Riot Haus - Brand Identity & Site Design
- Kaleigh Schouten
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Quick peek into some of the details ↓
Services
Brand Identity & Site Design - Logos, illustrations, patterns, typeface recommendations, branding mood board, branding guidelines, a site that includes both mobile and desktop designs.
Industry & Client
Riot Haus is the rebrand of Girlee Boutique, which is a boutique ran by a mother-daughter duo in Columbus, Indiana. Girlee's main boutique item included both upcycle clothes to represent your favorite bands and midwest sports teams along with homemade coasters that were sure to make you belly laugh. To add the adventure, these ladies also owned a 360 photo booth that would book out for weddings and events in the Indianapolis area.
Designer Note
This project was tricky not because of the branding, but because of the business layout in general. Blending three business ventures into one brand isn't the easiest task. At the end of the day, Riot Haus received branding for their parent company (Riot Haus) along with sub branding for the three ventures (Upcycle, Save the Damn Table, Lee's 360 Glam Cam).
Final Branding
Want to skip the details of how we got to her final brand identity?
No problem - Click Here!
Kick Off for Brand Identity!
About our Client!
Autumn and her mom came to us with a unique issue - They have multiple companies that they want to house in the same arena. They were tired of splitting their business up between so many brands, sites, subscriptions, you name it. Their main goal at the end of the day was to save costs on running their businesses.
So before we could jump into their branding process, we needed to layout what businesses we were branding along with how they connected to each other. Autumn and Christy's original business name was Girlee Boutique, which was a play on their last name Lee. They decided they wanted to shed the name and start fresh with Riot Haus.
After many discussions on strategy, the final structure was Riot Haus to be the parent/over-arching company with three sub companies attached. The first sub company would be Upcycle by Riot Haus, which would hold the merchandise of Girlee Boutique specifically. Save the Damn Table by Riot Haus would be the sub brand that would pertain to everything coasters. And finally, Lee's 360 Glam Cam would be the sub brand to host the 360 photo booth.
Once that discussion was concluded, we jumped to branding Riot Haus with the goal of creating sub brand logos that match the aesthetic. The Lee Ladies wanted to attract the girlies that love thrifted reworked pieces and witty coasters that be a conversation starters. They also emphasized during our meeting to include darker colors in their final brand to allow the 360 photo booth site pages to appeal to both genders.
Big Takeaways
After going through Riot Haus's branding inspiration, we had two directions we could truly go in. But both directions would be similar enough to describe them as the "same but in different fonts"... literally.
Directional Drafts!
Directional Draft A
Since our client is thrifting and hand-making most of their merchandise, we went with a more organic and quilt-y style with the first directional board. The pastel/soft colors are for the girls, but we can also argue that the deep blues are perfect for our male friends. Overall, we went for rounded corners, softer/imperfect edges, and organic recognizable shapes for this one.
Directional Draft B
We went in a pretty bold different direction for this second board. We switched out the soft colors with more neon and bold ones. We added in more clear cut overlays and edges, bold outlines, 3D effects, and squiggle patterns for this directional board.
To my utter surprise, the Lee ladies gravitated to the first board over the second. I was so convinced that they would like the direction of the second that I even started to design parts and pieces of the home page as proof of theory for our next upcoming design meeting. The big discussion we had during our second design meeting was to create the sub brand "Upcycle by Riot Haus" instead of using "Riot Haus Boutique".
Final Brand Identity
Primary Logo
The primary logo in "Midnight" which is the darkest color!
Secondary Logo
The secondary logo in "Slate" with the background in "Navy". They received most of their logos both by isolated, with an outline, or with the a background (pictured below).
Submark
Submark in color "Lime"
Sub Brands
All the Sub Brand logos in "Lavender"
Final Takeaways
Riot Haus's branding simply makes sense. When I was in the branding cave, I was so sure that the second directional board would be the winner for both color and design. Now looking back, the first directional board was the clear winner from the start.
When I work with brands to create custom sites, I become more intimate with the client's branding as I make new elements and features. The soft colors represents the gentle washed out colors of vintage clothing. The imperfect lines and rounded edges feels homemade. The shapes and layouts of their assets show off the personality of the mother-daughter duo. It just makes sense!!
Now let's talk Site Design!
Y'all... Riot Haus's site is locked and loaded! We have prepared Riot Haus's site to host a booking calendar and scheduler to allow clients to book the photo booth for their events. It also has an e-commerce to sell all their upcycled boutique items and handmade coasters. If that doesn't sound like enough, there's also an order form to start the process of ordering custom coasters.
On top of all the systems, their site has 3 fully custom site designs - the home page, the glam cam page, and the custom order page. To match their branding, their site includes elements that move organically as you scroll through the page.
Since the Lee ladies had so many domains preciously, we decided to hold on to them and redirect them to the new site. This new layout is saving them over $400 a year in site and systems costs.
Final Takeaways!
At the beginning, we were pretty nervous about this one. Now that it's all said and done, there's only one way to describe this project - we're obsessed! We're also excited to see Riot Haus grow as the Lee ladies extend their branding to signage, tags, and packaging.
Done being frustrated when it comes to curating your own brand identity? Outsourcing your logo designs might be the best thing to provide a new level of professionalism and personality to your business! Get out of your own way, and let us do all the heavy lifting!
Comments