Progress and Preparation
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Marketing Samurai
I am done for Madtown Kinkfest.
Done here defined as “I hit my goal to dye a mile if rope for the show”. Which I thought I wouldn’t get to until two months from now. So,I’m waaaaay ahead if schedule and now get to work on side projects for Bunny Rope.
Which is also good because I have an additional event scheduled next week.
Needless to say I am feeling good.
I’ve started working on booth design and printed materials - banners, flags, colors and similar marketing materials. Meaning I’ve been thinking a great deal on branding.
Branding
verb gerund or present participle: branding - 1. mark (an animal, formerly a criminal or slave) with a branding iron. synonyms: mark, stamp, burn, sear - mark indelibly. “an ointment that branded her with unsightly violet-colored splotches” synonyms: engrave, stamp, etch, imprint - describe (someone or something) as something bad or shameful. “the do-gooders branded us as politically incorrect” synonyms: stigmatize, mark out
Branding is… tricky. I find myself agonizing over color, font, orientation of text on a field of white or red or black. If we accept that the choices we make for this indelibly mark a business, or a person (I think) in my case, it’s so important to get it right. Not only because changing everything is a large investment in time but the way we present a brand affects how people perceive the product.
Do you want your brand to present as stoic, strong? Use sans serif fonts, heavy weights in earth tone colors against blue or green backgrounds. Consider a monochromatic blue scheme.
Do you want your brand to present as modern? Use light or medium fonts with tight ligature in bold colors on white backgrounds.
Passionate? Fierce? Calm? Sexy? Everything needs a different value in the equation.
I spent the afternoon after toying with the booth working on banner displays. I literally spent an hour choosing a second font to use in it. Last year, I bought a script (handwriting) style font for the Bunny Rope logo. That choice was a long time considered but I never really thought what it would mean when introducing additional text next to it. When you he’s a relatively informal styled font, everything you put next to it looks stodgy, uptight, rope strained in a jerky sort if way.
I’ve landed on a modern, sans serif font to accompany it but am as of yet unsold. The letters are too tall. I want them to be a little more squat without fattening the stroke. I want something clean without being cold next to a script.
I will likely have to buy something again to get exactly what I’m looking for.
Fonts aside, this is the sort of stuff I both love and hate because I can’t design things from the ground up myself to get it exactly right.
Also - typeface designing software is stupidly expensive (I looked).
I’m curious what words you would use to describe Bunny Rope as it is currently.
Take a look and send me a message on Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr or email. I would love your opinions!