a cohesive visual identity
Project: Brand Identity, unique packaging solutions and web design for a local yarn shop
Company: Village Yarn Shoppe
Overview: This is a passion project of a favourite shop of mine. The Village Yarn Shoppe caters to all yarn enthusiasts in the Comox Valley. This project expands on adding revenue by adding their own brand of Knit Kits.
The Problem: To create a new brand identity and develop packaging design for a product that can be accessible online.
The Solution: Create a logo system to ensure the brand’s visual identity remains flexible and cohesive online and in print. Knit Kits packaging solutions to create a unique knitting experience that is customizable and accessible through Village Yarn Shoppe’s new re-branded website.
colour palette
The primary colour for the design is a dark green-blue that pays homage to the evergreen environment where the Village Yarn Shoppe is located. The remainder of the colour palette focuses on a variety of blues, greens and one dark merlot. As an accent colour, and best used for print is the copper foil. These are colours of nature found around the Comox Valley such as the ocean, rain, trees, bark, leaves and fire.
typography
Laca is the typeface used for the design; according to its foundry, Nova Type Foundry, it is said that this typeface was designed with wanting to ‘bring a familiar feeling of closeness and warmth’ while also keeping it modern for the web. It is a suitable typeface for the design as those are feelings that are desired in this logo. The ‘Village’ and ‘Yarn’ is kerned to give it the sense of closeness. To improve legibility, all letters are upper-case.
knit kit
Village Yarn Shoppe’s new addition; a new and improved knit kit. Gone are the days of paper-bag or Ziploc kits.
With this knit kit, users can create their own customized project based on specific patterns and yarn colours that are provided by the store. This kit has 3 different levels of difficulty; green for beginner, blue for moderate and red for intermediate.
I designed the template and label using Adobe Illustrator. I had paint colour-matched to my colour palette, painted the cylindrical tubes, added copper foil to the graphic on the kit and as the finishing touch, wrapped the label I created around the kit.
style guide
To ensure that Village Yarn Shoppe’s new visual identity remains cohesive and consistent, a style guide was created to house all the materials listed in this presentation. This style guide was built in Adobe InDesign and published on Issu.
parting thoughts
Village Yarn Shoppe can confidently say that their re-brand will offer them the flexibility they require in an every-increasing online world. Their logo system is robust and can be versatile for both online or print applications. With a new online store where they can offer products like their knit kit, yarns and accessories, it provides an alternate stream of revenue, especially during these uncertain times with COVID-19.
With technologies like Zoom and other virtual video conferencing, it opens up the possibility to offer workshops virtually and to continue to build the community, one stitch at a time.
Tools used to complete this project
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Lightroom
- Adobe InDesign
- WordPress + Elementor + WooCommerce