Before — Existing Brand
After — New Brand System
A complete rebrand for a North Dakota photographer — from an outdated cursive logo to an editorial, gallery-worthy identity system.
The Brief
Jacy Jo is a brand and event photographer based in North Dakota. Her existing identity — a lowercase cursive script logo — no longer matched the editorial, gallery-quality work she was producing for clients. She needed a full rebrand: a logo system that felt elevated and timeless rather than trendy, a cohesive color and type system, and print-ready collateral (business cards, a price list, a repeating brand pattern) she could roll out immediately across her business.
Before & After
The original mark leaned decorative and generic — a common Canva-era photographer look. The new wordmark uses a tall serif with a hand-lettered flourish, giving it the feel of a boutique studio rather than a template.
Creative Direction & Process
Rather than presenting a single logo and hoping it landed, the client received a short creative direction deck outlining the brand's story and two distinct visual concepts to react to — keeping her involved in the direction before a single final mockup was built.
A short brand narrative grounding both concepts in the same story — candid, story-driven photography for small businesses.
A warm, candid direction built around black-and-white tones with a soft neutral palette — playful and documentary-leaning.
An earthy, coastal-inspired palette with a distinct wordmark — this direction became the foundation for the final brand.
The Final Brand System
A primary logo for most use cases, a lighter secondary mark for dark or busy backgrounds, and a circular submark for favicons, stickers, and social profile photos — all built on the same serif-plus-script pairing.
The main wordmark — a tall serif "JacyJo" paired with a small-caps "Photography" for contrast and hierarchy.
A reversed, all-caps treatment for dark backgrounds and situations where the primary mark loses legibility.
A hand-lettered "j" in a circular badge — built for tight spaces: app icons, stickers, and social avatars.
Brought to Life
A brand only earns its keep once it shows up consistently — on real photos, in a repeating pattern, and on the print pieces a client hands to customers every week.
The secondary mark tested over a real event photo, confirming legibility against warm, high-contrast lighting.
The primary mark placed over a softer, sepia-toned portrait to check contrast and warmth against skin tones.
A repeating camera-and-photo icon motif for packaging, social backgrounds, and stationery.
A lightweight cursive "j" mark for watermarking client photo galleries without competing with the image.
A two-sided card — a clean contact side and a bold reversed wordmark side for shelf and portfolio presence.
A print-ready pricing sheet using the vertical wordmark treatment as a graphic anchor rather than an afterthought.
Design Approach
The rebrand started in Illustrator, where the wordmark, submark, and pattern were built as clean vector artwork so they'd scale from a favicon to a storefront sign without quality loss. Photoshop handled the mockup compositing — placing the new logo over real event and portrait photography to pressure-test legibility and warmth before anything was finalized, and building the realistic business card and price list presentations the client could visualize immediately.
Presenting two creative directions before committing to final art kept the client involved without overwhelming her with options — Concept Two's earthy, coastal-toned palette resonated immediately, and became the throughline connecting the logo, the pattern, and every piece of collateral that followed.