Our client, Gemnique, came to us last year looking to rebrand the company. The unique gem wholesaler had been selling their products on Amazon, but they wanted to make their brand compelling enough to sell directly to the consumer through their own website. Our initial meeting with them confirmed that it would be valuable to overhaul not only the website, but the logo, packaging, and treatment of the brand.
Here are the steps we took to rebrand the company and product from top to bottom.
1. Partnering with the client
One of the most important steps of any Marstudio project is the initial partnership. It’s imperative for our team to learn everything we can about our client and their products.
Through our initial meetings with the client we learned some core fundamentals about their business. Gemnique is a unique product in its space. The color of the gems isn’t painted on, it’s evenly dispersed throughout the glass. Their competition, on the other hand, produces painted glass. Eventually the color will come off, so even a small chip will ruin the look.
In terms of customer behavior, purchasing gemstones doesn’t require much scrutiny. Those who buy the Gemnique product already know what they want.The overall sales process is easy once the person has landed on the site and found the item.
Once we learned everything we could about the brand, we decided they needed a presence that positioned Gemnique as the high-end option that they are. We would accomplish this by re-inventing the whole branding suite: logo design, branding guidelines, corporate identity, packaging, and, of course, the website.
2. Creating a new logo
Our first task was to create a new logo that would represent the brand. For this we went with a knockout text of the letter “G” that sits atop a bird’s eye view of several overlapping gemstones. Since the gemstones are made of glass, and are therefore transparent, when you layer them on top of one another you get a different color—which is that rich, deep purple you’ll see in the middle of the “G.” The overlapping colors on the logo display Gemnique’s variety at first glance.
3. Redesigning the packaging
Before we started on the website, we needed to establish packaging. We encountered a slight hiccup here because the current packaging was set by the manufacturer and we didn’t have the freedom to pick a new container. We could, however, create a label and choose the coloring of the current containers. The result was the creation of a label sticker for the jar and a handtag for the bags. This was a major differentiator, as the competition doesn’t invest to the same extent in their packaging design.
4. Snapping up the right shot
While designing the website, we realized Gemnique was lacking high-quality, stylized images that highlight the product. Before presenting the website mockups to the client, we shot a couple of test photos based on what we had in mind and inserted them as samples in the design. The client loved the pictures, and asked that we include product photography as part of their marketing services. The resulting photos are now highlighted on Gemnique’s e-commerce website, where they make the products pop – and also in the Product Photography portfolio of Marstudio’s Corporate Film & Photography Department.
5. Building the website
Once we established the brand’s foundation in terms of logo, look and feel, packaging, and photos, we needed to start building out the website. This meant evaluating and deciding on the e-commerce platform to use, and building out the site architecture, content, and design. The client also needed to select the products they wanted to feature from their vast catalog of options. The result is a clean, vibrant, responsive, user-friendly site that allows customers to make a purchase in just a few clicks.
6. Next step, social media!
Since this brand is very much a craft product, social media is a natural destination for our next efforts. We’ll be implementing strategies on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and the craft blogging community in order to increase site traffic and brand awareness.
Without any official website launch announcement or promotion, Gemnique is already receiving orders through the new e-commerce site. This means their inviting new website is drawing traffic on its own merit. While this was exciting news for us and the client, we’re eager to build on the momentum and take this brand to a whole new level.
Share this Post