Bringing back
Gemma is a personal trainer, specialising in pre- and post-natal fitness, and using exercise as a way to boost self-esteem and body confidence. She came to me just as she was launching her new, as-yet-unnamed business, and was looking for guidance to help her get it off the ground.
Launching a brand-new business in a busy space is always a challenge, so Gemma tasked me with coming up with a name, brand and website package which would help her to stand out.
Before I could do any design work, we needed to come up with a name for this new venture. When Gemma and I sat down to discuss options, it wasn’t long before we had uncovered two key points which needed to be addressed:
- Since Gemma’s client base is predominantly women, we needed something that was unmistakably feminine.
- At the same time, it needed to convey the strength and body confidence that her clients aspire to.
After throwing around a few abstract ideas, we both came to the same conclusion; The flowing form of the vixen—a well-known metaphor for female beauty—seemed like the perfect fit, and the name Vixen Fitness was born.
As well as the Vixen Fitness name, we also came up with a reusable hashtag for marketing materials, for which I created a graphic.
#beavixen
Strength &
With a name, it was time to move on and start putting together a branding package that would inform Gemma’s marketing efforts.
1. Logo
For the Vixen Fitness logo, I used a simple icon of a vixen, with a long, flowing curve to symbolise its tail. Used with a bold, all-caps logotype, it really nailed the balance of strength and femininity that we were looking for.
2. Typography
The strong, unapologetic boldness of Montserrat was so effective as a logotype that I decided to use it as the primary font for the website and Gemma’s marketing materials. Using multiple weights meant I could strike a nice balance between huge, bold headings and a cleaner, lighter weight for more readable body copy.
To counter Montserrat’s strength I used Have Heart One to add a touch of femininity to headings and other brand assets.
3. Printed materials
Gemma meets most of her clients face to face, but handing over a business card doesn’t really convey everything that she has to offer. To help her make a good impression, I designed a series of postcards to give to clients and hand out at events; each one providing more information about particular services she provides, allowing her to put the right information in front of prospective clients from the outset, and hopefully win their business.
The rest of Gemma’s branding collateral followed a similiar theme, keeping the bold headings, bright colours and white border; a combination which formed the basis for the website design.
Right: A series of place cards used for circuit training
Taking it to the
With training being a private activity for so many people, we wanted the website to speak directly to visitors. Copy was hugely important here, with friendly, informal prose guiding the user to individual service pages tailored to their situation.
I built a page for each of Gemma’s services to match the set of postcards I’d designed previously, with each one being able to act as a landing page; both for the links on the postcards themselves, and for targeted online and social media advertising campaigns.
