Branding a crafts business

Thoughts from someone who is both a crafts person with a craft based business and who is also a graphic designer with 20 years experience in designing for print.

Why is branding important?

Branding is your visual identity. It’s a way for people that don’t know you or what you are about to have some sort of anchor in recognising your work or products. It’s typically harder to remember or recall a name than it is to associate a visual with a thing (the ‘thing’ being a product or service).

What is branding?

Branding is not just a logo. A good logo is a great place to start but good branding encompasses everything you and your business put out there ensuring 1 clear message is received by your audience without the need to spell it out each time. In a nutshell shell, your brand identity visually tells your audience (without the need for words) that this ‘thing’ has been made by you and is the quality item that you are known for.

It helps you visually evoke the feel of your product or service as well as helping people spot what’s been made by you.

I’m a craft business/seller, is branding important to me?

Yes definitely! Having a solid brand to help you promote your craft business is extremely important especially in a very saturated market place. It doesn’t really matter what you are selling/making, adding well thought out branding creates and air of professionalism to your work and to you and helps to elevate your position in the market. It’s a way of saying “Hi! I’m a talented and professional crafts person.”

How did I brand my own crafts business

My craft business has two faces: 1 is my pottery tools business and the 2nd is my handmade ceramics. Each of these come under my one brand of ‘SPARKS POTTERY BY RHI’. I want to remain fluid in the work that I create so need a strong brand that will be recognisable.

Steps that I have done to create a strong brand.

The logo

I created a clear logo which includes an icon as well as the main logo in 2 layouts (sometimes you just need a long thin logo and sometimes you need a squarer one!).

The colours

I then chose some colours and have versions of each logo in each of the colours. These colours are set as my brand colours and are used across my website, online shops and printed items to create a coherent look.

A side note on colours: I’m not the type of designer that likes to be too fixed as I believe a certain element of going with the flow and choosing colours that fit the particular thing you are doing make for fresh design. So the four colours below serve me as a basis, for example, my website needed a palette of about 9 colours so there are variations of the below colours used.

The products I make

For my pottery tools I have deliberately chosen to create all my tools in just the one colour – a vibrant pink. If you ask anyone that knows me if Rhiannon is a ‘pink’ person they would probably say no! I’m a ride or die blue/green person. So why did I choose pink as my predominant brand colour for my tools? Well, firstly that colour just sang to me when I got the PLA samples and a happy coincidence of choosing pink is that it sits so perfectly with greens.

I also chose pink as it really helps to have bright tools when you are covered in clay and looking for the tool you need!

I don’t offer my customers colour choices in my tools in order to retain the strength of my pottery tools brand. Pink tool = by Sparks Pottery.

The marketing and sales items

To help add to the feeling of professionalism for my customers, I’ve added things like my logo icon to the printed packing slips customers receive when they purchase something from me. I also include a ‘thank you’ leaflet which contains my contact details to help show people where else they can find me.

Product branding

I have one product which I like to have my brand on which I my flagship product ‘The Mini Tabletop Clay Extruder with Press Attachment‘. I’ve previously had paper stickers printed for the extruder which came back to me slightly off centre and as a very small sticker, 25mm round, I wasn’t quite happy with the look of these stickers (I do use this company for all my other marketing items and have been very pleased with everything else).

I was recently contacted by Sticker market to ask if I would like to try their stickers [full disclosure: they have sponsored this post but my opinions are my own following testing of their stickers]. I decided to order 30mm round vinyl stickers on a roll to be used on the extruder. I went for the vinyl as they would be more waterproof than my previous paper stickers, which is important for a pottery tool.

They arrived pretty promptly though I will say I was surprised that they were manufactured overseas and not UK based as I’d assumed. The quality of the stickers is really good, they are thicker than paper stickers – I can’t tear them. I’ve never had stickers or labels on a roll before and I have to say this was so much easier to peel off than when they are on a sheet.

They look great on the extruder and stick to the PLA plastic really well and after a wet test, I can confirm that they stand up well to be washed (which is a must for the extruder!).

I’m really pleased with how the extruders look all branded up and I will definitely be ordering more stickers.

Branding my pottery

For the pottery side of my business (which is on a bit of a stand still at the moment as I’m moving studios!) I have a stamp which matches my branding which is applied to each pot I create. I made this stamp before I created by new branding so it doesn’t fully match however I feel it’s close enough to still be recognised as one brand. I may update it in the future, but it’s fine for now.

What do you do if you aren’t a graphic designer?

I do appreciate that I’m very lucky to be able to use my graphic design knowledge and skills to help promote my craft business.

If you are wanting to up your game in your own craft business I would highly recommend commissioning a professional to help you if you can. There are obviously lots of tools available these days to help (hello Canva!) but these tools will only get you so far (in my opinion) and you still have to have good placement skills in order to level up from everyone else using template design tools like Canva. Hiring a designer will give you a unique brand identity, not an off the shelf look that someone else could have.

A good graphic designer should be able to transfer your ethos, personality and product type into a brand for you. A good starting place would be to ask for a logo (in the 3 variations I set out above) and in various file types (always make sure you get and .eps file along with a transparent background .png at the least) for you to use as needed and a brand colour palette. If you then wanted things like product labels and leaflets, you can commission either the same designer or a different designer to make these for you using your logo and brand colours.

Rhiannon, can you help me with my brand?

Thanks for asking! I’d love to help other crafts people with their brand needs. I don’t take on many commissions for design work each year but if you feel a bit lost as to where to start then please do get in touch and we can arrange an initial consultation.

Thanks for reading

Rhiannon