A project that’s been long in the making, the Faces of Revolution exhibit is a series of 25 portraits painted by Suellen McCrary. Featuring subjects with both current and historic ties to Revolution Mill, this exhibit is now part of the permanent historical collection at the mill. 

Started almost 3 years ago, this project was initiated to both document the history of the mill and to democratize portraiture. The subjects include employees and family from the mill’s heyday as the world’s largest maker of flannel to current day tenants of the new multi-use development. The portrait subjects also received free prints of their likenesses, making it possible to obtain an otherwise costly keepsake. The price of an original oil portrait can range from $3,000 to six figures. 

Historic subjects included descendants of the mill co-founders, mill villagers, and dye house employees. In addition to the subjects with historical ties to the mill, the exhibit also features a number of people who keep the Mill running today. Tenants, janitorial staff, and the lead architect of the renovation are among the subjects who were chosen to be included. 

As the portraits neared completion, we became involved with helping design the plaques, signage, print material, and website. After taking measurements and having an initial exploratory meeting, we completed a first mockup of how the exhibit might look:

After some back and forth on the color of the wall and the size of then plaques, a final look for the exhibit was determined. Minimal colors were chosen for all elements of the physical installation and the website, allowing the portraits to take center stage. 

To provide context for each person’s role in the Mill a quote from the participant is featured below each portrait. We designed these plaques at 16x3” for readability. 

These subjects sat for their portraits in Suellen’s Revolution Mill studio, sharing their stories as they were painted. In addition to the experts from their stories that are featured on the plaques, you can read longer comments from everyone on the website at www.facesofrevolution.com.  

Gate City Signs fabricated the exhibit signage from black PVC. The dimensional lettering was chosen over a simple vinyl to provide a more permanent and elevated look. 

You can view the installation in the Hall of Fame at Revolution Mill – located at 1050 Revolution Mill Drive. Learn more about the subjects + exhibit here. 

Lauren Stubbs, Owner of Stubbs Mobile PT

For our first client spotlight of the year, we’re excited to share a fresh branding project for a brand-new business. We partnered up with Stubbs Mobile Physical Therapy in late 2020 to develop a custom logo and corresponding visual brand elements. Owner, Lauren Stubbs, recently started this mobile concierge physical therapy practice as a response to COVID-19 pandemic. Many outpatient physical therapy practices pivoted to include telehealth and some started offering PT at home, but Lauren jumped at the opportunity to make a fully mobile and telehealth practitioner available to the Triad for years to come.

Stubbs Mobile PT brings physical therapy to your home or private workspace to save you time and unnecessary hassle – all while keeping you safer than a traditional office setting. Being outside of insurance, Stubbs Mobile PT also offers preventative physical therapy services including an Annual Wellness Visit, Health Coaching, or Evaluation and Treatment before you have an injury (i.e. if something "just doesn't feel quite right"). Their goal is to provide top-quality service with longer appointment times and one-on-one individualized care so that you are feeling, moving, and living your best as soon as possible. 

We connected with Lauren while teaching Launch Greensboro’s Marketing 101 class. After discussing the importance of marketing and branding, she wanted to start things off strong with a bold and eye-catching brand. Knowing that a standout look would be crucial to marketing her business, we wanted a logo that would translate flawlessly to polo shirts, sprinter vans, and client swag. 

In the initial branding stages, it was clear Lauren was looking for a pictorial mark to accent her logo type and wanted to emphasize a feeling of movement and energy. Friendly, attentive, trustworthy and proactive are just a few of the words that were used to describe the desired look and feel of Stubbs Mobile PT’s future branding. 

One of our favorite stages of the branding process, a mood board helps ensure we’re on the same page as our client. By assigning visuals to the words we’ve been using, we can begin to home in on a feel for the future brand. 

After presenting three mood board options, we refined Lauren’s favorite to have an even more high-energy and vibrant feel. Lauren had mentioned aquas and blues during our initial branding kick-off, and we ended up tailoring her favorite option to include two shades of blue. The final product? A look that hinged on vibrant colors and energetic scenes. Healthy eating, movement, and the outdoors are central to Lauren’s business and we wanted to reflect that from the very early stages of the process.  

After narrowing down Lauren’s favorite mood board concept, it was time to move on to the logo design phase. Ultimately, we went through 4 rounds of initial concepts, and four rounds of color options to narrow down the exact look and feel. 

Many of the initial concepts incorporated kettle bell imagery, hearts, play or motion. After some brainstorming, we landed on the wording concept of “pressing play.” Used with various action phrases, this tagline could be targeted to a wide range of clients. You’ll see the main logo incorporates the phrase “Press play on being pain free.” 

The final logo uses pops of bright oranges, aqua, and yellow – all anchored by a deep blue. These colors pop on any timeline, and the graphic mark adds an element of action. The graphic mark is a take on a press play symbol – which ties into the tagline and lends itself well to use on social media. When working in tandem, all these elements create an action-packed look that’s sure to be eye catching and memorable. 

We’re thrilled with how this rebrand went, and we’re not the only ones. Hear firsthand from business owner, Lauren Stubbs, about the process: 

“I really enjoyed the entire process of working with Hannah at Hue & Tone Creative. Being a first-time entrepreneur, I knew little about the branding process. Hannah guided me through it with confidence and understanding... even when decision-making was tough because she had created multiple amazing logo options. If I could have two logos I would, because that's how great both of the final options were. Despite the Hue & Tone office and my home office being less than 1 mile apart, we went through the entire process virtually (due to COVID-19). The virtual experience didn't detract from the branding process, but I loved knowing we were both members of the same community. Knowing our proximity, ties to Launch Greensboro, and both being women business owners, gave me a sense of connection even though we never met in-person. Supporting small and local businesses, whether walking distance in downtown Greensboro or in the greater Triad area is a central tenet of Stubbs Mobile PT. Being able to work with someone locally yielded excellent results and I'm extremely excited about launching my new look. In fact, in the few weeks since we've unveiled our new logo we've already received positive comments on social media!”

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Want to learn more about Lauren’s business? Head over to her website to learn more! Or, follow her on Instagram here for regular PT, fitness, and movement tips!

This is our last blog post of 2020! After recharging out of the office we’ll be back on January 13, 2021 with fresh blog content. Have a topic request for 2021? We’d love to address any subject you need help with on our blog! Contact us here to share a topic suggestion or leave a comment on this blog post!

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For our last blog of the year, we’ve got an impactful and moving holiday campaign from Crisis Assistance Ministries to share with you.

The mission of Crisis Assistance Ministry (CAM) is to provide assistance and advocacy for people in financial crisis, helping them move toward self-sufficiency. They serve as a one-stop shop for Mecklenburg families facing poverty.  Whether providing a coat to a woman who is homeless, a utility payment for a single father who is trying to keep his home warm, or rental assistance for a veteran who has fallen on hard times, they preserves the dignity of customers while preventing homelessness and eviction. 

This was our second year working with CAM on their annual holiday campaign, and we were thrilled to get the opportunity to support this important cause. The work we did for this holiday giving campaign included designing a campaign logo, letter, card, and envelopes. 

This year’s campaign focused on a theme of “giving the gift of HOME.” Home stands for Help, Opportunity, Motivation, and Empathy. Early designs of the logo spelled out this acronym, but in the end, we opted for a simple logo design and the cozy imagery of a home decorated for the holidays. 

The campaign logo depicts the silhouette of a home, a heart, a key, and a light to draw a key connection between CAM’s services and the campaign. 

The card design features a caretaker and child looking out into the snowy night from the warmth of their home. Simple, yet classic, this scene evokes a wide range of emotions in the viewer – hopefully inspiring them to provide the gift of HOME to a deserving family. 

This campaign launched in November and is still going on today! If you’d like to learn mor or make a donation, head over to crisisassistance.org/holiday.

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Hue & Tone Creative: Design for non-profits 

Is your non-profit looking to launch a campaign of its own? Hue & Tone offers flexible and creative design solutions for nonprofits of all sizes. Let’s build a purposeful partnership today – reach out to learn more about cost-effective options for 501(c)3 nonprofits. 

Image Copyright: Joey Seawell Photography.

In September, our long-term client Revolution Mill asked us to design a refreshed one pager that they could use to market the campus as a whole. Anyone who has visited this revitalized textile mill knows exactly how expansive it is. In total campus boasts 250,000 square feet of Class A Office Space, 150 apartments, three dining options, two event spaces and numerous amenities. 

With so much to potentially highlight, how do you explain everything that’s going on to prospective tenants, potential residents, or campus visitors? That’s where we come in! After working with the Revolution Mill team we were able to summarize the most pertinent details into a digestible one pager that gives an overview of the entire campus. 

With a focus on amenities and commercial spaces, we incorporated some scenic shots from campus as well as condensed wording to describe both current features and future construction. 

The end result is an easy to read piece that coordinates with Revolution’s streamlined and neutral branding. Their branding is tied together with minimal fonts and incorporates the same warm greys, tans, and pops of red that you’ll see around the physical campus. 

To learn more about the campus – and to see their branding in action – check out the one pager below or visit their website (revolutionmillgreensboro.com).

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your marketing partner

Inquiries and interest are partly driven by great design — whether you need help designing print materials, assembling a landing page, or running a great social campaign we’re here to help. Set up an initial consult and lets discuss your next project.

Alisha Weilfaert

Read more about Yoke & Abundance’s 2021 Digital Planner here.

For the past three years we’ve partnered with Alisha Weilfaert, Owner of Yoke & Abundance, to create a digital planner for the year ahead. Delivered in a digital format, this year’s planner is more comprehensive than our past two iterations and allowed us to get even more creative with our page design!

Alisha is a leadership, creativity, transition and resiliency coach for women. She’s on a mission to empower women to envision living and speaking their truth unapologetically. Her visual brand is earthy, feminine, and grounded. You’ll find watercolors and mandalas stitched through her branding… and this planner design is no exception. We used her rich brand elements as a colorful backdrop for a variety of planning and goal-setting sheets.

From a technical standpoint, we designed this entire book to be easily printed at home – it also works well to send it somewhere like Staples where they can bind it for you. Designing for easy printing means leaving larger margins, having easily readable fonts, and reducing the overall amount of ink used. 

If you’re interested in a testing out a more unique planner, this is the perfect guide to help you asses where you are, where you’ve been over the year and where you want to be. With over 51 pages, this workbook allowed us to flex our design muscles with some fun charts, planning sheets, and mood trackers. Here’s just a few of the things we designed for this download: 

We don’t want to give away too much of a preview because this planner is still for sale (you can purchase it here), but we will show off the cover and a sneak peak at a few of the pages! 

In addition to the digital planner, we also designed a great set of freebie stickers to be given away to the first 15 customers! 

These die-cut stickers were printed on a thick, durable vinyl that is resistant to scratches, water & sunlight! They’re perfect for sticking on everything from laptops to cars windows. 

With fun subject matter and an even more enjoyable client, this project was one of our favorite collaborations of September!

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Hue & Tone Creative

Inbound marketing and digital downloads are driven by great design — whether you need help designing a landing page, a multi-page download, or a free tool, we’re here to help. Set up an initial consult and lets discuss your next project.

We’ve been partnering with Smart Beginnings, a regional school readiness coalition (based in Danville, VA), since early 2017. Last week, the team reached out about designing a series of print appreciation ads aimed at childcare providers who have remained open during COVID.

Looking for more general COVID-19 signage? Don’t miss out on our free poster downloads here.

These childcare providers play an important role by ensuring first responders and other essential workers have the childcare they need. With COVID still causing unprecedented disruptions, this ad was the latest in a long line of COVID appreciation posts, ads, and campaigns that we’ve designed.

For the design of this text-centric ad, we pulled elements and colors from a past campaign aimed at Early Childhood Educators and Professionals. The bright red and orange will pop off the page, and the high contrast between the deep grey and white should translate well to newsprint.

Here’s a sneak preview of one of the ads:

If you’re in the Danville area, you can spot this ad + additional designs in the Danville Register & Bee and the Star Tribune!

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The mission of Smart Beginnings DP is to strengthen the system of individuals and organizations caring for and educating children ages birth to five. Their goal is ensure that young children ages are emotionally, intellectually and physically ready to succeed in school. Learn more at www.SmartBeginningsDP.org. 

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Hue & Tone Creative: Let us help you with communication in the time of COVID

Looking to successfully communicate your latest COVID message with clients? Don’t let the pandemic cause your branding and messaging to fall apart. Whether you’re looking for digital, print, or storefront materials, we can ensure you’re creating on brand (and beautiful) messaging.

Drive’s mission statement: Current and future women business leaders, connecting and building community through networking, mentorship and education. 

 More information here. 

When we connected with our friends at Triad Local First about their new women’s networking group, we couldn’t wait to be a part of what they were doing. Not only have we gotten to be a part of this amazing group – but we were also brought on to design the program’s new logo! 

Completed in May of 2019, we worked with the TLF team to create a logo, color scheme, and font palette that would speak to women entrepreneurs. Feminine, but not girly, TLF was looking to create a versatile and simple brand mark. 

Our logo design process typically involves 8 main steps: 

1. Initial Consultation 

2. Branding Questionnaire

3. Moodboard Design

4. Initial Logos (in black & white)

5. Tweaks and revisions (typically, 2-3 rounds)

6. Color Options

7. Tweaks and revisions (typically, 1-2 rounds)

8. Compilation of all final elements in a brand board or brand book (this includes the logo in multiple formats, patterns, web elements, icons, color palette, and font palette)

Quick tip: The moodboard a client picks can serve as a helpful visual guide for when you are selecting imagery for your website or social media.

One of the most underrated steps of this process is the creation of the moodboards. The moodboard stages helps us turn the adjectives the client has been giving us into a visual and helps ensure we’re on the same page. By designing them as the first step in the process our client has a chance to give us feedback before we get too deep into the designing process. If we’ve had a miscommunication during the consultation or questionnaire stage, we’ll know before we even start designing the first round of logos. 

After the TLF team had completed our initial client consultation and branding questionnaire, we were ready to jump into designing a series of moodboards for TLF to respond to.  

We typically present 2-3 moodboards to our client: each with a different look, feel, and color scheme. During this part of the process, we're looking to nail down which of the options feels most on brand -- it's about figuring out the general feel and energy that the logo will have. 

The four moodboards we presented to TLF incorporated a wide range of colors, textures, and wording that all related to the adjectives we received on the branding questionnaire. We weren’t sure which look was our favorite – and neither was the client! After a few days of deliberation, they finally landed on their favorite moodboard:  

Featuring bold women -- and even bolder typography – this moodboard connected with the powerful and playful vibe that the team was looking for.  

Here’s a sneak peak of the other three moodboards that were in the running: 

Using the chosen look as guidance, we started designing our first round of logos. Rather than interpreting the chosen moodboard literally, we used the feel of the imagery to help guide the first step of our logo creation. 

From there, we completed the other stages of the process: logo options, tweaks, color choices, more tweaks, and the final branding sheet. While we want to focus this blog specifically on the moodboard part of the process, we’ll go ahead and give you a sneak peak at the final logo: 

Have a question about the process? Want to see how we ended up at this final logo?

Don’t hesitate to email us and ask! We love sharing what we do with past clients, potential clients, or even just interested individuals. To connect, contact us here.

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your Branding Experts

Whether you have a new business — or are looking to rebrand your existing business — we can help. From logo development to creating custom social media packages, we’ll work with you to create a brand you can be proud of and brand elements that are easy to use.

It's been a little while since we've spotlighted our work on the blog -- which makes it the perfect time to tell you a little about Motown Memories, a fundraising event to benefit Rise & Shine (if you haven't heard of Rise & Shine, check out this post). 

We've done a number of projects for them in the past -- including a colorful anniversary campaign -- but our latest project has a whole different feel. Rise & Shine was looking for an upbeat design that would fit in with the colors and style of the Motown era. 

We started by putting together a moodboard to make sure we were evoking the right feel.

After the Rise & Shine team signed off on the moodboard, we dove right in and designed a coordinating poster and e-vite. Take a peak at our work below, or give them a call at 828-883-2295, ext. 15 to purchase tickets to the event. 

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Click to see the full e-blast!

If you live in the Brevard or Asheville area we encourage you to attend Motown Memories and see what Rise & Shine is all about!

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Hue & Tone Creative: Non-profit Graphic Design

Is your non-profit looking to build a relationship with a marketing firm? We'll be more than your marketing team -- we'll be your community partner. Working together, we can create the social content, graphic design, and marketing plan to help you increase your local reach.

The Skinny Wallet Diet is financial planning for the average person. Most people don’t need a stockbroker or expensive financial advisor... they need to know how to start saving and spending responsibly. With 10 years of experience Mary Edwards is the perfect person to help you do that.

That’s where we come in -- when Mary Edwards was looking for a new website to take The Skinny Wallet Diet to the next level we were ready to jump into action. Most of the Skinny Wallet Diet’s clients are female -- so we knew we could pull in some fun, girly colors. We started with different shades of pinks and toned them down to keep them from looking goofy (this is finance after all). 

Here's the moodboard we put together to inspire the website:  

We won't bog you down in the little details of our process, but from there we worked with Mary to develop the content for each page. We created custom graphics, set up all the technical details, and made things like these little graphics:

As The Skinny Wallet continues to develop we wanted to set Mary up with a site that would draw potential clients in, but would also be easy to update in the future.

Take the new site for a spin HERE or flip through some screenshots of the homepage:

Our favorite thing about this site is the unconventional color scheme -- it's the perfect blend of serious and creative. We can't wait to see The Skinny Wallet use their new website continue to grow! 

Want a regular little dose of the Skinny Wallet? Follow their brand new account on Twitter at @theskinnywallet.

We know, we know -- we’ve highlighted Rise & Shine before… but when your clients just keep doing great work, it never gets old showing it off.

Throughout 2016, Rise & Shine has been hosting a series of events to celebrate and raise awareness for their organization. An afterschool program with a mission of promoting racial justice and equality, we loved being able to collaborate on collateral that's helping drive their mission forward.

All of our work for Rise & Shine features bright colors, eye-catching layouts, and vibrant photography of the program participants. We work to keep the focus on the facts and figures that demonstrate the program's efficacy, as well as highlight the organization's values. 

Take a look at the colorful collateral below!

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Below, starting clockwise at top left: One-page infographic (front + back), homepage web slider, event program,  Facebook graphics, and bookmark.

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Below, left: Booth signage
Below, right: Event poster for the "In Living Color" Dance Party

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Below: Local Movie Theater Ad

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Working with non-profits is a passion of ours, and we're always eager to dive into a new partnership. If your organization's marketing needs a boost, don't hesitate to reach out to us!

When we were approached by Tawney Weir, the creative force behind Little Toro Designs, we were immediately inspired by her southwestern flair. This owner + maker + designer was looking for a place to not only showcase her product, but also Little Toro's modern desert aesthetic. 

As a business owner, there's nothing better than working with someone who is equally passionate about their craft. After our first short conversation, it was clear that Tawney's work was both inspired and sustained by the unique blend of cultures around her. 

Click the image to see the site live!

Who Little Toro Is: Metalsmith jewelry handcrafted in Tucson, AZ. Inspired by the nature and culture of the southwestern desert.  

What They Needed: A clean + modern website that embodies Little Toro's desert chic style without distracting from the product. 

What We Delivered: A customized Squarespace site with e-commerce capabilities. By highlighting Little Toro's beautiful editorial photography (by Puspa Lohmeyer Photography) we were able to not only keep the product front and center, but also capture the essence of the brand.

The takeaway? When inspired editorial photography meets clean web design, e-commerce magic happens. 

If you feel like your website could use a refresh, get in touch -- we'd love to do a free assessment of your current website!