The Memory Journalists

I’ve been working with an absolutely delightful client, Jennifer Dunham Starr, a photographer based in California (but available for travel!) who has been re-working the visual identity of her company. She has a wonderful story to tell about her own life journey (and that of her team), and delights in helping her clients tell their own stories through photography… thus her company name: The Memory Journalists.

She has recently unveiled her new visual… so i’m going to share it with you, too. We had a lot of fun working on this one together. We needed to express her joie de vivre, her energy (this woman has a lot of energy), her sense of humour, her passion for connecting with her clients.

First, let me show you her “old” logo…

and now, here’s The Memory Journalists’ new look…

The hummingbird has a lot of symbolism for Jen, which I know she wants to share with her clients, so i’ll let her tell the story over on her blog. From a design perspective, we made the decision early on to use a typeface that featured ligatures, so that we could use typography to express connection. And that blue? Well, does the phrase “true blue” mean anything? Or the blue of forget me nots? Or the idea of something borrowed, something blue? And it was great to carry something familiar from her old look to her new look.

For a while, Jen has used round business cards. They’re very memorable, and a great conversation starter. Here’s the new look brought to life in her new cards:

Next, we tackled her website design. The Memory Journalists used to have a portfolio website and a separate blog, powered by Blogger. But with her redesign, Jen decided to merge blog and portfolio into one coherent site. I did the initial site design, and the team at Infinet Design did all the coding and added tons of little touches to really bring the design to life.

Here’s The Memory Journalists “before”:

And here’s the fresh, new look:

Finally, we decided to really run with the animal theme established with the Memory Journalists logo… we developed the Zoo Crew. Each staff member chose their favourite animal, and we created some simple illustrations in the style of the hummingbird. You can see the Zoo Crew used throughout the Memory Journalists site.