Announcing Aeolidia’s Rebrand

We are excited to announce a newly redesigned Aeolidia! Please join us in celebrating our new brand and new website, and hear about how this change marks a new chapter for us at Aeolidia.

Aeolidia’s History

We’ve been around since 2004, creating brands and ecommerce sites for creative shops. We have always worked for artists, makers, designers, and curators of these independent brands. We have grown hugely in the past eighteen years, and so has our client base. It has been so cool to see these businesses grow from selling at craft fairs and on Etsy to owning brick and mortar shops and working with warehouse teams.

Aeolidia in 2022

The last few years have been pivotal for us in preparing for this next phase. Our recent growth hasn’t been with an aim of doing more projects, hiring more people, or making more money. Instead, we’ve taken time to grow the breadth of our knowledge, improve our processes, and invest in our team. This work has been evident in the ROI of our projects for clients, and their glowing reviews of our work and happy word of mouth.

The Change

Our previous branding was no longer hitting the mark. It felt too feminine and too subdued. We are so enthusiastic about the work we do and the joy it brings us. We want that to show.

The three key factors we wanted our logo to communicate were:

1. Our creative, artistic vibe: we aren’t the boring team that’s going to stick your stuffy old logo up on a template site. We are designers and artists, too, and we have a strong sense of style. We believe in storytelling.
2. We’re trustworthy and reliable: we’ve been in business for 18 years and you can count on us to exceed your goals.
3. We are skilled strategists: we are on the cutting edge as far as the knowledge that’s going to help you optimize your shop for sales.

Of course, a logo can’t say all that in so many words, but when your designer knows what stage they’re setting, the logo and brand will align just right with everything else you’re putting together. Let’s take a peek at the new brand:

Who We Called

I felt that our own designers were too close to Aeolidia — some of them had been working with us for over five years, and we didn’t want to drag in the history of when we were a smaller business. It was important to me to tell our story to someone who was new to us and could see it with clear eyes. I hunted around for a branding studio that would be a good fit, and I ended up choosing Jolby in Portland, OR. They were a delight to work with, and we’re so happy with the end result!

When it came time for web design, I called on Christine Castro Hughes, who has been designing for Aeolidia for nine years, and is our Senior Identity & Web Designer. Even though we wanted to outsource the brand design, I couldn’t quite imagine anyone other than Christine putting our site together, and she worked in tandem with Helen Hulskamp, our Ecommerce Strategist, on making sure everything was user-friendly. Toni Antonucci, our brand designer, pitched in to design our social media graphics and print/packaging work, and Barbara Kowalski, our Web Designer, jumped into redesign all of our online documents for clients and readers. I wrote new content, edited old content, and hired a team of three content specialists to help me move over portfolio pieces.

Aeolidia developers specialize in Shopify, and we needed a WordPress developer for this project. I reached out to my network, and was referred to Caffeinated Web Studio. Jenn specializes in working with designers to create their sites, and she has been so easy to work with, building a site that’s very flexible for me to work with.

What’s New

A colorful and friendly new look that captures our enthusiasm for creativity and design. We have a rainbow of colors, clear and friendly fonts to share our knowledge, and a group of illustrations, icons, and patterns to keep the mood alive across everything we do. Aeolidia is the scientific name of a sea slug (the shaggy mouse nudibranch, to be exact), and you may notice a little slug in our patterns and see our new mascot in the footer of the site.

A website with an emphasis on results. It’s easy to find someone to create a pretty site for you. The difference when you hire Aeolidia is that you have a full team, each focused on their area of expertise. Your designer has been creating ecommerce sites for over a decade. Your ecommerce strategist is staying up to date with best practices for UX as they shift over time. Your developer, copywriter, photographer, email marketer, and SEO specialist are all in regular communication creating a plan specifically for your business that will show results.

Clear explanations of our services. We have a few main services, and we now have a page for each of these, so you can find out exactly how we can help your business. View our three main website services and our three main branding services here: Aeolidia’s Services.

New portfolio pieces! There were over 100 pieces in our previous portfolio (and this is after careful regular pruning to keep up to date). We hadn’t added a single new portfolio piece last year, though, as we were concentrating on other things. We worked hard to begin getting our work from 2021 and before up on the new site so you can see what we’ve been up to. View our updated portfolio here: Aeolidia’s Work.

What to Expect Next

As far as marketing went, we were practically silent last year (except for my weekly newsletter). This year, we have a great project management team in place, the internal tasks that needed my attention are sorted out, and the website has launched!

We are going to get back to blogging on our site, as well as speaking and consulting online and hopefully in person (see you at Craftcation?). I’ll be going through the 435 posts on our site and pruning, combining, and improving, to make our blog an organized and valuable resource for people setting up shop online.

In other words, I’m back! Expect to hear from me again, and get more of Aeolidia’s help in building your business.

How can we help?

We’re here to help you out, and I hope you’ll contact us today to get our rate sheet and let us know more about your business.