Fresh Designs in Bloom at Amber Housley’s Inner Circle
Our client, Amber Housley, has something exciting in bloom!
Amber is a marketing strategist for small businesses in creative industries. She’s best known for her retreat planning and, for the last decade, has been helping women through her coaching and mentorship programs, like her Blooming Business Inner Circle!
Her Inner Circle Membership program is a signature offer, but it recently changed from a monthly mail-based subscription program to a seasonal subscription. When Amber knew it was time to make the shift, we knew it was time for a brand refresh!
Reading this, you might be wondering: How do you know when it’s time for a new look? It’s usually three-fold:
- You want to signal to people that something is different! How are they supposed to know it’s new and improved, or totally reworked, when everything looks the same old, same old?
- New offers are revamped to better serve an audience. This often involves a bit of redesign to make the products *functionally *better — whether that’s increasing contrast on a page, adding in instructions or roadmaps, etc.
- We want to communicate our new offer promise. In this case, Amber created something that’s seasonal and inspirational, catering to business AND life (rather than just business).
Finding balance between digital and physical design
The Inner Circle was once a mail-based subscription, but after revamping the program, a new look was in store too.
This revamp included more helpful tools and fun gifts inside members’ welcome kits, along with four seasonal kits and a reorganized and reimagined online training portal called “The Greenhouse.”
The Blooming Business Inner Circle is also gives users the choice to go digital and opt out of physical kits. Shifting content to a digital experience means we had to rethink a few things!
How can you make an online experience just as exciting, if not more so, than physical mail? This got us thinking about:
- How a lot of the things we design can be reproduced digitally without changes, like retreat prep cards, notes from Amber, etc.
- How to make workbooks fillable online, giving people as much of a “hands-on” experience as possible.
- How to deliver things digitally. In the same way that unboxing retreat kits should feel exciting, opening an email from Amber should be the same! We spent a lot of time designing email headers, training portals, slide decks, etc. so each piece of the experience feels like a seasonal retreat.
How fresh design can bring a new offer to life
Our favorite part of this change to Blooming Business Inner Circle? Seasonal retreats were added — and each event will be branded to each season’s vibe! They will come with brand new seasonal party favors and workbooks.
It’s an extra fun challenge because each season’s vibe and color palette changes. Instead of limiting ourselves to Amber Housley brand colors, we’ve embraced the entire color spectrum and rely on other visual cues to keep things cohesive — things like recurring patterns, shapes, and typography.
Every season gives us something new to work with, and a new batch of party favors to brainstorm. Designing so many pieces every season gives us a ton of room to experiment with shapes, sizes, color distribution, and the unpacking experience!
Part of the refresh also involved a new design for the boxes, tissue paper, stickers, journals, welcome letters…the WHOLE enchilada. And the best part? These designs can be repurposed for products launching (very soon) in her shop!
We love a good theme, but when you pair it with the seasons (and an amazing offer)… what’s better than that?
Want to see other brand designs from The Design Lab?
Want to see more of our work? Check out a few of our recent projects below:
