Project Showcase: Soft, Nature-Inspired Branding for Traverse City Artist, Rebecca Deneau

Rebecca Deneau is an oil painter and fine artist based in the greater Traverse City area whose work is inspired by the beauty of Northern Michigan often depicting scenes of her adventures here and throughout all her travels. While Rebecca is an artist herself, she realized that her skills don’t lie within graphic design itself. Rebecca found herself daydreaming of having a more established brand that allowed her to market her work across all channels – from local art shows to Instagram promotions – and that’s where I came in.

Earthy inspired branding and thank you card design for oil painter

Timeless and clean website design for Traverse City Artist

Working to Create a Sophisticated, Elegant Brand

While working together, her initial concern was to ensure that we were still able to use her signature throughout her branding. The current version she was using was muddy and hard to read at large scales, so I was sure to completely vectorize it from scratch as a starting point for her brand.

But our project didn’t stop at one logo mark, instead, we aimed to create a sophisticated brand, inspired by nature just as her work is. We wanted it be tasteful, elegant, and sophisticated and the final result allowed her to build out a truly custom brand that is working to create brand recognition through a variety of touch points. To do this, I grabbed my Pantone swatch books and compared them with her work. This was my first time working with a painter, and any fine artist at that, and I knew I wanted her color palette to reflect the earth hues and soft, neutral jewel tones of her work.

Putting this Timeless, Earthy Inspired Brand to Use

Today, Rebecca continues to build out her brand as her business grows. Shortly after her brand launched, she returned and had me build out a new look for her email templates and home page on her website, something we wanted to keep clean, elegant, and legible to compliment her new brand. With every art market in the Traverse City area and every new season, she continues to amaze me with how she uses her brand. By investing in a truly custom brand complete with logo marks, brand patterns, illustrations, and collateral, Rebecca has a brand that she loves and is able to build out the recognition she’s been longing for.

Check out how she’s used her brand and send her some love by following her at @rebecccadeneau on Instagram.