Brand Identity
Refresh

How did Edwaam Studios complete a Brand Refresh for an established local business?

Quality Island Landscaping is a rapidly growing, full maintenance landscaping company. They’ve been serving the Greater Huntington Area since 2008, making them established in their community. However, they were looking to improve in the following ways:

Brand Refresh / One-page Brand Guideline
Full Website Redesign
Social Media strategy, post creation, and management
Print / Cut materials, including: Business cards, brochures, Lawn signs, Door hangers, Team member QR cards, Vinyl QR magnets for vehicles

Problem

Quality Island landscaping's website, digital and print media was outdated. The Quality Island Landscaping, or QIL, website has not been edited since 2017. Additionally, the company was aware of the diverse range of technical skills among their clientele, and wanted an updated design solution to accommodate for the entire audience. And lastly, there was little to no social media presence.

Design Solutions ~

Website Overhaul

Approach website updates with consideration for accommodating users of all technical proficiency levels, ensuring a user-friendly experience for everyone. Streamline appointment booking.

Branding Refresh

Make sure to integrate company colorways, brand identity, stock and original images to communicate the company’s values. Provide a refresh without completely hauling their brand or changing their logo.

Digital & Print Materials

Each design decision should be well thought out for the best interest of both Quality Island Landscaping and their extremely loyal clients. Create new materials that increase brand recall and recognition in the neighborhood.

Research Process ~

Understanding QIL’s business was the first step to connect them with more clients.

Target Audiences
Quality Island Landscaping has a very diverse, but loyal, clientele. The customers range in technical proficiencies, however, must all use the same website to pay monthly or annual statements.

Timing
Ever since the pandemic, a lot of new, young families are moving into the area from nearby urban areas. However, there are also a lot of existing customers that need to be able to recognise QIL’s branding, resulting in a refined but familiar change.

Identifying a problem
Quality Island Landscaping is established in the business sense, but has a poor online presence: websites, social media, and other digital appearances must be updated to reflect their “Quality, Safety and Efficiency” core values. Provide a way for potential and existing customers to easily book appointments, contact staff and learn more about this full-service company.

Market Research
Observational research of other competitors' sites was conducted. In the local scene, websites flooded with lots of text and content seem to be the norm. These sites, however, are not the easiest to read, overwhelming the readers.

Understanding Competition
Quality Island Landscaping was not necessarily an outlier. A lot of local landscaping companies have outdated or text heavy websites that are difficult to navigate. In order to disrupt this, I opted to design a clean, modern site with a well organized interface. This way, they can provide information without overloading a client, encouraging them to book a free appointment on their own terms without needing to call during business hours.

Motto

Safety, Quality and Efficiency

Clientele

Quality Island Landscaping has a very diverse, but loyal, clientele. The customers range in technical proficiencies, however, must all use the same website to pay monthly or annual statements.

Visual Communications ~

Ideation and Visual Communication

Moodboard

Collecting a mood board of inspiration will help to guide the ultimate brand refresh. The company opted to keep their old logo, and use green and black. The combination of Serif and San Serif type allows for familiarity, but also has a more modern look.

Brand Guidelines

A single page brand guideline was created to maintain consistency across digital and print products.

Website Prototyping, Planning and Designing

Website Audit

A simplified website audit was done to explore the areas for improvement for the new site. The website was created on WordPress using an Elementor Plugin to make future edits and revisions easier: allowing for QIL to seasonally change the landing page images.

Website Design Overview

I made sure that all text on backgrounds was easy to read, any text in images had appropriate alt tags, and that it met AA and AAA Accessibility standards. The CTA’s and other details were darkened in specific spots to not only be accessible but to draw attention to services. We also used cleaner typefaces on the website to coordinate with the clean leaf portion on the logo.

Navigation

Although there are still a lot of categories in the new website’s navigation we tend to have less nav clutter than our competitors, and an easy-to-use website will produce more leads in the long term (And has gained great results- see testimonials below!) In the mobile version of the app, the nav bar condenses into a hamburger menu to prevent crowdin. We kept the wording the same in the new website, reusing the “Pay My Bill” and etc. for familiarity with returning customers.

Social Media

After the brand guideline and website creation, I translated the new digital identity into a social media strategy: determine what type of content would be produced, how it would be packaged, what it would look like, and schedule which content would be posted each week. We pulled post concepts from the nag categories of the website, services provided, and QIL’s core beliefs and goals. Some examples of types of content are

Educational
“Did you know?” “Huntington Blooms”
Weekly Wrap Ups
Promotional
Community
Sponsorship / Partnerships

Packaged as: reels/videos, commercials, single photos, carousels, and stories

Print and Physical Merchandise