In around March, our whole team began working on the development of a brand to give our social enterprise a personality of its own, still inextricably linked to the YES initiative, but bold and strong in its own right.
But a blank slate is a very hard place to start. And so we began with a full day workshop for staff and participants, centred around what a brand is: not just a logo, but an experience. We ventured around town and spoke with shopkeepers and brand creators, all of whom were very welcoming and generous with their knowledge.
We then spent the afternoon building a brief for a designer. What does the YES social enterprise mean to us? What do we want people to think and feel when they experience the brand? What does it smell like, and taste like? What makes us proud to be a part of it?
As a group we developed notes for the designer and at that point we engaged the services of Nat at OneTonne. Nat’s generosity reached beyond working with us on concept and artwork, with him coming in twice to workshop with the team as the ideas progressed.
In a parallel universe while all of this was going on, we were also learning the fundamentals of project and event management, and working as a team to create the plan for our launch event.
After a focus group, a few false starts, and many many brainstorming sessions, we settled on this brand concept: Troublesmiths.
We hope you like it as much as we do!