How did you do it all?
We have been getting quite a few emails and questions on how the new branding and site started to come together for us this past week. Which thank you for all of the love. Seriously, we have been overwhelmed by the amount of views, comments, and emails we received showing your support.
You might have seen on Friday, our post about creating our inspiration boards over a year ago? Well that is where it allll began for us. Starting to look for a way and images that would represent the mood, look, feeling, and ideas we had of where to take the new brand of MBP… Taking our dreams and putting them into a visual inspiration, 2-deminsion, how to guide. Now that is a task!
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I would ask Jake, “Don’t you see that? Can’t you just climb into my head and see that I mean?!” Once our board was completed, it was only then that we both sat there and really got it.
Okay, so I say go create an inspiration board. Great. How? Pintrest is an amazing place to start. (I feel like a dinosaur by admitting Pintrest wasn’t even Pintrest when we started all of this.) But most importantly, STOP thinking about what you think you should have, or should be. Stop worrying about what you think others might want to see, or what you think clients would like. That is the biggest mistake you could ever make.
This isn’t an easy thing to do either. To just stop thinking. With the photography and wedding community, its nearly impossible. Someone, somewhere will always challenge you to scratch your entire plan because there is something bigger and better. A new way of doing things, an awesome new product, a whatever it is that didn’t exists last week. They will suck you dry and make you second guess everything you are doing. Do not, I repeat do not let this change you, what you love, or the ideas you have to be or do better. Instead use it an inspiration. How can you take what you are doing already and push it to the next level??
That’s how we did it. We stopped thinking. We stopped talking. We just stopped everything and just sat. We took it all in, we looked around our home and our lives, and really soaked it all in. We asked ourselves, if it could be anything, and look any way we wanted, what would that look like? That was the moment we saw it, the moment it all came together. We had a color scheme; A pallet of amazing colors that we knew we loved. Why? Because they were the colors and ideas that we were already surrounded with, in our home.
The blue you see adorning our walls in the meeting space and office? Valspar paint in Hematite. It was already the color of our master bathroom. The tan, well that is on our main walls. Bleaker Beige, from Benjamin Moore. And the grays, we pulled those from our bedding.
What about the different blues, if one was our bathroom color? We took it to the next level. I LOVE the sky, and could stare at it for hours watching the clouds go by. So Jake pulled a cloud image and layered them. Our background, is from the inspiration of letterpress and typography (which says Believing In Simple Love). Layered linen, from our couch. Everything you see in the meeting space and office in the form of decorations we all ready had. Not so neatly placed and pulled together sure, but it was here. Just waiting.
Where is this all going? Well that’s just it… You see, we used what we loved. That is how we pulled it together. In all actuality we didn’t have to do anything but to be still and look. The moment you make your brand about you, it becomes you. Because you are who it is becoming. Wait, what??
Okay, let’s make it simple. You are your brand. We have all heard this a thousand times, right? But it is so true!! Everything you love, everything you are, this is what makes you, you. And that is exactly what you should be putting forward. So be still. Stop to look. Stop to soak it all in. Stop being what you think you should be, and just be.
This is who we are, and that is how we did it.
Gabrielle von Heyking - Loved hearing you talk about your branding and your process of finding out what you love and who you are 🙂
Joy Woods - Your branding is wonderful, and it is such a relief to know I’m not the only one who seems to sometimes think that there is a “better brand” waiting for me. I should be content with what I’ve come up with, and think about what the client wants & needs.
Heather - I JUST went through the branding process myself. It’s quite a journey! Especially when you are trying to brand yourself on a budget! HA! BUT, if you can find a great team to help build your vision, it is a very cool journey indeed! To see what you’ve envisioned come to life…it’s difficult to put into words! 🙂 Great post!
MB - You ladies are spot on! It is such a journey, but an amazing one. You will feel so great taking it on, and really stopping to look around you and who you really are in life. The moment you see that, the rest is cake!
Connie - For some reason, branding is one of those things that I have just put to the side for all the reasons you understand. Nothing seems to be good enough or if I make a decision then I have to live with it for a long time and what if it’s wrong? I need to start fresh and decide what my branding should be. Thanks for the inspiration!
Kelly - Love your branding and it’s so true you have to stop and figure out who you are. I really had no idea I liked colors and lines so much until I started working on my branding.
Jessica King - I didn’t see your branding before now, but what you have now is beautiful! I’m in the process of re-branding, and through creating a Pinterest board with only things I loved, I’ve realized that my current branding is more what I *thought* my branding should look like, but not completely me. I can’t wait until I see how everything comes together 🙂
Sara - It’s been a beautiful journey watching this come together!! I love how I know who you are online is who you are in real life!! You guys rocked it out!!! LOVE it all!! Now to go find myself 🙂