Designing eye-catching creative with big personality for a white-label development partner looking to attract creative agencies
Secret Stache is a white-label web development firm that partners with creative agencies and acts as an extension of their in-house team. Obsessed with delivering a quality product and having a passion for executing a creative vision, Secret Stache had been a long-time partner of FlowState Branding when they approached them about kicking their brand up a notch or two (or five) through a branding process and website project.
Because creative design agencies were their target audience, we knew we had to deliver a unique look and experience that was fresh, eye-catching, and interactive. Working on the FlowState team, I was able to contribute to this project from beginning to end. I helped in the development of the Secret Stache brand identity as well as creating numerous graphics and illustrations for the web experience. I was also able to add value to the project by creating all the animations for the brand.
Creating a unique visual style for the Secret Stache brand was one of the key goals of the branding process. We not only wanted the graphics to be unique and expressive, but we wanted to inject the brand’s personality into every concept from stand-alone header graphics to the presentation of screenshots. The illustrative nature and quantity of visuals as well as the wide range of subject matter required to populate the website and create animations presented the unique challenge of making sure all the visuals were cohesive in a way that felt connected to the Secret Stache brand. To help accomplish this, we developed a toolkit of recurring elements that could be utilized when creating illustrations and animations for the brand. These visual elements (four pointed stars, outer space elements, organic shapes, a subtle three-dimensional feel, and a screen static texture to name a few) combined with a strict adherence to the brand palette helped keep the visuals cohesive wherever they appeared.
Maintaining the illustrative style of the brand, I was able to create numerous animated elements for the website as a way to elevate the online experience and add a depth to the user’s engagement. While a large amount of animation work went into the initial web and brand project, an additional scope of work was opened that included a number of animation-specific deliverables including a branded intro sequence to be used at the beginning of videos created by the brand as well as a medium length ad that the brand could use to generate leads.
