The Beauty of Change: About Our Rebrand
“The palm tree represents victory—rising above conflict and coming into light. Like its lush green leaves, soak up the sun’s warmth. When you welcome light and love into your life, you’ll thrive. Growth is a brilliant thing—plant your roots and flourish.” (Alex & Ani)
For those who haven’t heard, back in November we announced our rebrand from Blush Creative Studio to Mara Design Co. This has been in the works officially for over a year & unofficially in my heart for longer than I can remember, so seeing it come to fruition has been a humbling, powerful experience for me.
During the spring of 2017, we realized that our brand’s vision was starting to shift & we felt a huge pull to lean into this change. Not wanting to completely disrupt the brand that we had built, we decided to keep our name & simply refine our brand a bit – bringing in more neutrals & less pink & portraying a more polished vibe than the fun, girly design work that had represented the company for years before.
However, something still just wasn’t quite right. We’d done all of this updating – & yet still didn’t feel connected with our brand. Over the next few months, a focused, beautiful vision began forming in my head of the company that we want to be, the clients we want to work with, & the way we want our brand to feel. We quickly realized that this vision of an intentional, refined design studio wasn’t something we could achieve under the aesthetic we’d built up & that it signaled huge change for us.
I started jotting down notes – so many lines of disconnected thoughts, feelings, & ideas – not knowing in full where they would lead, but knowing that if we want to grow in the direction we dream of, it started here. I started a Pinterest board & pinned anything & everything that spoke to my soul – a color palette & overall aesthetic quickly formed, with hues that each symbolize something different for our brand.
From the beginning, I also knew that this type of shift would require a name change. Blush Creative Studio never represented the pieces of my soul that have been poured into this brand & one of the primary focuses with this new phase of our business is the focus on intentionality. I’ll admit, this was one of the biggest roadblocks to this launch! We’d had the design work (mostly) finished for months but without a name, couldn’t move forward. Finally, after what felt like a hundred lists of words trying to come up with something perfect, we came across the word “Mara” – an Irish word for sea – & we knew it was the one.
In August, we had a brand shoot with Emmy Lowe Photo & gave ourselves time & space to really ruminate on the name before taking the leap. I was constantly dreaming of “the perfect launch” – the perfect, jaw-dropping new website, the beautiful new client guides, fresh Pinterest graphics, & a backlog of blog posts. Because our client work is always the first priority, our launch continually was pushed to the backburner & each proposed launch date came & went.
Finally, in November, I had the fleeting thought to forego the idea of my perfect launch – to announce the name, that night, & let everything else follow. An hour later, we had a Coming Soon page up on our new website & I’d announced the change on Instagram (read the full post below!).
Over the last two months since then, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to design & launch our new website & materials – we are so thrilled that the day is finally here & cannot wait to see all that the future holds.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to those who have followed us from the beginning. I know some of you have watched as we started in the form of a tiny Etsy shop, selling printables & cards – then my freelancing journey that led to Blush. This studio, this brand, & this company is the culmination of all of those years of trials, challenges, learning experiences, & most of all – amazing, inspiring clients & friends who I’ve had the opportunity of meeting through this business. We could not be where it is without that support.