Garnish

The power of events

At John&Jane, we’ve always believed in the power of a good event. Whether it was running them ourselves with CreativeMornings, or attending them to expand our design or industry knowledge, there are always takeaways that you don’t expect. There is so much to be gained from listening to and learning from other people's experiences and spending time with your community. You can learn about industry developments, it can inspire, educate or even contribute to a complete change of direction in your life. You can definitely create a certain magic with a well-run, well-curated and thoughtful event, and these experiences can stay with attendees for a long time.

Garnish has grown

Established in 2007, Boston-based Garnish are an experienced event management company with almost two decades of running exceptional events under their belt. Although their previous brand had served them well during this time, it no longer reflected their level of hard-earned expertise, experience and confidence. Garnish are very clear on what they do well and we loved learning more about what truly differentiates them during our discovery work. This put us in a good position to ensure that their new brand conveys their offering in a clear, authentic, and succinct way to pave the way for their next chapter of business growth.

An extension of the team

It soon became clear that Garnish’s USP is their ability to approach events strategically, helping not only to create an exceptional event but also to review companies' processes and potentially introduce new ways of doing things that benefit the business in ways that go beyond a single event. They have the ability to become an extension of the existing events team and deliver the specialist help companies might be looking for. The benefits of engaging with Garnish are multi-faceted and layered, helping to grow businesses using the power of events. They create events that grow brands, connections, pipeline, audiences and partnerships. We developed this into a dynamic strapline for the brand. 

Getting the balance right

One of the key challenges in approaching this new brand identity was getting the balance right between the two sides of the team’s approach. On the one hand they are process driven, strategic-thinkers and experts, and on the other, they are fun, creative and human in their approach. Making sure that the new brand showcased this flexibility and personality whilst also communicating the team's expertise and professionalism was central to our initial design experimentation.

New design style

We opted for a central wordmark for the brand customising a bold, expressive typeface that feels full of personality yet authoritative. The imperfect and soft corners of the characters represent the individuality of Garnish’s approach, whilst the uppercase, distinctive characters connote confidence and professionalism. We paired the elegant Instrument Serif as the feature typeface with Manrope for body copy to again reflect the pairing of personality and expertise. We created a colour palette that felt fresh and resonated with the key themes of the company offering, technology, trust and a human approach. 

With our brand strategy focussed on all the ways events can grow business we were inspired by the idea of visual growth. We got the paints out and started experimenting with organic shapes, until we settled on these images of plants and palm fronds. Paired with the chosen type and colour palette we felt this imagery created a vibrant, fresh and contemporary feel that communicates the true joy of creating growth with memorable, stand-out events.

New year, new look

It was key that Garnish had a solid foundation from which to relaunch their brand, with their online and offline presence reflecting a coherent and confident look and feel. We redesigned their website, merch, slide decks and everything else besides. This all contributed to an overall brand toolkit including a promotional video, allowing the team to easily roll out the brand and launch their new look in the new year. Knowing the Garnish team pretty well, we feel that this brand works to reflect their energy, creativity and can-do attitude. We look forward to seeing where they take Garnish over the next 20 years!