Page & Podium Press
Branding & Website Design and Development
Background
Page & Podium lifts up community leaders and empowers them to publish message-centered books that grow their brands and give voice to their causes. Our mission was to build them an intentional visual brand experience that would immediately communicate their approachable expertise in the ghostwriting and publishing industry through clean, elevated, and friendly branding.
Moodboard
The moodboard for the Page & Podium brand is full of inspirational elements that cultivate a confident, uplifting, and authentic aesthetic.
Type is tidy but impactful, with well constructed serif fonts and accents of hand lettering for warmth.
Layouts are clean with blocks of bold colors and tasteful accents of gold. Textures and patterns are rich but subtle, adding interest without being obtrusive.
Large swaths of deep, rich hues create a powerful feel. Tone on tone values add an air of sophistication, while pops of salmon and teal highlight areas of interest and calls to action.
Logo Design
Our brand package for Page & Podium included a wide variety of logo designs to suit the various applications of branding that the publishing industry presents, including monograms, options with and without taglines, and different implementations of our custom designed book fan mark.
The wordmark features the brand name in high contrast sans-serif letters with expressive variations in line weight, lending elegance and intentionality. The word “press” sits just below in lettering that evokes a sense of traditional publishing.
The P&P monogram features the high contrast letters of the wordmark and its custom designed ampersand, intertwined in a manner that cultivates the feel of an established, trust-focused brand. This P&P monogram is versatile enough to combine with other brand elements but impactful enough to use on its own.
The diverse array of alternate use logos we designed ensures that the Page & Podium brand package has the perfect logo for any possible use case.
A key element of this logo collection is the book fan icon, which visually combines the open pages of a book with a microphone. What results is a signature brand mark that deftly pronounces the power of storytelling. Like the monogram, the book fan can be combined with numerous brand elements or used on its own in instances where a simple pop of branding is called for.
Unique to this project was the need to have a small-scale logo that would work on the limited real estate of book spines. Two variations of this resulted: one based around the P&P monogram and another with the book fan. The marks can be used separately or together.
The fact that these logo elements work at both regular and tiny scales shows the clarity of the purpose and voice in the brand’s visual aesthetic.
Typography
For a brand whose product is the written word, the typographical aspects of its visual language demanded a keen focus. Expressly off the table in our design, though, was relying on any sort of typewriter-esque font or similar trope that would speak more to the gatekeeper-y past of the publishing industry than Page & Podium’s forward-looking social justice mission.
By building a typography palette that focused on being pleasant to read, compelling, and structured, we were able to evoke the solidity of the publishing industry without its anchors–and we gave it that special Page & Podium distinction by mixing this stateliness with a bright serving of approachability and collaboration.
The brand’s main display font is a readerly, library-esque serif that comes across as beautiful and elevated. This is complemented by careful application of a display script in a friendly calligraphic style for emphasis, along with a gothic sans serif for body text.
Approachable italics for both of these fonts and a wide variety of weights made them flexible enough for any possible use case, while keeping the type palette limited and tasteful. Through these applications of typography throughout branding elements and website design, we struck the perfect balance of expertise and uplift.
Brand Photography Shotlist
Since we designed the Page & Podium brand to tell a story, we needed narratively rich photography to complement it. So while we embarked on the website design, we helped the brand procure perfect brand photos for the site (and beyond) with a custom shotlist guidance document.
To help the brand’s chosen professional photographer create images that would sing in the brand’s language, we packed the shotlist with detailed guidance and targeted inspiration, including the brand’s moodboard as a central creative axis.
Carefully selected example shots clarified specific advice we developed for shot setups that would be catered to Page & Podium’s unique brand story. This combined with the time-tested best practices we included on setting, styling, color choices, shot types, groupings, and other details provided a starting point for photos that would nail the Page & Podium ethos and aesthetic.
The results can be seen in the warm, inviting, and trust-invoking images that we included on the website. Small details are key here–like the brand’s proprietor wearing teal and navy to nod to brand colors, or being in settings that echo how she engages with actual clients. Moments like these may seem subtle to the eye, but are everything in terms of weaving a cohesive visual story.
Coupled with the clean, empowering design of the website and the rich array of visual elements composing our brand design, impactful brand photography rounds out the branding package and brings the brand’s message to life. And though we didn’t take the images ourselves, our shotlist guidance curated the perfect set of images to take the brand out of its past and into its happily ever after.
Website Design
Our client tasked us with building a web presence that was not just a beautiful site, but also an aspirational space where people would come to trust the Page & Podium brand enough to finally believe in their own dream of becoming an author, sharing their story, and lifting up their communities in the process.
Before working on a single bit of visual design, we developed wireframes to give the site clarity of structure. Previously, the brand’s website had been updated in a piecemeal fashion, so a restructuring of its organization was necessary to make sure all the pieces and parts were in the right place before moving on to full design.
In the style tile phase of the project, we cultivated a deep, bold site aesthetic that’s dynamic and dark without feeling heavy. Rich indigo and teal feature heavily in the palette with bright coral for calls to action and fine golden hues to lead the journey through the site content. Style tiles served as little snapshots of how beautifully these visual elements would interplay, and are echoed sublimely in the final site design.
A particularly striking application of the palette and aesthetic can be seen in the custom icon family we designed for the brand. These icons can be used in countless ways in branded documents and marketing graphics, and in the website they add impact and visual interest to written content, succinctly illustrating a process or idea to enhance legibility. By using a cohesive, signature illustrative style, our custom icon family builds an entire brand story without saying a word.
In addition to bold blocks of brand colors that divide up and organize content, the Page & Podium website finds a new level of depth and distinction through its use of custom texture. We designed this texture with low-contrast shades of navy to create the visual texture of leather. It evokes the weight of an expertly crafted hardback book, but doesn’t distract the eye or impede legibility. Like the icon family, the pattern can also be used in marketing graphics and printed materials.
In the overarching goal to guide users through the brand’s values to a place of trust and self-recognition, the website design focuses on creating a visual narrative journey to uplift and enhance brand copy. Accent graphics work together with type and color to add emphasis and lead the way forward. Animations lend dynamism to textual elements.
And creative use of brand fonts create visually supporting logos for the different programs in the brand’s service offerings, creating the feel of a distinct nook of the brand for clients in different phases of their author journeys.
When I approached Jessica, I knew something had to change. I had been constantly tweaking and adjusting my website for years, and the result was a mess: different ideas from different times with different perspectives and a whole bunch of generic visuals. I wasn't sure I had enough of a vision to really transform what we had into something powerful.
Perennial's branding process helped me get so much clearer on who we are and who we could be. The first time I looked at the branding, I got tears in my eyes—it was like seeing my business baby all grown up.
With Jessica's help, we leveled up from a "little ghostwriting company" to a nationally competitive publishing house.
We walked away with more than just a new website. We got a powerful mindset shift, too!
