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. 

It’s that time of year again: holiday campaign season! Most customers don’t realize it, but the heavy lifting for small business holiday campaigns is typically completed sometime in August through October. Larger businesses might even be planning their holiday marketing out as early as spring or summer. But, if you’re just starting to think about holiday marketing for this year, there’s nothing to fear – you still have plenty of time to get caught up to have a successful winter season. 

There are a lot of ways to capitalize on the holidays, but this post is specifically geared toward small businesses. Whether you have a brick & mortar store or are primarily operating through e-commerce, you can find a way to adapt these tips to your business model! 

Email Campaigns: 

• Start marketing early! Now is the time to start marketing to your customers – while many people wait until the last minute to shop, others get started far ahead of schedule. With shipping delays and product shortages in several industries, we suggest you encourage customers to start shopping even earlier than usual. Motivate shoppers to get started ahead of schedule by offering exclusive pre-season discounts! 

• Include a gift guide: To help streamline online shopping and reduce decision making, give customers a quick and simple way to find gifts for their loved ones. Consider categorizing these guides by personality, relationship, or demographic. This will allow people to quickly locate (and purchase) an appropriate gift without endless scrolling. 

• Don’t forget to include the gift giver: You know the customer you’re emailing loves your brand. However, you don’t know if your products are a good fit for the customers family and friends. Capitalize on your existing relationship by targeting the customer themselves! Even when they’re shopping for other people, people will be drawn to the idea of rewarding themselves. Promote special coupons and play around with a “treat yourself” message. 

Website: 

• Consider a flash sale: Use limited time offers to spike sales and offload slow moving products. Putting the pressure on to buy is a great way to motivate people to make a purchase. You can host a flash sale for a few hours – or an entire week. In general, the shorter the sale the higher the chance that people will jump on making a purchase. 

• Make shipping deadlines clear:  Don’t risk having to deal with a disgruntled customer because their order arrived late – feature any key shipping deadlines on your website to set expectations for when orders need to be placed. Update your messaging to let people know if they need to select ground, two-day, or one-day shipping to get their items on time. 

Offline: 

• Create a special unboxing or gift-wrapping option: Enhance a great product by creating a special unboxing experience – you’ll take some of the work off the customer by pre-wrapping their gift and you’ll enhance their brand experience. Utilize high quality materials and remember that no detail is too small. Color coordinate everything and brand wherever possible with stickers, packaging, and handwritten or branded notes. An added bonus? A beautifully packaged gift might just land you a tag on social media! 

General tips: 

• Holiday Bundles: Whether online or in person, consider offering holiday gift bundles to your customers. This is a great way to move more products without offering incredibly deep discounts. Bundle like products together for a small discount and package them well. This kind of collection is great for hard-to-buy-for individuals or last minute gifts — it also gives the customer the impression that they’re getting a great deal.

• Holiday return policy: With many people shopping early for the holidays, a 30-day return period is often inefficient. We suggest considering offering free returns throughout the month of January -- but no matter what your policy is, make sure it’s clear to the customer and gift recipient. Offering a gift receipt with a purchase is a great way to clearly communicate your policy. 

• Don’t just think about holiday campaigns for Christmas: Educate yourself on other culturally important holidays and tailor your message to fit a wider range of customers. For reference, here are some key dates to consider: 

  • Diwali – 11/4

  • Thanksgiving Day – 11/25

  • Black Friday – 11/26

  • Small Business Saturday – 11/27

  • Hanukkah – 11/28-12/6

  • Cyber Monday – 11/29

  • Giving Tuesday – 11/30

  • First day of Winter – 12/21

  • Christmas Day – 12/25

  • Kwanzaa – 12/26 – 1/1

  • New Year’s Eve – 12/31

Our last tip? No matter what medium you are utilizing, keep a positive customer experience front and center. Do what you can to alleviate the stress of your customers – this might mean providing free wrapping or flexible delivery options. Or maybe it comes in the form of producing content that takes the guesswork out of the shopping experience (think gift guides or recipe suggestions). 

Now, go get started on prepping your holiday cards, planning customer loyalty events, rolling out gift lists, and putting the final touches on your annual giving campaigns!

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).

View fullsize

View fullsize

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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.

In the fall of 2019, we partnered up with local lover Luck Davidson to brand her new blog. Named “SoLocal Life,” her new platform focuses on highlighting local people, places, and indie businesses. With a home-base of Greensboro, Luck builds community while eating, drinking, shopping, dog walking, and asking lots of questions.

We set out to help her build her community with a brand she could be proud of. Before we could start designing logos, we needed to narrow down the feel of Luck’s brand.

The best way to do this? Setting forth a series of five mood boards that all demonstrate a different feel and energy.

The winner? The below mood board… but with one request — we incorporate even brighter colors! Less earth tones and livelier hues.

Once we got to the logo development stage, we kept Luck’s preference for brighter colors in mind. But first, we had to narrow down a concept. We toyed around with a variety of fun fonts, organic elements, and playful ideas. Here’s a sampling of some of the black & white concepts we considered:

Ultimately, we ended up with a seal logo that incorporated the tagline “All Things Local.” Our final logo incorporated a bright pop of pink, a saturated green, and a vibrant blue. Deep grey and a soothing tan ground this color scheme.

Four variations of the logo ensure that there’s a mark to fit every space!

SoLocal Life launched earlier this year into — and while COVID has thrown many local businesses into flux, Luck’s support and online presence haven’t wavered. With local businesses working to make it through the pandemic, there’s no better person to follow for updates on all your favorite Boro businesses.

Follow Luck + SoLocal Life on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And, stay up to date with her website here!

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.

Black Friday officially marks the start to the holiday shopping season. It’s the kick off to what has turned into a four-day shopping frenzy – and whether you’re looking to capture Black Friday shoppers or Cyber Monday sales, you’ll have tons of consumers who are ready to jump on limited-time only deals. 

While this means the competition out there will be tough, it also means you’ve got a load of hungry consumers to target. If you’re gearing up to get in on the Black Friday or Cyber Monday action, here are five tips to help you make the most of your marketing.

 1. Start it early

Don’t wait until the night before to advertise your Black Friday bargains. We’d recommend warming your audience up a week or two in advance so they: 

• Know to come straight to you once your sale starts

• Can start scouting out what items they might put in their basket

• Can spread the word on your behalf

2. Be clear

People aren’t mind readers, so make it super easy for them to find out when your sale starts/ends, what the discounts will be, and which products or services they’ll apply to.

Drumming your Black Friday bonanza up to be something bigger and better than it is is a risky game to play. You run the risk of not only annoying customers on the day of, but also losing their long-term interest as well. 

3. Check your capacity 

If you’re lucky, your server will see a steep spike in traffic on and around Black Friday as consumers hunt through your site for the best deal. Make sure your systems can handle the increase in volume with ease - the last thing you want is your site or app crashing during peak buying times.

4. Take a targeted approach

Instead of sending out blanket marketing campaigns and hoping for the best, take the time to create a more tailored approach by digging into people’s behavior and targeting them based on past habits. 

Target people who have recently abandoned carts full of items that are now going on sale. It takes more time to set up, but if done right the results will be worth it. 

5. Make sure you standout 

Whatever medium you’re using - email, social media, direct mail, or otherwise, there’s a lot of competition out there. But it’s not only your competitors you’re competing against. 

You need to make sure your marketing collateral stands out from the stuff you typically send out so that recipients sit up, pay attention, and immediately click through to your website. Find the balance between an eye-catching Black Friday ad and your usual brand. It’s a great time to push the boundaries of your every day branding – just don’t lose your brand completely. 

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Your Holiday Marketing Partner

Not sure where to start? Not a problem. Whether it’s support with your landing pages, social media strategy or email campaign, we’ve got you covered. For last minute Black Friday support, reach out to us at 336-365-8559 or hannah@hueandtonecreative.com.

Just starting up? Here's 5 questions any new business owner should answer before branding their business. 

Branding is made up of the values that guide you, the visuals that communicate who you are, and the language you use to communicate with your customers. 

If you’re a regular reader, the number one thing you’ve probably learned from our blog is how important branding is. That’s because it’s essential to attracting, converting, and keeping your customers. It builds loyalty, brand recognition, and acts as a touchstone for consumers. 

We believe branding should be flexible and fun. And, while consistency is important, that doesn’t mean all of your assets should be identical. No matter what your industry or offering, there's a few things we think you should avoid. Here’s our top six: 
 

1.  Sea of sameness

Think outside of the box and make sure your logo, values, and messaging differentiate you from what’s already out there.  

Everyone has competitors -- and chances are they sell similar or identical products/services. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to imitate what they do! Work with a designer to create a strong brand identity for yourself and then stick with it. It may take time, but you want to establish your identity separate from the competition. 

 

2. Behind the times

Don’t let your branding give off a less-than-contemporary vibe. In the customer’s eyes outdated branding translates to inferior products and subpar service. 

Just because you went through the branding process when you first started your business, that doesn’t mean you’re set for life. Your business’ branding should be periodically reviewed and tweaked to reflect the constantly evolving digital landscape.

3. Inconsistency

Consistency is key. Your market needs to be able to identify you across every channel and it’s counterproductive to have an entirely different look and feel across different mediums. Whether it’s on social media, direct mail, a billboard ad, or website banner, your brand should be instantly recognizable across everything you produce. If it’s not, you could miss out on brand awareness and the benefits of an omni-channel campaign.

4.  It’s not all about you

When you’re establishing your branding, it’s imperative to remember that what you’re aiming for isn’t about you and your personal preferences -- it’s about your potential customers or clients, so try to avoid getting too personal. 

Just because a color isn’t your favorite, doesn’t mean it won’t connect with your potential customers. If you're having trouble separating your emotions from the process, consider putting some data behind your decisions by conducting market research to gain valuable guidance.

5.  Lack of clarity

Your branding should quickly and effortlessly communicate what you do -- and it should easily grab your potential customer’s attention. In a world where time is a highly valued commodity, it’s essential you snag people’s attention quickly.

If your branding’s unclear, you run the risk of not being memorable…which may send them running to your competitors. 

6. Not following through

Never, ever make false promises. If you are a delivery company and your tagline is “always on time,” make sure you’re always on time! If you fail to deliver on your promises, your branding is irrelevant, and you leave yourself open to complaints and lost customers

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Hue & Tone: Branding for the Piedmont Triad

Branding doesn't have to be hard -- in fact, with the right people in your corner it can actually be fun! Let us turn marketing into something you enjoy doing -- not something you dread. We can help you with everything from your initial branding to your day-to-day social media needs.

As we were planning out our 2018 content calendar, we got thinking about all the great content we posted over the last year: a total of 51 blog posts (to be exact).

From social media and font pairing to color inspiration and web design, we ran the gamut on everything marketing and design related. But out of all of our content, there’s a few posts that stand out among the rest. We’ve rounded up our top 7 -- here's what they are + why: 

Best branding post: 6 Signs it’s Time to Update Your Company Logo

Your logo is your company’s primary visual symbol, and one of your brand’s most important assets. If you haven’t changed it in a while, we’ve put together 6 signs that should kick-start a rebrand.

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Best post for finding new customers: How to Create Customer Personas

Customer personas are detailed representations of your customers’ demographics, likes, dislikes, traits, and buying behaviors. These traits are not made up, you need to discover them through comprehensive research. Here’s how.

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Most popular social media blog post: How to Curate Your Instagram Feed

Ever stumble across a gorgeous Instagram feed and suddenly come down with a major case of account envy? We’ve all been there. Creating a lust-worthy Instagram account is more than just slapping on a filter and a handful of hashtags. 

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Our favorite design post: Mood Boards: Home Sweet Home

A compelling image can capture attention, tell a story, and help you connect with your viewer.  But inexpensive, non-cheesy stock photos can sometimes be hard to come by. To save you the hassle of hunting for decent photos, we’ve narrowed our top 10 (mostly free) stock photo sites.

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Our pick for must read: 4 Elements for a Killer Landing Page

When it comes to lead generation, landing pages count. We've broken down our four must have elements for a lead generating landing page. 

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Our most read blog post: 7 Squarespace Font Pairings

We've taken the guesswork out of selecting the perfect fonts by putting together 7 suggestions that will revive your favorite Squarespace template.

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Our most stress relieving blog post: The 6-Step Content Calendar

Creating a content calendar will save you time, provide consistency, and help you manage your communication channels. Avoid stress and get organized with this 6-step process.

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Web Marketing + Design in Greensboro: Hue & Tone

Looking to market your business in Greensboro, Winston Salem, or the surrounding areas? Hue & Tone is a creative graphic design agency specializing in logo design, web design, social media management, and more.

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.

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!

On April 1, 2015, Hue & Tone Creative opened its doors. In a literal sense, we opened one door – to our office on the Revolution Mill campus in Greensboro, NC. Figuratively, it’s been a year of many more doors opening and closing for this business. New clients and partners have made their mark. Processes have been refined. In a personal and professional sense, it’s been a year of learning what works and what doesn’t. 

You only get one first year in business – and I want to celebrate all the successes and challenges that entails. So, with that in mind, here’s an overview of the last 365 days! 

Where We’ve Been

Getting the keys to our office!

Hue & Tone got its start in early 2015 as the new, relocated home of Hannah Pomphrey Graphic Design. I’ve been a freelance graphic designer since I was about 19, and was coming off a 9-5 stint in marketing. I realized, though, that it was time to start up a bona fide business in my then-new home of Greensboro. Here’s how I described my freelance journey a year ago:

It wasn’t until my first client gave me a $100 “tip” that I realized I had just found my new side hustle. I set out with my VistaPrint business cards in hand to find myself some new clients. I cold-called and did pro-bono work for local nonprofits until I found enough momentum to begin working almost solely on referrals.

Recently, I took a break from freelancing full-time to try out a 9-5. I packed up my mismatched furniture and my massive shoe collection and relocated to Greensboro, NC with the intention of settling into my much more ‘normal’ 9-5 job.

Turns out this 9-5 thing isn’t for everyone. Even the parts of freelancing that I thought weren’t for me – the irregular income, quirky clients, and doing my own taxes – were some of the things I missed the most. While some might call irregular paychecks and lulls in work terrifying, it now seems like some much-needed work/life spice.   

A year in, I’d still describe it the same way. Owning your own business isn’t easy – it’s not even in the same universe as easy. But the ability to work for myself – to shape the business objectives of my organization, while still getting my hands messy with design – is rewarding and worthwhile in a way I have a tough time explaining. Given the decision to make again, I’d make the same one.

Growth as a Company

As I said above, Hue & Tone’s first year in business has been a year of refinement and learning what works. I’ve had the opportunity to work with fabulous clients, new and old, and have worked to improve processes both on the client side and internally.

On average, Hue & Tone typically works with 10 to 20 clients at a time, and the scope of work taken on varies by client. I’ve done print design, web design, videos, social media, and consulting for large corporations, small businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. Some clients seek assistance on a per-project basis, while others hire Hue & Tone on a monthly basis for ongoing projects.

Internally, I’ve worked toward greater cohesion and focus for Hue & Tone as a business. That’s meant asking tough questions about the type of work I do and the clients I seek out. (For example: do I primarily work with local clients, or web-based businesses?) It’s also meant diversifying our portfolio so multiple skills and competencies are being exercised through our current body of work. It’s never my goal to do only social media projects or only video projects or only (fill in the blank here). When possible, I love working with clients across a wide variety of their creative needs – simultaneously working on design, video, and social, for instance. There’s a lot of interplay between different types of creative and having a hand in multiple pieces of the puzzle can add some coherence and visual consistency.

Finally, the growth of the past year has meant I needed to continue defining and re-defining the way Hue & Tone itself is marketed. You may have noticed some changes on our website, and here on the blog as well. I’d love to hear your feedback as I continue to learn what works.

 

A Few Stand Out Projects

With year one in the books, I’d love to share a few favorites and highlights of the year. Every project was an opportunity to learn and grow, and I’m grateful for each one. Here are a few that stood out…

Comprehensive Branding for CSDHH | Website and branding for CSDHH, a nonprofit that provides communication services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Notable for the opportunity to start from scratch and a desire, on the part of the client, to avoid the obvious. 

Revolution Mill Social Media | Design and daily management of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for Revolution Mill. From social graphics to #RevMillGSO, a chance to engage with a broad range of stakeholders (from future leaseholders to the community at large) about the live-work-create environment of Revolution Mill.

Pitch Video for Brown Investment Properties | An opportunity to create something rich, visually appealing, and (no pun intended) creative, while serving a strategic (and serious) purpose.

Favorite Blog Posts

Throughout the year, this blog has been a reliable place to share the ups and downs of Hue & Tone’s first year in business. Increasingly, it’s also become a place to share design inspiration and a few hints of the colors, textures, and patterns that fuel my imagination each day. Here are a few favorite posts from the year…

5 Questions to Help You Name Your Business

Greensboro Favorites

Freebie Coloring Pages Here & Here!

10 Pinterest Boards to Spark Design Inspiration

Mood Board: Who Dares

Mobile & Desktop Wallpaper: “Hustle”

Hue & Tone’s Brighter, Cleaner New Look

Favorite Events

One of my favorite aspects of being a local business owner is the opportunity to interact with the community. Here are a few of my favorite Greensboro events!

Coffee & Conversation | A Greensboro Chamber event with for networking and learning about a new, focused topic each time.

IdeaNetwork | Organized by Cochran Creative Group, IdeaNetwork is an opportunity to come together, hear a speaker, then participate in a group discussion on the ideas raised.

Craft Freedom | An initiative to change the North Carolina law that restricts the growth of breweries by placing a cap on the amount of beer they can self-distribute, and a chance to support small businesses’ rights.

Thank You!

When all is said and done, the past year has been a big one – a wild one – a just-plain-irreplaceable one. It’s involved a lot of hard work, both of the creative variety and the messy, hauling-furniture-into-offices variety. None of it would have been possible without the support and partnership of many, so a few thank-yous are in order!

To Hue & Tone’s clients, thank you for your partnership, and for allowing Hue & Tone to help tell your story. It’s an honor every time!

To the community of Greensboro-based designers I’ve met, your advice has been invaluable.

To Sirtuah, and to my family, thank you for your patience and support through the crazy journey of the last year.

To the Greensboro community as a whole, thank you for welcoming me, welcoming Hue & Tone as a business and being a wonderful place to call home.

With all that said…that’s a wrap on Hue & Tone’s first year. It hasn’t been perfect, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Here’s to year two!

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!

Reclaimed Lumber and Beams is a fun client to work with because, quite frankly, I want to personally purchase almost everything they sell. Partnering with this business on social & design projects means looking through photo after photo of gorgeous, hand-crafted wooden furniture and home installations. 

Today's Client Spotlight is a look at the warm, visual social presence we've created for RLB. 

Who They Are: A North Carolina-based business with a big national footprint, integrating reclaimed wood/antique lumber from the Appalachian mountains into residential and commercial construction (think: everything from rustic mantles, doors and tables to barnwood siding and flooring). 

What They Needed: RLB draws clients from all over the U.S., so they needed social that could reach wide and convert to sales, while still maintaining a personal, small-business feel.

What We Delivered: The Reclaimed Lumber and Beams Facebook page  is warm, conversational, and heavy on photography -- giving potential customers a glimpse of the wide variety of projects RLB could create for their home, office, or venue. Q&As and behind-the-scenes content keep followers engaged, and links drive them back to the RLB website. This is retail, but it's not big-box -- projects are personalized and driven by the customer. Glimpses of previous projects get those ideas moving for soon-to-be clients.

The takeaway? Every business has a personality, and its social presence should match up with it. A cool, detached tone works for some businesses, but that's not the personality RLB needed to project online. 

What personality are you cultivating for your business or organization on social media? If you have questions, I'd love to talk.

I've been so excited for this particular post! It was tough to wait until the work was complete and ready to share.

I could keep leading up to it forever, so I'll cut myself off. Here's a look at the website and comprehensive branding we created for CSDHH, a fantastic nonprofit that -- as the acronym suggests -- provides communication services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. 

CSDHH just celebrated its 40th anniversary, but had never been branded -- so this was a true start-from-scratch situation, which was a fun challenge to take on. They wanted natural, earth-toned branding that didn't go straight for the obvious -- things like hands or ears. 

The solution: the repeating motif of keys, which represent with the right level of subtlety that this is an organization that's unlocking doors and breaking down barriers for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. CSDHH's new tagline -- Opening Doors, Connecting People -- brings that theme full-circle. 

Now after 40 years of service to the community, CSDHH has clean, comprehensive branding that communicates, subtly but clearly, what they're about as an organization. That was a cool thing to be a part of -- and it was even better to get to know the people of CSDHH. My gratitude to them for allowing me to be a part of the process, and more than that, for all they do for this community!

If you have questions about your organization's branding, I'd love to talk. Email me at hannah@hueandtonecreative.com, or you can click the contact tab here.

I've mentioned our work for Revolution Mill, a historic redevelopment site in Greensboro offering office and event space, a restaurant and (soon) residential.  Here's a look at the print and web collateral we created for Creating Community Week, a series of events aimed at sharing the vision of Revolution Mill with the public.

A few notes about the work: 

• The design needed some visual and textual continuity, which is why we developed the seal-style logo you see here.
• A consistent (but not rigid) color scheme of red and teal adds to the continuity between each piece.
• The look here is consistent but not uniform, as the audience for each event varied -- from residents of the surrounding neighborhood to creatives/ad agencies to CEOs and community officials.

Let us know what you think! We'll be back tomorrow with a few links to end the week.

While I spend a lot of time working on branding (and accompanying collateral) for businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations, I also really enjoy developing branding, logos, resumes and websites for individuals. 

This week's Client Spotlight (a first for the Hue & Tone blog!) shows what we created for Meghan, a young professional whose career transition required a branding about-face. 

Who She Is: A twenty-something working in journalism -- and searching for a role outside that field.

What She Needed: The resume Meghan had been using was colorful, bold, and nontraditional. It worked just fine in her creative field, but was too much for many of the companies and organizations on her "to apply" list. She needed something that was clean and conservative -- without looking like a resume template.

What We Delivered: Meghan's new resume features muted colors, clean typefaces, and simple lines. The result is a look that's appropriate for any industry, while still standing out from the rest of the stack. I'm happy to report that it helped her land her dream job in government.

The takeaway? It's easy to think, especially if you work in a creative industry, that colors and branding in general are off-limits. That's not the case. Making strategic decisions about branding, informed by your knowledge of the industry you're targeting, will help you achieve your career goals. I've seen it happen time and time again!

What decisions have you made about your personal brand? Does it serve your goals & purpose? If you're not sure, let's connect.