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How to Create New Business Branding, A Case Study

How to Brand A New Business: A Case Study of The Haunted Game Cafe from Business Launch Through Year Five

Launching a brand new business can be difficult because the owners have a lot to do. They may even be working part time or full time at other jobs during their new business start-up phase. Finding the right new business branding, like logo design, business colors, fonts, and the look and feel of the business, is part of the business start-up process. Getting these right can help you create people’s reactions before they even start to do business with you. Today, w’ere going to talk about how to create the new business branding from an actual start-up of a real business.

The Haunted Game Cafe is a really creative board game store and coffee house, begun in Fort Collins, Colorado, in Fall 2009. What makes it unique is the fact that they sell coffee and drinks long with boardgames, the decor is bright and friendly with a wide wall of windows, purple walls say friendly to most people in many demographics, and Open Game Library that let’s customers try out new games before buying them.

For their new business branding, they chose the themes spooky, vintage Victorian, not Halloween, gory, nor bloody. It includes Victorian-style wall stencils, and fun color mixes. For instance, the walls are dark purple. Other walls are a mix of dark purple, red and blue, with gold stencils overlaid. Some ceiling tiles in the coffee house area are an aged-brass color, with period-styled molded ceiling tiles.

The original logo work was begun with other agencies, and that’s how the coffee cup in the web logo came into being.
Cup Web Business Logo New Business Branding Graphic Design

The store owner contacted Dan Seese Studios to create a spectacular exterior sign. Together they created the sign with the bat wing shape, and gilded lettering. The store font is similar to Hightower. We took this font to create the window sign later.

New business branding store sign Haunted Game Cafe graphic design
We were testing a new banner sign for below the exterior sign.

So future graphic design and branding work had to fit with the existing branding and the owners’ direction. We designed and created a “Ghosts Wanted” large banner sign to gather interest before opening.. The scroll work, spiderweb and bat shape was created using Adobe Illustrator. The bat shape was modeled over a real bat wing, from a photograph found on the internet, and then duplicated to make it a full image from left to right. The bat was merged with a black rectangle for the sign middle.

New business branding and Promotion and Help Wanted for the Haunted Game Cafe in Fort Collins Colorado
Promo and (Spirited) Help Wanted for the Haunted Game Cafe

We created a 3-fold, 2-sided business marketing flyer with a dark blue background to give it a spooky feel, plus Victorian art details like these scroll-work photo corners, and dividers. We used Yataghan font on the photo descriptions and titles, matching fonts that were in use in-house. Hightower font in regular and italic was used to resemble the exterior sign, whose font was in outline. The teal is made to resemble the aged copper from the exterior sign. The flyer was printed, and used on the website as a digital PDF download, in both full color, and were later modified to be black and white and 2 sided, for less expensive reproduction and easier at-home printing by customers, and again to be a one page flyer.

new business branding and graphic design marketing in Fort Collins, 3 panel flyer, brochure design for business marketing
This brochure’s front is on the right, with the quotes pulled out large to highlight them. The far left panel is the second panel seen during the unfolding. The center map panel is the very back of the brochure design. Note the Victorian elements like photo corners.
Designed the entire graphic design for this new business branding design of 3-panel flyer from scratch for The Haunted Game Cafe. Imported some Victorian design elements to match the board game store's theme.
Designed the entire graphic look of this 3-panel flyer from scratch for The Haunted Game Cafe. Imported some Victorian design elements to match the board game store’s theme.

The graphic design for this bat-shaped board game review sign, similar to those found in bookstores.
HGC_ReviewCardDisplay_2bat

We designed two different customer VIP cards. The first was designed using Adobe Illustrator. The bar code (printed in the bottom space), worked with the POS system to track rewards.

Preferred Customer Card in new business branding, graphic design for the Haunted Game Cafe.
CuPreferred Customer Card for Very Important.. Ghosts! Haunted Game Cafe (Bar code will be added at bottom.)

The second one, much more creative, was requested to resemble the old Ouija board game, supposed to contact spirit world. The font used looks like the American Old West, and indeed that was the Victorian era in America. We started with colorful coffee mug and game piece in the corner, but then muted them down to match the existing brown and black colors. We talked with the store owner about making the ink stamp (that goes over the numbers) into a “planchett”, similar to the original board game.

preferred customer tracking card, graphic design for new business branding and launch by Diana Sproul of www.SproulCreative.com
This rewards card was designed in our graphics software to mimic an old spirit-contact board. We matched the center font and colors. The stamp for each number was made into a pointer shape, to also resemble the game. The mug was also created to match the branding graphics.

We have done several ads over the years from simple black and white to more elaborate color ads. These mostly appeared in high school newspapers, whose rates are more reasonable than local papers.

New business branding, how to design new business graphics, dark puple bat holds a coffee cup in his feet while flying with wings outstretched. Decorative photo corners from Victorian era. Purple bar at bottom contains address. Tag line: open boardgame library, great coffee drinks, ravenous zombies. The last is crossed out and replaced by Helpful Staff.
This custom four inch square newspaper ad was designed in Adobe Illustrator for print use. The bat was designed by another artist, and converted into vector art by me. Note the adherance to branding (purple, tag line, coffee mug), Victorian photo corners.

The bat was designed by another artist, and then painstakingly converted into a vector graphic design by us, then colored. This same art was adapted for use on the mug seen above, where the print area is quite small.

In Spring 2014, we created the graphic design, and set-up the business e-mail marketing program, using the bat wing exterior sign logo, and added spiderwebs to the outside corners. We painstakingly added all the social media marketing links to the top and bottom of the e-mail, and (similar to the flyer) added Victorian art elements as article dividers. We thought the red background made the e-mail more vibrant. (See April’s graphic design e-mail newsletter)

In early 2014 The Haunted Game Cafe sponsored Cult Movie Night at a local theatre. It was our first foray into large screen ads, with several versions to test the ads each month. We proofed that it looked good in person, by visiting.

LyricSlide_v2OfferFinal

Also in 2014, we began to trade advertising free with a local indie bookstore – Facebook mentions, event cross-promotion and bookmarks for them. We have similar customer demographics, but do not compete on products. We offered free bookmarks (seen below) to their customers with Haunted branding.
How to brand a new business, business marketing design and creation, Haunted Game Cafe Flyer one page vertical

How to brand a new business, Bookmark created as part of new business marketing design and branding, in Fort Collins, Colorado
Bookmark graphic design for business marketing, in Fort Collins, CO

The Haunted Game Cafe sponsored local hospitals in a gaming fundraiser for four years. The event required graphic design of a large donation check, themed with ghosts & Victorian decoration in the background. The check was laminated to be usable for multiple years with a write-on/wipe-off pen.

New business branding, graphic design of enormous large donation check, business marketing materials graphic design, where to get a large check created
Enormous donation check, 36″ by 60″ approx.

We also created several table top signs to announce events, get social media sign-ups & reviews, and larger signs to announce new foods.

new business branding, Victorian font, business marketing, how to do create business graphics, Sign announcing new breakfast foods, size approx. 10 x 14".
Sign announcing new breakfast foods, size approx. 10 x 14″.

Table Top Sign, approx. 5 x 7"
Table Top Sign, approx. 5 x 7″

TableSign_FacebookQR

Now that you’ve read about Sproul Creative, what about your project? What can we design for you? Feel free to call me right now at (970) 988-5413, or use our handy contact form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

The Magic of Living Ink – See This Timelapse Greeting Card

There’s something new on the horizon – ink made from algae. The company Living Ink Tech will ship a glass greeting card for you. While it looks like two clear plates of glass at first, the message appears as it grows in a bright window.

The company was founded by Scott Fulbright and Steve Albers, PhD students in Cell and Molecular Biology Program at Colorado State University, here in Fort Collins.

Here’s more about Steve Albers from their website:

Currently, Steve is engineering a strain of algae that is capable of producing a bio-fuel molecule that resembles diesel fuel. He is also engineering a strain of algae that makes Astaxanthin, a molecule capable of protecting cells from dangerous toxins.

From their website, Scott is working on optimizing “algae productivity for biofuels and bioproducts using molecular biology methods.” He is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Program Fellow.

Although this is a fun start, this technology has future applications in reducing the amount of ink used in the world on countless books, print-outs, business materials, and more. (I am imagining here adding water and light to the back of my home printer.)

I would like to more about the possibility of having different colored inks in the future, and whether their application would appear immediately, or would appear over time. (Photos to follow, once I have permission.)

Living Ink Tech spoke on Wednesday, March 5th, 2014, at 1 Million Cups NoCo Chapter (on Meetup.com) in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Custom WordPress Blogs Designed in Fort Collins, Colorado

Here in northern Colorado, Sproul Creative offers custom WordPress blog designs for your new or already successful businesses. Reach the world with your own important business message!! Customize the new business branding to fit your business marketing look and feel. Link to these important business marketing avenues:

  • Company website,
  • Social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterst
  • E-commerce shop,
  • Online portfolio,
  • Business marketing videos,
  • Books authored,

Your custom business blog could even serve as the main headquarters to reach your customers, without another website!

Here’s How We Set Up A Custom Business Blog for You:
Choose a basic layout with 1-3 columns. We work with you to develop your look and feel: custom header to match your new or existing business branding, choice of graphic colors, font selection to match your business branding, styles of headers, image styles, background color to fit with your business branding, and more. If you have search engine keywords, we can use them in the text to enhance your natural search engine results.

Custom Business Blog: Easy Updating for You, No Computer Programming:
These are much easier to update than a traditional, HTML-coded website. The back end software is run for free by a great business blog company. It’s quite easy to update your business blog on your own. You could add pages, write new posts, check your visitor traffic, and install plug-ins. Or, because you’re a busy business owner, you could just hand us the whole thing and let us do that for you.

Want to get started creating a custom business blog? We’re here to help you create your new custom business blog in whatever form that fits your envisioning.
Call or E-mail Us Today to Get Started!!

Diana Sproul, Owner and Founder
Sproul Creative Graphics and Web Design
Send Us an E-mail Today: Diana AT SproulCreative.com
Call Us Today! (970) 988-5413

Three Easy Business Graphic Design Tips, From A Professional Graphic Designer

It can be tough being in business. There’s too much to do, and not enough hours in the day. Here are three easy graphic design tips that can make your website easier to update, as well as improve the look of your business:

I hope these three, simple tips will help you in your business.

Smithsonian Prints Famous Stuff in 3D for Travelling Exhibits

3D Printing has to be the coolest thing I’ve seen for a while. There are a lot of cool products made from metal and wood that are not molded, but printed! Check out the 3D dice and other projects in metal and wood on Shapeways.com. See this 3D dice image, a 2nd dice, and 3rd dice on Ponoko.com.

Now the Smithsonian is turning to 3D printing to be able to send more of their exhibits travelling around the country. Making 3D copies enables them to be travel safely, without being lost, damaged or stolen. The article here on Gizmodo.com says that only about 2% of the Smithsonion archive is on view. That seems a terrible shame.

Build Incoming Website Links Quickly & Easily

Making money on the web involves getting free traffic – eyeballs – to view your website. That means you need a net of links spread out on other sites that link back to your website. How to get that traffic?

Check out this Wordtracker LinkBuilding tutorial. It has a lot of great ideas. They sell their link building software as well. I used the demo version. It seemed worth it just to use their software to keep track of it all. And if you are looking to build links in a certain subject, you can look up the most popular blog, and see who is linking to them. And you can look up the links in to your competitors. Very useful –

A New Era: My Photographs Are Available

And so begins a new era – I studied film, worked in commercial film & TV, studied graphics and website design, worked in that…

Finally I’ve come full circle: back to film. My photographs are now available online as framed prints, mounted prints, cards, and more. Please check out my photographic work on RedBubble.com (which sells framed and unframed prints, cards, and posters) and Shutterfly.com (view Forest & Mountain landscape gallery, Waterfall & Lake Landscapes, Desert Spring). Shutterfly sells photographic enlargements, note cards, puzzles, keepsake boxes, mugs and more. I hope you like my work. And if you have any comments, well, you know the drill.

Cool Books for the iPad Owner

I was reading this great review of modern children’s books – on the iPad. Most are under $5, and thanks to interactivity, can include pop-ups, sounds, word help, reading to the kid, and more. Read more at the NY Times interactive book review list.

And just to note, the new color Nook from Barnes and Noble also has a “read to me” setting at the start of books. Kipling’s How the Elephant Got His Long Nose (not the exact title) is included on the new Nook.

Cookies for Graphic Designers!

Finally – I’ve found a cookie I can really like (although I must confess to liking quite a number, without any encouragement – )

Now you can press out your favorite cookie messages with these letterpress cookie cutters and presses. View photos at babble.com’s article.

The set includes the whole alphabet in a range of fonts, including one ampersand (you know, this: &). OK, you probably knew that, but for the non-type geeks out there…

For sale under $18.

View Comic Books On The Go!

Comic books’ appeal has always been the art, and the collection of hard to find titles by fans: holding that rare comic book in your hands…

Now, for less hard-core fans who want to read their fav’s on the go, there’s a new way to view them: digitally. Dark Horse Comics, one of the third largest U.S. comic book publishers, has announced downloads of their titles for viewing on any any modern web browser, iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch (which is like an iPhone, just without the phone feature). Here is the link to Dark Horse Comics’ mobile app download page. Pleasant reading!

Find Historical Photos’ Exact Location with WhatWasThere.com

I was just wasting time checking out the new website technology onWhatWasThere.com. This website links historical photos for several major cities to locations on Google Maps. This website will allow you to see an historical photo of the famous Brown Derby Restaurant in Los Angeles. It was once the dining place of celebrities like Clark Gable. It was torn down in 1970s after a bad fire. I had the good luck to eat there once.

Or here – you can see the location of the Continue reading “Find Historical Photos’ Exact Location with WhatWasThere.com”

Link Building

I am in the process of building incoming website links. I am trying out Wordtracker.com’s Link Builder website, using their free 7 day trial. So far, it looks pretty good…
I am surprised, however, that Google likes incoming links from free directories over quality written content (as on this website – ). The system seems to favor the free directory listings…

As part of the process, I have listed my company on this directory, USAGraphicDesigner.com, the Denver Channel 7 local directory, and others. I’ll let you know if it improves my brand, traffic, and business.

Nov. 2011 update – So far, traffic has increased marginally, but not enough for me. I installed one WordPress SEO plug-in, and now I am trying a second one.