Food Wine Marcy

A personal brand identity for author Marcy Carriker Smothers.

Food Wine Marcy branding splash banner

Project Brief

Design Challenge: Who is Marcy Carriker Smothers, and how could a brand represent her professional identity?

Marcy is the author of Eat Like Walt, Snacks: Isle by Isle; A Walt Disney and Disneyland historian; A TV and Radio personality; and a lifestyle influencer.

A logo and branding guidelines were developed for Marcy Carriker Smothers and were then disseminated into collateral marketing and website design.

Skills & Tools Used:

Final Designs

The final logo utilizes both Marcy’s online personality “Food Wine Marcy” and her full name. The typographic set includes a display font, geometric heading font, and sans-serif body copy. While the logo remains simple with just two colors—a full set of colors were carefully crafted incase designs needed to be expanded in other media formats.

Food Wine Marcy logo design
logo design
Food Wine Marcy typography
typefaces
Food Wine Marcy color scheme
color palette

Website Design

The website design was based off of Solopine’s WordPress theme. I changed out the typography and color to follow the branding guidelines.

Food Wine Marcy website mockup home
website home page
Food Wine Marcy website mockup bio
website biography page

Marketing Assets

With a final logo, type, and color I created an email signature and business card design for Marcy to use when communicating and promoting herself.

Food Wine Marcy email signature
email signature
Food Wine Marcy business card mockup
business cards

Discovery & Design Process

After sifting my way through Marcy’s books, website, and interviewing her I was able to start a few wordplay lists. These lists explored Marcy’s industry, what exactly was her niche in those industries, and then a few descriptors to identify aspects of her future brand.

Industries

  • Author
    • Food and Wine
    • Children’s Author
  • Historian
    • Pop Culture
  • “Celebrity”, “Personality”
    • Radio, Podcasts
    • Social Media
    • Lifestyle Influencer

Industry Niches

  • Food & Wine
    • Cooking at Home
    • Food Explorer, Adventurer
  • Disney
    • Walt Disney’s Life
    • Disneyland in Walt’s Era (1940s–1960s)
  • Communitarian

    Descriptors

    • Fun
    • Hangout with Marcy
    • Approachable
    • Insatiable Curiosity
    • Enthusiasm
    • Community
    • Sparkly, Juicy
    • Adventurer, Boundless Energy
    • Lifestyle Influencer
    • Whimsical

    Names, Titles & Taglines

    • Marcy Carriker Smothers
    • “Food, Wine, and Marcy”
    • “Food Wine Marcy”
    • Food · Wine · Marcy
    • “Disneyland Historian”
    • “Time Capsule of Walt Disney”
    • Walt Disney Historian

    Design Research

    I surveyed a few figures within Marcy’s industries to gain an understanding of how I might approach a professional personal brand. There were some take aways regarding color use and typography. I even noticed that some professionals seemed to correlate their outfits with their branding elements.

    personal brand examples 04
    Jamie Gwen
    personal brand examples 02
    Sharon Osbourne
    personal brand examples 01
    Wendy Williams
    personal brand examples 03
    The Pioneer Woman
    personal brand examples 05
    Aarti Party

    Typographic Survey

    I searched a few different font banks for potential typeface candidates. This would be the basis of the logo design, so it was important to do a proper search and experimentation. Once I had a large collection I started sorting them into categories such as: Elegant/Refined, Personable/Charismatic, Energetic/Playful, and Periodic. I tried to stay in categories that corresponded with the wordplay descriptors to retain creative boundaries.

    Typographic survey 01
    Typographic survey 02
    Typographic survey 03

    Logo Iterations

    Once typefaces were narrowed down to a few I started playing with them to see where they could lead me. I worked with the typefaces in black and white experimenting with arrangements and trying variations on name. At a certain point in this development I moved into color exploration and continued to push the design.

    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 07
    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 06
    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 05
    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 01
    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 02
    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 03
    Food Wine Marcy logo design iterations 04

    Conclusion

    After the creative process was complete we arrived at a new collection of branding elements: bright warm colors and trendy typefaces—all which summed up Marcy’s personality concisely.

    I pulled together samples of typography, color, and imagery to compare the branding before and after the project:

    Food Wine Marcy Old Branding
    former branding
    Food Wine Marcy New Branding
    new branding

    This project was made by OptiRev for Marcy Carriker Smothers (2018).

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