Counting Cake: Finalizing the Brand

Over the past two weeks, I have been building on my previous work, finalizing the branding, and beginning on the content for the Counting Cake blog.  I needed to first decide which logo I wanted to run with and then could move on from there.

Logo

I began by bringing some of my sketches to life, creating a few versions of them on Illustrator, and from there, deciding which one fit the brand the most and showing the message I was trying to get across. After some experimentation, I decided on this logo, which consists of two “C”s, and stacked them to resemble layers of cake and the name underneath. From there, I also created a logo variation and submark that can be used in place of the main logo, when appropriate. The logo variation is the cake with “Counting Cake” to the right instead of underneath. I did this to make the logo useable horizontally, as well. The logo submark, is just the cake and can be used for a small representation of the logo, such as in the favicon for the blog.

From there, I began going through fonts and figuring out which one matched the brand the best. I ended up going with Arial Rounded MT Bold because the roundness of the font paired with the logo nicely. 

After I was fully done creating the logo, including the font, I began with testing out the color. I tried a few different colors from my color pallet on the logo and ended up with pink and blue. I wanted it to be bright, playful, and appealing, bringing an element of fun into the clean, modern, logo. 

Once the colors were defined, I could move to creating a brand pattern. I decided to use the cake aspect of the logo in the brand pattern, as it helps to define and strengthen the identity. The brand pattern can be used for many aspects of the blog, including backgrounds, buttons, and more. 

Brand Board

Finally, it was time to put everything together into a brand board. The brand board helps to give an overall view of the brand in one place, providing specifics for the colors (rbg, cmyk, and hex) and the font, as well. At the bottom, I also decided to add a small moodboard of images that inspired the brand. 

Recipe Creation

With the branding completed, it was time to really dive into the cake of it. I had to experiment and figure out what recipes I wanted to include in my first month’s content. Since it is best to create “batched” content for something continuous, like a blog, I decided I would plan a month’s worth of content at a time. With the blog starting in January, I wanted to include wintery desserts, but also prioritize diversity to add more options to the blog, as it is just starting out. I wanted to include a recipe that is easy to snack on, one that is quick to make, one that is light, a drink, and a go-to favorite of mine. As I have never made my own recipes before, this required a lot of research and experimentation, figuring out what I could substitute from a normal recipe, to make these healthier. I decided upon my final recipes being Frozen Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites, Baked Apple Nice Cream, Pumpkin Mug Cake, Peppermint Mocha Latte, and Strawberries and Cream Graham Cracker Sandwich. After perfecting these recipes, or as close as I could come, I wrote them down, including ingredients, instructions, serving size, and the time it takes. 

With all of this finalized, I can move to taking pictures of the recipes for the blog, as well as writing the drafts of the blog posts.