SHEA BECK

Author: Shea Beck

  • Branding Like a Gardener

    Branding Like a Gardener

    To brand effectively you have to concern yourself with many disciplines and it may help to think of a brand identity or individual concepts as a garden. Gardens, whether they’re great acreages of arable farmland or a row of pots laid out on a balcony, all require constant attention and the correct treatment over time. Weather events and unexpected temperature spikes can all affect the success and growth rate of flora and, in many cases, the same can be said for brand development. In the following, I’m going to cover a few analogies that may help to better illustrate branding principles.

    Sowing Seeds: Planning ahead and reaping the benefits.

    Smart gardeners tend to consult a Farmer’s Almanac or review a planting schedule before jumping in and sowing seeds. In the same manner, you may wish to consider getting as much information as you can ahead of time before setting a project into motion. When faced with branding a new client, I like to consider the overall game plan with them as it’s helpful to understand where they want to end up in the future and create meaningful targets that can manifest those outcomes. Whilst having everything mapped out is helpful, I’m also from the school of thought that not everything can be planned for. I’ve never liked the question, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” as it’s too great of a jump and too abstract of a concept when I sit there struggling to remember what I had for dinner two nights ago.

    Manageable chunks of time such as: “Where do I see myself next month?” and “Where do I want my growth to be next season?” can be more useful than heavier-laden expectations that put too great a stress on immediate results. Planning ahead is just as much about managing your own expectations of growth as it is the responses of your potential audience.

    Soil: Growing a brand identity in the right environment.

    Any good life coach will tell you that you can’t grow and develop in the wrong environment. Some plants, like weeds, are persistent and will find any light that they can through the cracks in the pavement and grow in adverse conditions. Other plants can be downright fussy and require the ideal soil, shade and irrigation before they even dream about sprouting. Neither is an indicator of their usefulness or perceived desire once they grow, just that they each have different requirements to best facilitate their growth.

    Utilising this principle in branding has little to do with a physical location but rather how you choose the correct building blocks that position your brand to a wider audience. Often, these blocks are specific to the industry that you are operating within so think of this structure as a template that can be tailored to fit your purpose. There will be occasions wherein you may find yourself going against the grain and choosing wildly contrasting elements to stand out from the crowd to better differentiate your brand.

    To illustrate this point clearly I’d like you to imagine two bars across the street from one another:

    One is a ‘spit and sawdust’ pub. This space needs grit, texture and noise. It’s tone of voice is bawdy, loud and friendly. Its design language involves warm woods, open fires and comfortable seats.

    Directly opposite is a wine bar. This space requires clean lines, space and transparency. It’s tone of voice is sophisticated, confident and mysterious. Its design language involves punchy colours, reflective surfaces and dim lighting.

    Both of the bars described above will co-exist quite happily on the same street (physical location) and serve a vibrant mix of locals; although, note how their environments are polar opposites to one another. If the bars’ languages or tones were to switch then it would ultimately confuse their clientele once they got through the door and neither bar will grow correctly if their environment sits at odds with the expectations of its market.

    Landscaping: Design should be functional.

    Landscaping is more than just a focus on layout, it’s every conscious choice that goes into crafting a scheme that facilitates its experience: the juxtaposition of low shrubbery to tall ferns, the zoning of areas for distinct activities and, most crucially, the placement of paving stones that direct movement through the garden itself.

    To make some sense of this in context, I have divided a brand into three parts below;

    The Journey:
    Branding should tell a story or lead with an overall purpose. We should consider the ‘what and the why’ and should aim to guide individuals towards the brand’s purpose by providing information or by revealing something that elicits a response. This level of planning is known as the ‘user experience’ and many resources can assist with refining this skill. Common qualities of ‘bad’ User Experience include inaccessible materials and the provision of mixed messages. Mapping out points that you would like the average individual to follow can help you to decide which parts are mission critical.

    Visual Identity:
    Typically we attribute a logo, fonts, certain colours and iconography to the visual identity. Visuals exist to give the audience reference points back to the main concept that you’re trying to promote to them. Key to functionality here is cohesion – the visuals should match up across all of the formats you’re providing, else the message gets diluted and becomes a confusing mass of signals that nobody can associate as a whole.

    Interactivity:
    Interactivity focuses on implementing the User Experience across the unique platforms (website, social channels, forms) that your brand is displayed on and ensuring that they run seamlessly; anything relevant to interaction should be clean and easy to access. This concept can be seen in the real world through signage, noticeboards and customer service – a prime example of interactivity is a walking audio-tour in an art museum, its purpose is to guide and provide value / information to what your audience is looking at.

    Please note practices here such as accessibility. With some individuals being visually impaired or dyslexic, your brand identity benefits from accommodating the needs of these groups. In our website example you might look into a contrast checker and in the museum’s audio-tour this would benefit from support for hearing aids and the implementation of braille signage.-

    Clouds on the horizon: let’s recap.

    With our busy day of gardening coming to a close I hope you’ve gathered a basket full of knowledge on how best to approach some of the principles of branding. My intention with framing the information above is to reduce some of the overwhelm associated with getting a brand on its feet and helping it to grow under the correct conditions. You should now have a better understanding of how:

    • Planning and managing expectations of growth can aid development.
    • Different brand types require distinct strategies and tones / design language.
    • Functionality is a mixture of User Experience, Visuals, Interactivity and Accessibility.

    Need help with your brand?

    If watering those plants sounds like too much effort, I offer 1:1 consultations to help you explore cost-effective solutions. Email me (here) or visit my branding Services to learn more.

  • Book A Bar

    Book A Bar

    Book A Bar Ltd is a mobile bar company operating out of Maidstone, Kent. I met with their Director, Byron, in 2021 following a local advertisement for freelance design services. The nature of assistance that Book A Bar required at the time centred around maps for a handful of their event spaces in the July of their upcoming season.

    Initial Assessment

    On meeting with their team and shadowing their workflow during a week at their head office, I spied a range of assets that had been overlooked:

    • A selection of physical media, namely bar runners and menus, had the wrong typefaces that led to a lack of continuity on Book A Bar’s point of sale media; crucial for their customer experience.
    • Their existing promotional media had varied styling and it became clear that multiple designers had been employed to create one-off assets that didn’t tally up with their brand’s message.
    • Existing digital channels and their core website were outdated and left the customer overwhelmed with false information, this crossing of wires meant that Book A Bar’s sales team had to frequently readjust their customer’s expectations as the pricing their customers had found was incorrect at the time of their initial call.

    These issues caused the following difficulties for Book A Bar;

    • An impression of incompetence on the customer’s side as the information they discovered from the company’s official channels proved to be unreliable during first contact.
    • A level of frustration on the sales team as they would be chasing their tail asking for up-to-date information in-between calls with a potential lead; thus increasing conversion time offering up the opportunity to lose the customer in the interim.
    • A lack of cohesion felt by the customer across the Point of Sale and other channels – typefaces and logos being different to what was expected – and sales media existing in random styles made it hard to discern whether the media belonged to the company at first glance.

    The result of these issues hampered lead nurturing and called the company’s efficacy into question, a big problem for an independent business that was recovering from a period of inactivity (UK Lockdown) and couldn’t afford to miss opportunities in the already saturated hospitality sector.

    Future Brand Strategy

    On meeting Book A Bar, their Director had made it clear that brand standards were important to them and the relatively quick expansion of the company had resulted in a necessity to focus more on the operational side than their brand identity. This shift to the physical had worked incredibly well for their sales in the short term but, in a competitive market, the necessity to update and focus on a more encompassing strategy had become apparent. Book A Bar became intrigued into how they could improve their offering and limit damage to their future sales by investing capital into brand identity, and so Byron and I developed the following outline to assist in reigning in the ‘bolted horses’ and get a handle on what needed to change:

    Assess which materials were out of date > Listen to the Team’s concerns regarding their daily operations > Look through customer feedback to figure out where to position the branding going forward > Set an order of operations from Top Priority to Lowest Priority

    With the above outline in mind, we followed up an analysis of the brand with a clear direction for each segment and began refreshing the relevant media in order to improve the identity as a whole and patch up Book A Bar’s appearance.

    Timings of projects were relative to Book A Bar’s ongoing workload during the weekends (with setup for events occurring during the week) and so targets were approached incrementally so as not to disturb this workflow or interfere with the success of their team. The following was achieved over the span of 6 months:

    1. Remastering the logo materials which had since been split across an internal server and were no longer understood by the team. New iconography was also created at this stage and the core language of the brand established before proceeding.
    2. Refitting the existing website and making sure all of the media contained therein was relevant, correct and easily accessible to potential customers. Highlighting key products and packages that could be upsold and creating curiosity for the client before their initial contact; phone or email.
    3. Resetting the brand standard expectations for the immediate Team’s daily touchpoints: email templates that required modernising, letter headers for correspondence, quoting templates for customers, and labels that were used internally as well as on-site for equipment in the public eye.
    4. Designing any physical media that needed reprinting in accordance with the new brand standards. This included the point of sale on mobile bar units, bar runners, menus and signage.
    5. Developing new promotional media that separated the core bar types and packages into a colour-based system that was easy to understand for new customers and the Team, highlighting the benefits of each type of service and allowing for simpler comparison during sales.
    6. Creating sub-identities for hired equipment that was entirely unique to Book A Bar and enabled them to better position these products to distinct audiences.

    Conclusion

    After the update to their brand identity, Book A Bar reported greater success with in-person meetings when utilising their fresh promotional material and they were more successful with upselling their lesser known services and products. Team morale improved as the contact and communication with lead nurturing had also benefitted from fewer instances of confusion. Customer feedback began to mention how well presented the bar media appeared with a general uptake in positive comments surrounding the customer’s journey and the company’s overall approach. At the time of writing this in July 2025, Book A Bar has remained a client of mine for the past 4 years. Together, we’ve built countless documents, worked on illustrations for bar panels, sign written vehicles and created one-of-a-kind POS display media for individual events. The continued evolution of their brand identity has been so successful in part to the initial groundwork we put in 4 years ago to re-establish their strategy and the diligent manner in which its director, Byron, has championed the company’s brand standards through to today.

    If you have a business or individual brand that is suffering from similar issues, namely: mismatched media, customer confusion or a lack of knowledge on how to proceed due to premature scaling then you might be in line for a refresh just like Book A Bar. With years of experience in identity, I make a point of working with you from the ground up, wherever you may be at the time. I ensure that the choices we make are of benefit to your workflow with the least amount of interruption possible.

  • Forky Porkys

    Forky Porkys

    Forky Porky’s is a catering company based in Rainham, Kent, UK. Their specialties include hogroasts and spitroasts, serving a a range of domestic and commercial events with a focus on affordable, traditionally cooked fare with a modern edge.

    Brand Analysis

    Forky’s owner had experience running a successful hogroast outlet years beforehand; stopping to travel the world and engage with other business ideas. The gentleman had kept the hogroast equipment for all of that time with the main trailer and roasting ovens laying dormant, ready to be dusted off and revived once more.

    From our initial talks regarding a logo, I had become intrigued in the vision for the brand and its development into a fully fledged business. I was shown past material and menus and it was clear that the catering market had moved on considerably since the initial venture had been shut down, what had worked before would not work again the second time around.

    The challenge ahead of Forkys was the following – how was it going to stand out on the market against a backdrop of fast food chains, local restaurants offering burgers, pulled pork and roasts, gastropubs and delivery-based dark kitchens? We sat down with our napkins and began brainstorming.

    No brief existed for Forkys at its inception and as a designer this is the equivalent of staring at a blinking cursor on a screen – you can take immense joy in having total freedom but the flipside is that designing with no brief can become an entirely overwhelming prospect. We took care with our initial market research as the data could better inform a direction.

    We noticed the following patterns from other hogroast companies across the UK:

    • Frequently male-owned, male target audience.
    • Old-world style that felt more spit and sawdust pub than pop-up pork.
    • Traditional Butcher Shop / English Racing Green colouring.
    • Drab menus that failed to get the tastebuds engaged or capture the eye.
    • Little accommodation for allergens and dietary requirements, businesses were missing the opportunity to include a wider catchment of diners.

    With the previous analysis in mind, we worked together to format an identity that stood as an antithesis to the ‘boring’ brands which had taken the market share. *We took the decision to push against the established look of other brands because Forky Porky’s was its own, fresh entity to the market and therefore had the opportunity to manifest curiosity and stand alone. My client was ready for a change in career and the operational decision to ‘go bold’ had low potential risks.

    *It’s worth noting here that, in larger businesses, such decisions can carry heavy penalties if a costly brand relaunch fails and so decisions are better informe d by further market analysis before proceeding with riskier strategies.

    Bold Brand Strategy

    Following the decision to ‘go bold’, we cherry-picked the traditional elements we liked and established the design language we would implement, namely; roundels and stamps that held a vintage feel to pay homage to the traditional side; informal hand-drawn iconography and illustration; bright colours that stood out and were food-adjacent in hue (no unnatural non-food colours); and finally, analogue textures such as paint and pencil for a homespun, handcrafted aesthetic.

    Typography and colours were addressed first, a rough and friendly condensed typeface allowed for easier display on future promotional assets and the body font contains certain irregularities which contribute to the informal nature whilst simultaneously staying legible and modern to suggest hygiene and competence. A shocking, fluorescent pink was chosen for the brand’s primary colour with ‘mustard’ yellow and ‘pepper grey’ as secondaries. The choice of pink was entirely necessary for Forky’s appeal to differentiate it from the crowd of greens and blues. The pink also served to benefit from a closer affinity with a female demographic as wedding catering bookings were a focus for my client and this colour pertained to pigs, pork products and playful brands.

    We applied the use of a signature ‘fork’ element as a cornerstone of the iconography symbolising food, mealtimes and catering at large. Together, we created menus and promotional media before tackling the larger, physical touchpoints which would enable the company to be marketed at long distances – a bright event gazebo with multiple panels and the trailer used to transport the ovens and equipment to and from sites.

    It was from experimenting with panel designs that an unexpected side of the brand revealed itself to us, we could make the brand more daring and expand its use of playful elements to endear people towards the assets and the pig characters inside its iconography. This altered our perception and assisted us in writing copy and forming a flavour for the brand which was lacking in that of its competitors.

    From the attached material you can witness the development of materials for Forkys and how the media shares the same cohesion across the many platforms that the identity engages with. The direct statements and pun-inspired copy spark curiosity and amusement, further establishing an effect that is approachable and trustworthy. The use of block backgrounds, outlined boxes and a recurrent colour theme allow menus and package deals to be stay navigable for comparing menu items and packages. Texture (such as grill marks, spilled condiments or handwriting) is used to pull the media into a catering setting and enhance the connection of the customer with sentiment towards favourite food, recipes and family meals.

    Result

    Upon finalising the project, Forky’s owner reported success in new bookings and on receiving tonnes of positive feedback regarding the punchiness and effect of the new identity. He mentioned that, in comparison to his past brand and its contemporaries, Forkys had a truly distinctive proposition and he couldn’t be happier with the way it grabbed attention at events and out on the road. Our attention to detail early on in the process and an unwillingness to compromise on smart finish es / investment into printing had paid off in full.

    If you have a business or individual brand that requires starting up from scratch or renewal then you may benefit from a similar approach to Forky Porky’s Hogroasts. With years of experience in identity, I work with you to ascertain the one-of-a-kind value that your business can offer the market and use these qualities to create an identity that you can be proud to represent, with the agility to scale as you grow from napkins to tablecloths .

  • Boxley House

    Boxley House

    For further context to the following Case Study; Boxley House as an entity is no longer operational due to the closure of the physical site in late 2024. I showcase the nature of its development due to its fleeting success away from circumstances outside of my client’s control and I believe it to be a neat example of how brand identity can be implemented to diversify a space.

    Brand Analysis

    Following a networking social in late 2023, I was approached by a venue management company regarding an upcoming project to launch an identity for a school site that was looking to diversify its offering out of term-time. The company had a proposal in place to manage the ‘events’ side on behalf of the school and the building’s future promotion was to be advertised discreetly, so as to differentiate the interests of the school and its students away from this new events venture.

    There were several factors involved, including their on-site boarding students and administrative permissions that made it crucial for the new brand to possess a low-profile standing.

    As the sole creative on their small team, I had been invited to visit the site with the venue management company and join their assessment for how they would install wayfaring signage and split the venue spaces into distinct areas. Up until this point no identity had been set in stone, it was simply ‘the school that wanted to become a venue’ and so it remained nameless before the scope had been established.

    After the meeting, we reconvened and set out the key targets to consider for the identity;

    • Must appeal to the wedding market, prospective bride/grooms and wedding planners.
    • Branding should stand alone from the school and be distinct in its appeal.
    • Contain separate sections & recognisable ‘zones’ that are appropriate to the venue in order to cordon off areas and manage expectations for the hire.
    • External buildings to be marketed as ‘smaller hire spaces’ and marked accordingly.
    • Create a traditional ‘stately home’ impression to match the 17th Century core of the building.

    Back To School

    From the targets above, I began researching the area of Boxley (Boxley Village, Kent) and the surrounding foothills, immersing myself in historical data and material that referenced the ‘original’ house on the site. I found many gaps in the modern records for the house itself which in the last century had changed hands and registered purposes, lost acreage and benefitted from pre-fab extensions.

    On reviewing the book “The History of Boxley Parish”, by John Cave-Browne I discovered a direct reference to the building:

    “Thus the land above the Church was formed into a separate property, and became known as the Boxley House estate.”

    John Cave-Browne – “The History of Boxley Parish”

    I was overjoyed at this discovery as this gave provenance to the history of the house that had since been overlooked and pushed aside. On suggesting this direction to the team, we agreed that to restore its namesake as closely as possible to its prior prestige made the most sense in sharing the property’s story with prospective hirers. Within that same book I had also discovered the coats of arms of families that had inhabited Boxley – these served as pertinent inspiration for our ‘zoning problem’ and allowed me to create real iconography out of these crests that stayed relevant to the house’s history.

    A top priority during the branding project was to clearly communicate each area’s amenities to accurately market what potential clients could expect. Boxley House was split into the following sections:

    • Boxley House – for hire of the main house: its atrium and private rooms)
    • theRooms at Boxley House – covering 4 event rooms that stood annexed on the main site – these spaces were given the aforementioned crest identities.
    • Boxley Grounds – for any and all hires that pertained to use of the outdoor spaces.

    It is not uncommon for a large site to contain sub-identities and, before proceeding, I took care to prepare my client for the management of each and how the team’s external media would communicate this to customers. The danger of sub-identities is pulling focus away from the central identity and in order to mitigate this issue the typefaces and shape language we prepared matched the core ‘Boxley House’ look and feel.

    To create a cohesive voice, Boxley House had new wayfaring and signage media designed. The majority of the media created for Boxley’s event side was quick to install on event days where necessary and easy to uninstall at night when the event space needed to be turned back to the school faculty the following day.

    Outcome

    Boxley House was, unfortunately, not fated to last forever. The school ceased to continue partnership with my client due to the dissolution of the school site leading to the private sale of the site in 2024; however, in the short period of time I was involved with the identity of Boxley House the venue team had successfully found prospective hirers and completed; 3 Events in ‘Boxley House’, 9 Events in ‘theRooms At Boxley’ and 1 Event in ‘Boxley Grounds’.

    My client maintains that this was a great result from a limited tenure with the venue and remarked that, should it have been allowed to continue, this setup would have flourished under our commitment and development of the site’s branding. At the time of writing (July 2025) Boxley House is still listed for sale.

    If you have a business or individual brand that needs pulling into the 21st century with a fresh position then you may benefit from a similar approach to Boxley House. With years of experience in identity, I work with you to research and reframe past connections in a way that fits in with today’s shifting markets, taking you from medieval mess to modern marvel.