years ago when she first set off to start her own business, back when her daughter June was still in diapers and the brand was more focused on the baby category. Since then, little June, EleStory and their target shopper have been maturing. Judy asked if I could help her develop a fresh brand identity that would compliment EleStory’s new aesthetics and goals, without sacrificing the sweetness and approachability of the original logo.
EleStory Packaging
The new hang tag, clothing and size label designs that are currently in production.
Website Concept
A front end web concept for EleStory, featuring a very clean and minimal shopping cart layout.
Social Media & Mobile
The Mamma and baby elephant graphic makes a great stand-alone icon for our social media channels. We also spruced up EleStory’s Instagram feed by interjecting the occasional “headline image.” We use these whimsical typographic treatments to introduce new products and the sweet stories that EleStory garments help to inspire.
Brand Strategy
Before beginning the design process for any brand, it’s important to first hone in on the values that represent the heart and soul of the brand. We experimented with a number of terms to describe the values that EleStory stands for, then whittled it down to “Family,” “Love,” and “Making Memories.” The brand philosophy then strings those concepts together into one unifying statement that represents the company’s core mission and purpose. In order to create a brand with a strong and unified sensibility, it’s important that all new designs and communications for EleStory evoke the spirit of these brand values and their underlying philosophy in some way.
Design Process
Below are some examples of the visual research, development sketches and early design concepts that I presented to the EleStory team. Once Judy zeroed in on the Mommy’s Little Sweetheart design concept, featuring a mother and daughter elephant for the icon, I continued exploring additional ways to execute this concept.
Final Refinements
While I had created some logo options that we were excited by, we decided to contract illustrator and artist Marceline Tanguay to help us finalize the design. Marcy is a talented, freelance character designer who Judy and I used to work with at Pixar. She provided us with a beautiful page of sketches that really brought more soul and appeal to the two characters, giving the final logo the emotional resonance we’d been shooting for. Judy and I picked and pulled our favorite elements from Marcy’s amazing sketches, working together to refine and polish the final icon and pair it with elegant, simple and approachable typography.
