The American Gem Registry is owned by an independent jewelry appraiser in Arvada, Colorado. The company has been around since 2011 or so, and even had a website up. Ready to see it?
Oh boy! It wasn’t pretty. (Literally.) But even though it wasn’t pretty, the website itself contained a lot of valuable information which needed to be accounted for when making a new website which would also maintain all of that great SEO umph provided by Neil’s excellent information.
This is frequently a common problem—where the quality of the information is masked by it’s less-than-effective visual design—for technical experts.
So this project had “all of the things:” SEO Research and Analysis, into Brand System Design, to Website Design and Development, to task Automation, to Motion Design and development, to ongoing Content Marketing, and in-short, had thinktank design a Command Center so the Client could run their business more effectively, get found on the web, grown, and have a saleable asset.
It worked! Here’s a look at where we’re going, the new American Gem Registry landing page (which you can see live by clicking the picture, or by visiting https://americangemregistry.com:
The New Brand System
In the realm of branding, the journey from a single logo to a comprehensive brand identity marks a pivotal first step, encapsulating a business’s visual essence through colors, typography, and imagery. However, the evolution from a brand identity to a brand system represents an equally monumental leap, transforming how a business communicates and operates across all touchpoints.
A brand identity is a subset of a brand system, which includes not only the visual elements but also the strategic application of these elements in marketing materials, digital presence, customer service protocols, and beyond.
For small businesses such as the American Gem Registry, transitioning to a well-organized brand system from merely having a brand identity is crucial. It ensures consistency, fosters brand recognition, and enhances customer experiences. Implementing a brand system significantly amplifies a business’s effectiveness by streamlining communication, reinforcing brand values, and ultimately, driving growth.
The American Gem Registry’s embrace of a full brand system, designed and implemented by ThinkTank, showcases the transformative power of comprehensive branding, setting a new standard for how small businesses can achieve remarkable coherence and impact in their market presence.
The Original Brand
There it was, in a nut-shell! All of the files that the American Gem Registry had from their original designer. This is a common situation with a lot of small businesses who had some initial branding work done at some point in the past, where they have a few logos, exactly in this format.
The first thing to do was to discover what the Client liked about the logo. It was a pretty simple answer, which I think you should be able to pick out, too. Yeah, the logo leaves a lot to be desired, but those mountains like diamonds are BOMB!
This is what you might call “Graphic Design Forensics,” where all you have from a previous designer are a few files that may or may not be the appropriate “vector format.” ThinkTank jumps into the files and separates the desired elements from the undesired.
The result was the American Gem Registry Logo Mark, shown here. After putting the old logo in this format, it opened up a lot of options for further brand design after all of the colors and such were chosen.
The Redesigned Brand
In re-conceptualizing this brand, ThinkTank was inspired by the elegance of 18th century Victorian Advertising, that was the birth place of modern graphic design. How fun would it be to have this style of brand for a Jewelry Appraiser? Oh, speaking from experience, it is so much fun.
So, thinktank used a combination of pre-designed assets by Heritage Type, the old logos from American Gem Registry, fonts from Adobe Fonts, and some good ol’ fashioned gumption to make a whole thing from colors that, hopefully, are reminiscent of “an elegant cigar box.” We chose a rich array of browns and tans for a color theme that really brings the whole thing together.
Full Brand Systems like this yield a ton of brand assets; literally hundreds, if not thousands, of files. (That’s why you need a system in order to organize and reproduce assets and media for a consistent effect.) As you can see, by including elements of the original logo, a sense of visual consistency is also created from old to new.
