Bakery website case study: Cakes at No 9
Before Christmas I wrapped up a design project for a local cake business, Cakes at No. 9, based in Cromarty in the north of Scotland. The client was looking for a full revamp of her business image, which meant new logo and branding, along with a website, business cards and social media designs.
The business was moving away from taking general orders to focus on high end bespoke orders, particularly wedding cakes, and the branding had to reflect that shift.
The first step when working with clients is to send them through a questionnaire about their business and how they see their branding. I also ask them to start collating images that they like, which are either directly or indirectly related to their business, on Pinterest or through a Google Drive folder - this helps me to build up a picture of what they are looking for in their new brand design and what will best suit their business.
After reviewing all of this information I put together an inspiration board for the client to review and comment on. Looking through the images the client had provided I noted that the branding should be classic, simple and elegant. The colour that seemed to stand out at the beginning was a teal colour, but as you'll see throughout the design process we ended up going with a deep navy blue and gold accent.
The feeedback from the client at this stage was positive and it seemed that we were on the same page in terms of the feel of the Cakes at No. 9 brand - apart from the pink, which was given short shift! Taking on board the notes I refined the colour palette and presented three logo options.
Option 1 was very simple combining an elegant font with a more romantic one, and I could see a cake tier inspired secondary logo using just the number 9.
Option 2 took inspiration from the fact the business is named after the house number where the client produces all of the cakes, so the design reflects a traditional cast iron house number.
Option 3 is looking at creating a more graphic logo incorporating patterns as the 'no 9' used here was something the client really liked when I presented the original inspiration board.
Through some back and forth discussion we decided on option 1 and I started working on refining the logo more. The client does not like two fonts being used together so I investigated upper and lower case as an option for creating a hierarchy of text.
In the end we landed on the final design through a few back and forth emails and the design was refined into a classic but eye catching main and sub logo which we both loved at the end of the day. I particularly love the gold accents used and I think they really help the design to pop.
The client also required a new website design as their existing Spanglefish account was expiring and they were finding the interface hard to use. As always, I recommended Squarespace which I find to be very user friendly - although it does still require a bit of time to become familiar with.
White space was key when putting together this website as I wanted to create a calm place for potential clients to be able to read through all of the services available and have all of the questions answered in a clear and readable way. It was also very important to let the cakes shine and really sell themselves so there is nothing fancy on this website - it just speaks for itself and is easy to find your way around.
Overall I am delighted with the way everything turned out for the Cakes at No. 9 branding - I think it looks classic and elegant and totally fits the initial design brief. It was great meeting my client face to face at the end of this project to run through the back end of Squarespace and it's a great feeling when you're client is really delighted with the finished product.
Thanks very much Jo and I wish you and Cakes at No 9 every seucess in 2017!
