Bridging massage and craniosacral therapy with intuitive art
Riina Kosonen and I have been liking each other’s Instagram posts for years. So when she popped in my inbox asking about flexible branding, I was so excited!
I had gotten to see her massage therapy business grow and evolve from afar, so it already felt so familiar. And I was thrilled that she’d started incorporating more and more of her artwork into the life of her brand.
Riina told me her logo had been feeling off. She felt like it didn’t communicate the most important things about her anymore. And she knew she needed something simple that could help her massage therapy and her artwork feel like they belong together.
Together, we discovered that Riina’s work is all about creating connection and inspiration in a meditative, nurturing, and creative environment. The magic of her work in world is the energetically dreamy essence she creates for her people – both in her one-on-one client work and her art.
Knowing this, we decided to pull all visual inspiration from Riina’s artwork. This body of work had already been creating a strong visual language around Riina’s brand. And since her massage business and art share the same magic, everything she needed her brand to communicate was already coming across in her painting.
For her logo, I used Riina’s own handwriting and paired it with a clean sans serif font. Her handwriting would directly reference her art, which often features ink line work and sometimes includes her writing. Plus, handwritten fonts always have the kind of personal feel Riina was after. The clean font would help balance that with a bit of professionalism, just to keep things presentable and easily legible.
We chose Riina provided several different versions of her name, and we chose one that struck a good balance between legibility and imperfection. We both fell in love with the subtle pattern that the repeating lines in this one creates:
Next, I chose an array of colors from Riina’s paintings and some of her Instagram photos. The idea was to give her a broad enough color palette to play with and also narrow things down a little so she always has a solid starting point. So, I created two color wheels based on her love of mixing calm desaturated hues with bright almost-neons:
Finally, I chose a set of fonts that would help bring a little consistency. I decided to help her keep it simple so that her imagery and vibrant color combinations could always take center stage. I set her up with a single font family which comes with all kinds of weights and varieties, again giving her a good starting point and also plenty of room to play:
It was such a delight to create this simple nimble little brand! I loved immersing myself in Riina’s work for a couple of weeks and getting to go through a more collaborative process together felt like a breath of fresh air.
Want me to help you create your very own flexible brand?
I’m taking a small amount of flexible brand design projects before the end of the year. Let’s talk*.
*Flexible Branding is a new offering I’m testing out. It’s quick, it’s collaborative, it’s fun… and it’s totally within your budget. When you click that link, you’ll be prompted to send me an email…. Just ask for more details and we’ll talk about what working together on a flexible brand design could look like.