Weaving together a tapestry artist's branding & website

By Simon Cox, Founding Director, The Apple Yard

First published Saturday 31 August 2019

First published on The Apple Yard: www.theappleyard.com/blog/weaving-together-a-tapestry-artists-branding-website

Abi’s branding sheet for quick reference

Abigail Wastie tapestry artist visual identity: a branding & website case study

How we captured Abi’s playful, fun and attractive style in her branding so that she could launch her new brand and get people booked onto her workshops.

Abi’s main logo as part of her branding

IN A NUTSHELL…

Abi is an upcoming creator and artist in the Six Streets-Allestree area of Derby and a long-time friend of ours.

After taking some tentative steps at the Six Streets Arts Trail, she decided to set up her business officially.

To this end, we helped her crystallise her visual identity in her branding and set up her website, with a focus on a booking system for her workshops.

It was a success for the following reasons:

• Abi’s immediate feedback was positive on the branding, so we nailed her look rapidly (always helpful!)
• Within days of her launch, she has taken online bookings for her upcoming workshops, so the website is already selling her brand
• We again enjoyed working with a local business, particularly in the creative, making niche (and are looking for similar clients, if you’re reading this!)

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ABIGAIL WASTIE

Abi is a creative though and through, making many of her own clothes, has worked as a product designer and enjoys raising her chickens at home.

She’s passionate about sustainability and making style accessible, particularly through passing on her skills and knowledge.

“I would love to help you learn how to make your own clothes and stay away from the high street, or how to create beautiful tapestry weaves for you and your friends. I don’t believe knowledge and creativity should be elitist”

— Abigail Wastie

You can find out more about Abigail at www.abigailwastie.co.uk/about.

THE BEFORE

When you’re not sure where to start with branding and website, you need someone you can trust to talk to and be honest with you.

This is where it started with Abi, so as she is local to us, Rachael visited her, sat down for a chat and went over everything that was on Abi’s mind.

Abi was starting from scratch, so did not have anything apart from a decent set of images from a photoshoot.

Time was limited as she wanted to start selling her workshops and she was working to a budget,

Our brief was to produce a fun, vibrant, playful brand for Abi, plus a website with a small shop for her physical goods, as well as an online booking system to handle the booking of workshops.

THE AFTER

MAKING THE MOST OF TESTIMONIALS

When Abi came to us, she had already been piloting her work and tested the waters at the two-yearly Six Streets Arts Trail.

As such, she had been able to collect a handful of testimonials from previous clients.

This is such valuable content, and we used them to pepper the site, reinforcing Abi as a trustworthy tapestry artist who is delivering quality workshops.

Too often we shrink back from blowing our own trumpet, but testimonials are perfectly acceptable and expected on a brand’s website, so we used them fully to drive her marketing appeal to visitors.

PERSONALITY FRONT AND CENTRE

Following on from above, many business owners who create their brand based on themselves are afraid to position themselves at the forefront of their online presence.

This is called hiding behind your brand, website or products.

It’s also ultimately damaging to your brand and you shouldn’t be afraid to step out into the limelight.

Trust me, no one will accuse you of showing off on your own website.

Thanks to the excellent photographs by The Gribbons photography in Derby, we were able to showcase Abi at her best - fun, frivolous and never taking herself too seriously.

This has the effect of making her more approachable and personable, particularly as she is selling workshops.

When visitors are able to see who you are they are better able to connect with you, and that is an important part of selling online and building your audience.

POWERFUL WORKSHOP BOOKING SYSTEM

A core of Abi’s vision is making good, sustainable fashion more accessible, so offering workshops is key to Abi’s brand as a tapestry artist.

To this end, we set up Abi with Acuity Scheduling, which as a series of very powerful functions that facilitate her bookings:

• We created coupons to allow Abi to offer early-bird discounts on selected workshops, which expire after a certain time; this helps her get around the last-minute rush to book on
• The Acuity booking system is branded in line with Abi’s aesthetic on her website, giving the feel of an integrated part of her site and making for a seamless experience
• We set up the system to send automated confirmation e-mails and reminders to customers, which removes a huge amount of admin time and effort for Abi; this allows her to focus on other aspects of building her business
• We limited her workshops to a set number of spaces, putting Abi in control and giving her peace of mind, plus payment upfront via PayPal, and bookings close 24 hours ahead of the workshop to allow her time to prepare

INCENTIVE INTEGRATION WITH MAILCHIMP

As a small incentive to encourage and reward engagement with Abi’s brand, we set up an integration with MailChimp - a popular e-mail marketing platform for managing newsletters and campaigns.

This allowed those who signed up to her newsletter to receive a free, downloadable copy of her ‘Beginner’s Tapestry Guide’ as part of a welcome message, having confirmed their subscription.

As above, this removes the need for admin involvement by Abi, and it ensures that visitors subscribe to the mail list before receiving the freebie.

As an aside, we ensured to set up the mail list and other areas of the website and booking system such that they make clear her privacy policy and adhere to GDPR regulations.

A custom-designed graphical icon from Abi’s branding

SO WHAT?

Running workshops might sound like an attractive, quaint idea.

However, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Organising six+ people, their payments, joining instructions etc. involves a huge amount of admin.

By setting up Abi with Acuity Scheduling, we were able to remove much of the hassle of this process, leaving Abi to plan her sessions and market herself on Instagram.

The impact of her new website has already been felt.

Within a couple of days of it going live, two people booked voluntarily onto her first workshop and the system had taken payment directly; plus Abi had booked and allocated slots to followers on Instagram.

Abi didn’t have to lift a finger from a visitor arriving to the point they had booked and received confirmation.

Finally, the thing that underlines all of this consistently is her branding.

The colours, textures and details that Rachael put together provide a steady backdrop; quiet assurance of her quality as an artist, her personality and a decent brand.

“Oh, man - it came together so fast! Incredible work!”

— Abigail Wastie, tapestry artist & maker

SURPRISES

Overall, we were happy with this project. In terms of surprises or things we have taken away:

TRAINING

When you operate in systems like Squarespace, MailChimp and Acuity all day, everyday, you forget that others are not necessarily adept and quick getting around them.

We want to do more to equip and set up website owners to use and ‘live in’ their websites, as there is nothing worse than an out of date site, and it does nothing for SEO, if your blog is strewn with tumbleweed.

The trick with this is balancing materials that people can take away and use as reference material and one-on-one tuition, which is far more effective and efficient for training.

AND YOU?

If you’d like to find out more about our brand identity and website work as a maker, tapestry artist or creator, I'd love to hear from you...

Simon Cox - together with his wife, Rachael - is the director of The Apple Yard, a Derby-based website design, brand identity and film-making boutique. Simon helps increase your visual appeal, by strengthening your brand, winning your audience and customers. Call Simon on 07427 100381 or e-mail [email protected] if you'd like to chat about how we can help you achieve your objectives.