IN THE STUDIO / NEST

I designed these business cards long before JASPR was launched, but I'm featuring them on here now as they have yet to be seen anywhere else.

This was a project I learned a few valuable lessons from, so I wanted to share that knowledge with you.

I completed this job for Amy Clepper, whom I now consider a friend, when she was opening her business, Nest Guest Home + Garden in Hudson, OH.

A bit of background information on the job:

Amy and her husband purchased a village victorian, restored it and decorated it with a more modern vibe. When Amy contacted me about designing her branding, she expressed she had already had a few people give it a shot, but no one was able to achieve the style she was looking for. Amy wanted a logo that had both modern and victorian elements and no one had seemed to nail that aesthetic.

Now, I wholeheartedly love Amy, and the Nest project is one of my favorites to date, but my first instinct was to runnnn liiiiikeee hellllllll for two reasons: 1. No one had been able to satisfy her yet (usually a warning sign with potential clients) and 2. The request for both Modern and Victorian elements within the same logo scared me a bit. These two eras fall on completely different ends of the design spectrum, so what in the H-E-double hockey sticks would my solution be?

Regardless of the challenges I faced, I knew I really liked Amy and her style. I also believed in her vision and business, so I took the job and I can't express to you how happy I am that I did.

That's not to say the obstacles I expected didn't arise. The process of creating the logo was daunting. Modern and Victorian  . . . Modern and Victorian . . . Modern and Victorian. I'd look at my blank sketch book page with those words running through my mind endlessly. I finally just started doodling things that individually fell into each design style and to make a (super) long story short, I married the two most prominent elements I found within my sketches.

Representing Victorian: a flourish. Representing Modern: clean, thin lines.

A logo was born. Of course, there was a little more to it than that, but you get the idea.

I've had a few people ask me what typeface the word "nest" is set in. Unfortunately, one doesn't exist or I'd be happy to share it with you. I actually researched multiple typefaces I loved, took seperate elements I liked about each and created my own custom letters using the pen tool in illustrator. I also created the flourish using the same process. 

Regarding the business card featured in this post—and throughout the rest of the Nest branding I worked on—I used the typeface Neutra 2. It's open and unobtrusive, but still possesses the small design "flare" I was in search of.

I had my heart set on letterpressing this business card design, but it wasn't in the project budget, so I had to come up with a different solution. I decided to focus on basing the design around a printing technique that allowed me to mix it up—a colored paper with white ink. So, I went with screen printing through Mama's Sauce (the best). I found this Charcoal Brown option from French Paper (also the best) that I immediately fell in love with, but I was bummed to find out it only came in a 100# weight. I was ideally looking for something thicker for the business card, so I asked Mama's Sauce what they recommended and they informed that I could have the paper I had my heart set on duplexed (two pieces glued together) to create a 200# stock.

The final product was everything I expected it to be. It fit seamlessly within the other branding I had created up to that point and reflected the design aesthetic and quality I had set out to achieve.

I was extremely happy with the end result and so was Amy.

Lesson learned:

Contrary to popular belief, not EVERY project with a scary beginning has a hellish ending.

This is really good news, people.