Client study - Sara Weyland: Medical Herbalist

Sara initially contacted me via the contact form outlining a few things she was after. I called her back as soon as the email arrived and talked through the points she had raised to get a more in-depth idea of what she wanted. A quotation was sent through which was agreed and I started the design process.

Sara was after several items; an A4 folded leaflet to distribute to potential clients, some printed labels to place on her products and a website design. These all needed to have their own identity while maintaining a core style linking them together. Adding a little spice into the mix was a deadline in the form of a fair Sara was to be attending in a few weeks.

Leaflet
Priority was on the leaflet. The other designs could be based on this and it would need time to be printed and delivered to Sara's address in London.
The labels would not need to be printed as the plan was for Sara to output them on her own high-quality label machine at home. A few design ideas were created. My initial designs usually contain a variety of colours and fonts. They are all cohesive designs in themselves but are created to narrow down my idea on what the client wants.

Sara was an excellent client. She knew what she wanted, what she liked and she communicated quickly. The leaflet's design was quickly narrowed down to a single layout. This was then refined and signed off. It then went out to print. A wet proof was checked for any issues by myself and then it went to press.

Website
Sara's website was a little unusual for us as she only required a design. Her brother is a coder and had already agreed to build the website for her. Coding he was good at, design not so.
This is a good example of how flexible we can be when it comes to our client's needs.

As per the other items, the website needed to fit in with the overall style but still keep some individuality. A few ideas were created. Initially these designs followed the layout of the leaflet. The content was similar so it made some sense. The client decided this was not the way to go and that she wanted something brighter. I then decided to try something different and a little more radical, breaking away from the standard box model. The page was designed to look like a Herbalists table. Various items linked to different pages.
While this was warmly received it was decided that this too was not the way to go.

Sara sent me some flower images she liked and I felt it would be nice to take a different flower for each section and colour co-ordinate the page accordingly. The resulting page was bright and clean but still not quite what the client was after.
After more discussion it was decided coloured sections was a good idea and the layout should have an image at the top followed by the navigation menu and then the page content. I pulled in the olive green and the flower motif from the leaflet and picked some suitable images based on the plants in the photos Sara had sent over and set to work.
The results were approved quickly and I then had to create images - some annotated - for her to send off to her brother for the site to be coded.

Labels:
There were several products needing various sized labels. The design needed to work with all sizes and allow for variations in the product contents.
Some of the products required a single label and some required two. Sara's herbal tea blends, for example, would have a variety label on the front with another on the rear listing a description of the tea, instructions, ingredients and other information such as BBE and weight.
Once a design was agreed on, and after much discussion, it was decided that I would supply the base artwork for the labels in a variety of colours and Sara would run them through her label printer adding the product names herself. Rear labels for the teas were created and a space was left for her to add the Best Before date and product weights herself as she printed them.
The deadline, tight from the outset, was approaching rapidly and a couple of late nights were had by both of us as labels were created, colours changed and text written. Over 100 labels were created in 11 different varieties. Some were simple colour variations while some were full informational labels with text changes on each edition.