Circe: Online Shopping for the Modern Witch

Circe is a fictional brand created for a style-guide passion project. The conceit of the company was a sort of “Amazon for witches.” Follow along below to see behind the scenes into creating the finished brand identity.

Step 1: The Moodboard

Our first stop on the journey to a fully-fledged brand identity was creating a couple moodboards. For this project, we made two: one for contemporary images, one for historical images.

Step 2: The Logo

Once we completed the moodboards, and had a good idea of the aesthetic of the brand, we moved on to creating a logo. We decided on a wordmark-style logo, reminiscent of old-fashioned shipping companies. It had to feel like it belonged amidst the images we had gathered.

The leftmost column includes our very first font choices. The middle column contains variations on the capital “C”, and the rightmost column includes only variations of the dot above the “I”.

The two options for the “I-dots” were a heart and two teardrop shapes, which were supposed to mimic a pig’s snout (in the Odyssey, Circe turn Odysseus’ men into pigs). The heart won out, both because it was easier to visually “read” and because it bolstered the feminine side of the brand.

Step 3: Colors

We had a color palette in mind from the start, but still had to try a few variations to get it right. We knew we wanted a purple theme, reminiscent of Halloween and medieval royalty, but we weren’t sure which shade was going to work the best. Finally, we decided on a range of three purple hues, as well as a complementary faded yellow.

The yellow was chosen not only because it complements the purple, but because it reminded us of the pages of an old spellbook.

Step 4: Something Special

To add intrigue to the brand, we decided to add a set of icons to the brand suite. Each of these icons would have the Circe heart logo imbedded in their designs.

Step 5: Putting it All Together

Finally, we created a brand style guide out of all our different parts. We added information on typography, the fictional history of the brand, and some of our early sketches. If you want, you can download the brand style guide here.

If you want a style guide for your own business, you can contact us below. We’d love to work with you!