Cleo’s Cat Cafe
Cleo’s Cat Café, a fictitious branding and marketing initiative for a novel cat café in Courtenay, BC, aims to create a cozy and welcoming environment with a unique focus on feline companionship.
Founded by Olivia Everheart, a dedicated advocate for animal welfare, Cleo’s mission is to foster community bonds through innovative events and a steadfast commitment to the well-being of cats. The project encompasses the development of an entire branding package, including a comprehensive logo suite, brand colours, and typography, alongside social media assets, digital advertisements, an engaging newsletter, and a captivating landing page. Additionally, a marketing guide outlines the “Adopt Them All” campaign, designed to raise funds for cat care through exclusive monthly enamel pins. Through strategically implementing these assets, Cleo’s goals are to create a vibrant and welcoming hub, fostering warmth, inclusivity, and feline companionship within the community.
Why a Cat Cafe?
Cat cafés are one of my favourite places to visit. Getting a chai latte and petting a cat instantly improves my day. Choosing Cleo’s as a concept allowed me to design branding for a place that brings me joy. This project also came shortly after the passing of my first foster cat and I found solace in channelling her memories into a meaningful project.
Moodboard
The mood board embodies Cleo’s essence – playful, cozy, comforting, and inviting. I aimed for a whimsical and soothing vibe, choosing a warm, bright colour palette reminiscent of curling up with a warm cup of coffee on a cool autumn day.
Primary Logo and Logo Design
Through numerous iterations and sketches on Procreate, I finally landed on three different logo concepts that I wanted to work with. I finalized these logo variations, ensuring balance and consistency in spacing by using exact measurements for all variations.
The primary logo emerged from this lengthy ideation process, incorporating cats and coffee. The concept of a cat in a cup perfectly captured the essence of the brand, highlighting the fluidity of cats. It just clicked – a cup of coffee that doubles as a cat. After all, how many times have we chuckled at cats squeezing into anything they can fit in? Their seeming disregard for the laws of physics, behaving almost like a liquid at times, further inspired this unique logo.
Logo Variations
It’s important to have different logo variations for different uses. The logo variations include the primary logo, a vertical version, an icon, and two text-only versions—one completely horizontal and the other a right-aligned vertical stack. I incorporated the text-only versions midway through the project as I began creating assets, recognizing their usefulness.
I present all of the logos in black and cream; however, they are adaptable to other brand-approved colours. Additionally, they can be used with or without a border, depending on where they are being used.
Colours and Typography
The colour palette, consisting of both neutrals and vibrant tones, sets the tone for the brand. I opted for neutral coffee tones paired with bright, playful pops of colour. Each of the lighter hues of orange, pink, and teal expands the secondary palette, enhancing contrast effectively. These colours are thoughtfully complemented by carefully selected fonts. New Kansas serves as the primary font, prominently featured in the logo and most brand assets. Open Sans is utilized for body copy, keeping it open and accessible. Carrotflower adds a whimsical touch with its handwritten look, providing a casual and fun accent.
Brand Swag
To showcase Cleo’s logos, I developed a range of branded merchandise, including shirts, coffee cups, a preliminary business card design, and an outdoor store sign. This not only demonstrates the versatility of the logo but also accentuates the personality of the brand.
Check out the full style guide on ISSUU.
Social Media Campaign
As a part of the project’s social media strategy, I created the “Adopt Them All” campaign. This campaign introduces limited-time enamel pins celebrating Cleo’s resident cats. These cats permanently reside at Cleo’s, requiring special care and will never be officially adopted. While they may never find permanent homes, they are cherished by the entire community and symbolically ‘come home’ with everyone.
The pins are released monthly and are exclusively available for that month only. Participants who collect all 12 pins offered over the year receive a complimentary cat room experience. Each monthly pin comes with a unique code, which participants can choose to also enter on Cleo’s website to track their progress. This automatically enters them for additional prizes and rewards.
This initiative celebrates Cleo’s resident cats and their unique stories while providing Cleo’s with additional funds to care for all their resident and adoptable cats. The campaign slogan, “Adopt them all to experience the meow-gic first hand/paw”, serves as a captivating call to action across marketing materials, enticing audiences to learn more about the campaign.
Check out the complete marketing guide on ISSUU.
Social Media Posts
Social media posts for the “Adopt Them All” campaign promote the campaign while also showing the current collection of pins available. Each post follows the imagery and style of the unique pin it’s showcasing, by using similar colours and imagery but still aligning with the style of Cleo’s.
eNewsletter
The eNewsletter is designed to reflect Cleo’s branding while incorporating imagery inspired by the current month’s unique pin. It showcases limited-time offers, offers a sneak peek of the next month’s pin, and provides a recap of the month’s achievements, featuring a rotating cast of statistics. Additionally, subscribers enjoy exclusive early access to pin drops 48 hours before the end of each month.
Landing Page
The landing page mirrors the formatting of the eNewsletter, featuring a captivating hero image and a compelling call to action. It highlights the perks that subscribers enjoy by purchasing the pins, such as exclusive access and special offers. Additionally, it provides an explanation of Cleo’s Cat Club and introduces the feature participants can use to digitally track their pins. Finally, the landing page concludes with the same call to action from the hero image, accompanied by a countdown ticker to the end of the month, adding a sense of urgency to encourage engagement.
Check out the desktop version and mobile version on Figma.
