When I met Sandy Ramsey, now Director of Artisans’ World Marketplace, it was about 10 years ago in a different store, but doing similar work — selling craft that literally comes from all corners of the world with the purpose of providing people with the ability to change their lives while providing safe working conditions and a fair wage. (She enthusiastically announced her membership as a Fair Trade Organization.) At that moment, I knew I wanted to offer my design services to help promote the store’s message. I planted the seed in Sandy’s head that she let me re-design a few sales pieces and let’s just say that seed is now a flourishing tree. We started with the store’s logo — selecting a font that would represent the store’s product – artistic and handwritten; organic and free form; recognizable; non-conventional. We chose Treefrog and created her logo emphasizing the word “Artisans,” as that is what her mission is about — the people and their products. Given her funds were both limited and governed by board members, and a non-profit, we had to produce things inexpensively, while still building a strong brand. The stationery package is printed with black ink on a beautiful, burlap-bag looking, fiberous paper to give texture and a hand-crafted feel. We generated gift tags with the same feel that fold-over, providing flexibility to state the price and a short explanation of the product, artisan and country. The giraffe on the letterhead is a mask from Kenya. I photographed the mask and manipulated it in Photoshop. We wanted an exotic element besides the threads above/below the logo; given she has a wooden giraffe outside the door of the storefront to draw-in customers, it was a natural graphic selection. So, this was the first step in the branding process — logo development, selecting the palette, paper, usage of logo, etc. As I walk you through the stages of design elements, please keep in mind the mission statement of Artisans World Marketplace.
By serving as a non-profit retail outlet for fairly-traded goods from around the globe, Artisans’ World Marketplace seeks to:
…provide increased self-employment for low-income artisans worldwide
…raise the public’s awareness of and concern for economic justice for the poor and impoverished parts of our world
…support sustainable economic development which protects our earth and environment
…provide funding for projects which create jobs or provide job training for low-income disadvantaged persons.
Artisans’ World Marketplace is providing a concrete way to respond to the global problems of poverty, hunger and our environment. We encourage and welcome you to experience the unique art and positive change we are making in our world.
Below you’ll find Artisans’ logo, letterhead, gift tag. More to follow.
