Dale Taylor’s work is iconic. She has a certain style and flair for creating the most amazing images of sunsets, and sunrises and silhouettes. You would think that after doing one or two or ten of these, there was nothing new that could be done with a sunset and a silhouette, but Dale makes every image of hers just magical.
When she asked me to help her put together her branding, it seemed like a daunting task. Part of the challenge is that Dale does so many different things and wanted to encompass it all within a single brand. She has her portrait photography business, but also does weddings. She sells actions and textures to other photographers and also runs workshops. Dale is looking to branch out into commercial work and also shoots art by commission.
Pulling all these facets together was a monumental feat. I really wanted to make her branding instantly recognisable as ‘Dale’… regardless of where it was being used, for what audience and for any purpose. That meant stripping back the essence of her style to the basics – the silhouette.
After much brain storming, we came up with a modular solution for her brands and sub brands. While the main identity is the running girl with balloon, the whole suite of icons are made up of silhouettes traced from Dale’s images themselves. The squares or tiles read as a storyboard especially when used as a series of images – you can see the story unfolding in each consecutive tile. They can be used independently as Dale sees fit, or she can group them together for other sub-specialities, and the running girl in the middle is always a visual link to her main brand. That way she can chop and change the tiles around to promote just about anything, and still maintain her unique look and feel across all these different areas. We took it a bit further, using the some of Dale’s own photography and textured behind the icons for added interest (though they can be used without).
You can see below how each group has its own look and feel, but represents the main brand so strongly and always, ALWAYS appears with Dale’s name in the tagline.
I would have to say this was one of the most challenging visual identity briefs I’ve ever had. It was also so much fun to work with Dale who was so open to any ideas I threw her way and who took everything I said on board. It’s been a long time in the planning and a bit longer in the making but I am so happy to see it all here and out in the open. You can check out the brand new blog here.
Congrats Dale – you totally deserve all the great things coming your way!
Posted by Netra on Oct 27th 2010 | corporate - design - graphic design - marketing - photography
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