Logo Design for Kristine Emerson

I love when a client brings me a story about how they started their career and it becomes a visual representation of their brand. Kristine shared the story of her first day on the job when she was nervous about starting a new career. She stepped out of her car and realized that the entire parking lot was covered in acorns from the stunning oak tree overlooking the office that she was preparing to walk into. She says that she realized that everyone starts out here and there were so many places that her new career in real estate was going to take her. And that was nearly fifteen years ago.

As a successful and modern real estate agent she connects with each of her clients in such a way that referrals and repeat clients are the cornerstone - or acorns - of her business. Our team wanted to incorporate that into her day-to-day branding and create a look and feel that would highlight her story while staying true to who she is.

NEW TO MARKET: 8801 Golden Gardens NW

“A well-shaped house has the capacity to create a world within it.”

— Mary, Current Homeowner

Sitting within the last curve of Golden Gardens Drive before it enters the 88 acres of Golden Gardens Park, this beautifully crafted home creates a world unto itself. Surrounded by neighboring cedars, sequoias and tall big leaf maples, the home is surrounded by greenery. An evergreen hedge and cedar fence create both deep privacy for evenings with friends, a quiet coffee in the morning, as well as a secure play space for pets.

Vertical brochure and website design for 8801GoldenGardens.com, Seattle

The home was built in 1936 in the Scandinavian tradition - there are still hand-drawn architectural drawings- at a time when custom work was at a peak. The WPA was working on Golden Gardens Park at the time, building the trails, stairways and creek channels that line through the 88-acre park. Near the lower stairs, you can see 1936 stamped into a stone at the front of a small catch basin.

From the 1930’s until 2012, the home was in the family of Einar Pedersen. You can see a wood sign with his name on the back wall of the garage. They were and still are a part of the Scandanavian Ballard fishing industry.

My job was to create a logo, branding a website and an email campaign for this stunning property. I partnered with Sarah Alston, my secondary logo designer, and she took the look and feel of the details in the vintage spyhole. The owners were thrilled! I’m so freaking proud to be a part of this project!

Sunshine & Real Estate: Lauren GeRoy

I designed the website for RE/MAX Northwest here in Washington and as part of my research I came across Lauren’s old website and immediately fangirled her; it was clear that she understands good photography, she’s an excellent writer and you can tell that she genuinely cares about each and every one of her clients. I finally got to work with her on her branding and website and she was well worth the wait.

Website for Lauren GeRoy, RE/MAX Northwest Real Estate Broker

We started with a mood board, drawing on her previous design work, long conversations and a good bit of research. I regularly encourage clients to not use a logomark that include keys, doors or houses, but once in a long while a client comes along who can handle the weight of a key in their logo. We chose a salmon/coral that is at least as sparkly as she is to go along with the simple and elegant grays and blacks. The logomark can be placed in front of or above the logo and can stand on it’s own.

This project encouraged a lot of creativity and pushed us to create a website that showcases her years of sales successes and testimonials and highlights beautiful new homes every month. We included all the bells and whistles on the site but managed to keep it clean and elegant. Lauren loved it and I’m SO thrilled to add this to my portfolio!

Logo and Listing Presentation and Social Media - Oh my!

I love -LOVE - when I get to play with multiple design pieces with a client. And if they have beautiful homes for me to play with? This is why I do what I do.

Jenn Herrmann started with a logo design, like you do. Then we started pulling together a myriad of design pieces to create a fully functional, professional and smashing style for her business this year.

Jenn Herrmann specializes in the Kitsap area, with a love for waterfront listings. The goal of the design was to create a stylish, modern logomark that could stand on its own and showcase Jenn’s current and past projects with ease. I pulled in my logo designer, Sarah Alston, and we went through several rounds to create a design piece that is unique, classic and perfect for connecting with her clients.

Once her logomark was set, we then moved into her website design, homebuyer’s book, social media pieces, a stunning listing presentation and so much more. Looking forward to the next design projects that Jenn brings my team!

UNIQUE PROPERTIES | Farmhouse Gardens, Mount Vernon

Finished Brochure for Farmhouse Gardens in Mount Vernon, Washington | Sold at $1,550,000

This property is easily one of my favorites, mostly because I have a gardeners’ heart and you can find me in my garden more often than not and this property totally tugs on my heartstrings.

As with so many things, it all starts with a picture.

To begin, my client sent me a myriad of pictures to review and choose from. I settled in with pen-and-ink (just kidding, I type - what year is it?) to write about this stunning property, leading clients down the garden path and into their new home. I took the stunning photography and created beautiful writing, styled a logomark and created a unique look and feel for the property.

Inside, the brochure tells the story of the home in words and photos and then invites the potential buyer to imagine themselves in the home. Farmhouse Gardens was an absolute treat to be involved with.

“As a graphic designer, it’s my job to make your property look good; to find the story, the heartbeat of the property and then to showcase that heart to potential buyers.”

— Jesse Gibbs

Custom Email Campaign

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My Hobby, My Job, My Passion

“Generally, by the time you are Real most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes don’t see as well and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are Real you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.”

— The Velveteen Rabbit

“So, you like houses?” my friends ask me.

Well, that’s just the beginning. I mean, YES, I love houses. I love to design for houses. But mostly, love all the steps that go in to creating a brand for a home. I love the staging, the home auditing (Home Auditing is when the stager/designer walks through the home and removes the extraneous “stuff”). I love when a broker can see beyond the life that’s been lived in a home, and strives to create the story that the next owner will bring.

Basically, I love restoring old and broken things. I love finding the “diamond in the rough” and bringing it to life. Capturing the aged, the unlovely, the challenging property, then showcasing it in such a way that it finds a new home. It feels kind of like taking the Velvateen Rabbit and showcasing that the love it was given for so many years is actually a benefit. New doesn’t always mean better.

My Hobby: Finished Bookshelf, complete with wheels on the bottom for easy access.

My hobby - when I have free time - is restoring furniture. Well, more like re-imagining furniture. This is an old radio from the 1930’s that was completely trashed. I purchased it at a thrift store for $25. I cleaned it up, added some shelves, wheels, color and style and resold it on Craig’s List. I know I’ll never be able to make a living doing this, but it brings me so much joy!

FLYERS: Design for Seattle Condo, Matt Martel, RE/MAX Northwest

There is just something magical about finding the beauty within a space or an object, and the look of surprise when others see what you see. This is one of many, many reasons why I choose to do the kind of work that I do. And it’s one of the things that helps me help my brokers be the best that they can be.

Brand New // New Brand

Updated Logo Design | 2019

Original Logo Design | 2015

Tracy Vaughn and I have worked together for so long that we’re actually rebranding on my own design! This is a great place to be - watching my clients grow both themselves and their businesses! Tracy is an exceptionally hardworking broker; she’s passionate, fiercely feminine, artistic and funny and we wanted to create something that felt more like who she is. The new branding had to feel like a “step up” in terms of style, while not losing the aspects of her previous logo that she loved for so long.

Don’t Dull My Sparkle

After a fun-filled trip to visit my extended family in North Carolina and Virginia, I came down with the plague and lost all energy for almost ten days, and the bulk of my creativity as well. Being creative on demand is a skill that takes time to develop, but when you’re out, you’re out.

I reached into my wonderful toolbag for my favorite logo designer, Sarah Alston, who just happened to be available for a two day Design Jam with me. The homes that Tracy is hoping to focus on listing are in Sarah’s old backyard; it was a match made in heaven. “Just design something that makes you want to list a house with this amazing agent. Go.”

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The Drawing Board

Okay, I can almost hear my favorite prof telling me that “you have to do the process” and all the other brilliant things she would say anytime I tried to take a shortcut. You have to do a thousand sketches, throw them away and start fresh. Since Sarah’s been helping me with logo design, she’s been reminding me of a lot of my basics and we’ve been revamping the way I offer deliverables to my clients.

For Tracy, it was important for me to create a mood board with her because 1) I wanted her to see herself in this new light, and 2) it helped me hone in on her goals and needs for her the direction of her business.

On a side note: I may have sparkled all over myself with monogram this design. *swoon

Making a Match

I know that I say this often, but this really is one of my favorite things about my job; The Refresh. Watching the look and feel begin with an idea, a touch of color and few magic sprinkles and spreading into new high-end brochures, an updated website style, email designs - each piece adding to the value of her brand. Special thanks to Sarah Alston for the awesome logo design and to Tracy for being the kind of creative person that is a joy to play with.

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There’s always an “&”

And. we’re already sold and on to showcase this incredible sale in only three days to the rest of the neighborhood! Congratulations to my client and her clients, too!

Karen Keefe: Waterfront & Windermere

Simple and elegant with an eye towards exceptional - words to describe both my client AND the awesome work we did for her! It begins, as most projects do, with nailing down the logo design! Our logo designer took this one and ran with it, creating a look and feel that matched Karen’s kind personality and bringing that to the forefront. The website works to highlight both her new brokerage and her clients new listings. We wanted to create a website that was easy to wander through and even easier to get lost on, showcasing a blog and her newest listings.

Italy, London & the Eastside

Website for Marilisa Vergottini, Marketplace Sotheby’s International Realty; LuxurySeattleLiving.com

Marilisa Vergottini is a lovely broker with Marketplace Sotheby’s International Realty who has a passion for good staging, a smashing sense of style and a desire to help her clients find the home of their dreams. She finds her joy in the connection with her clients and she works to do more than just sell her listings - she wants everyone to know the story of the home.

Our team partnered with Marilisa and her innate style to create an elegant website, a Mediterranean look and feel for her logo and property pages that showcase the high-end photography that she uses to tell her stories. She also brought us some of the most gorgeous homes to play with! This project was so much fun and we got to be so creative throughout!

One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Website

We started with a cup of coffee, as all good conversations do; walked through what he needed his website to do, what his next steps were with his marketing and what he loved most about real estate.

We scheduled a time to do a photoshoot – which was a kick! Matt has smashing taste and style, and it came across on camera so beautifully!

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Matt started collecting high res photos and collateral for me and I reached out to one of my favorite logo designers. She took one look at Matt’s photos and said “Vogue. All the way.” And headed off to design a logo that felt like high-end fashion.

This was my first time working with an individual brokers’ IDX so I had a lot to learn and there were a few late nights with a glass of happiness. Thank heavens for youtube and a couple of stupid talented web developers who also speak designer and have a metric ton of patience. (Though I’m pretty sure by the time they were done with me, they’re giving up their jobs to become roofers. Maybe they’ll let me design their website…hmmmm.)

Website for Matt Martel, RE/MAX Northwest Real Estate Broker

This project challenged my knowledge base, encouraged creativity and pushed our team to create an incredible website that collects leads, offers easy IDX searches and showcases his sales successes and his testimonials in a clear and creative way. We included all the bells and whistles on the site but managed to keep it clean and elegant. Matt loved it and I’m beyond thrilled to add this to my portfolio! Big shout out to an amazing client and an incredible team who made this website shine.