Mythe Barn is a wedding venue in the delightfully named village of Sheepy Magna. Situated in the Leicestershire countryside, and comprised of a number of barns and converted farm buildings, the venue offers wedding couples a wonderful and idyllic place to enjoy their nuptials with family and friends.
Collaborative Project
In 2019 Sedley Place was invited to collaborate with Artemis, Mythe Barn’s Marketing & Catering partner, on the development of the venue’s brand - both its definition and visual expression. The project is our sixth branding collaboration to date with Artemis.
Two-Fold Impetus
The impetus for the project was two-fold. First, our initial research identified eight wedding venues describing themselves as barns and over 70 others of differing descriptions within a 25-mile radius and Joe and Joanna Garland, the creators and owners of Mythe Barn, were keen that prospective couples fully understood Mythe Barn’s particular proposition and how it differed from the competition. Secondly, the team at Artemis had a number of sales and marketing initiatives planned and both they and the Garlands were keen to ensure the venue’s visual identity truly reflected the brand.
Our Role & Deliverables
Our specific role in the collaborative project encompassed four key areas: 1) brand definition, 2) brand identity refinement, 3) brand guidelines and 4) tone of voice and lexicon. Our core deliverables were the brand’s refreshed key visual assets and the brand guidelines, in which the brand and visual identity standards were documented so that the venue’s team, and the Artemis team and its partners (such as its SEO agency) could promote the venue in an imaginative and consistent manner.
Five-Phase Process
We divided the project into five phases: research, analysis, brand definition, brand expression and brand documentation.
During the research stage we visited the site, interviewed Joe and Joanna Garland, reviewed the historical archive, profiled the target market, mapped the customer journey and identified all of the brand’s touchpoints. During the analysis stage we undertook a comprehensive review of the venue’s competitors and analysed previous wedding couple’s feedback on the venue on wedding sites like Hitched and Bridebook.
Brand Definition
Using Sedley Place’s proprietary branding process, Brand Cornerstones™, we defined Mythe Barn’s core proposition, its defining features, cornerstones, positioning and personality. In particular, we sought to enunciate the venue’s special blend of farm heritage and contemporary aesthetic, the thoughtfulness of the conversion into a wedding venue and the seclusion of the setting.
Brand Expression
Our principal focus when reviewing the brand identity was on the brandmarque and wordmarque, the typeface family, colour palette and photographic content and style. This process was shared with the creative team at Artemis, our main contribution being the development of the brandmarque and wordmarque. Here we refined the brandmarque’s colour scheme (making the tree dark grey and the leaves green), introduced two swallows alighting in the tree’s branches (a common sight at the farm and akin to a couple alighting at the venue to marry) and gave the tree a more defined root structure.
The wordmarque’s typeface weight was adjusted to give the marque more authority and the venue’s descriptor (Weddings), dropped in favour of its Sheepy Magna location, which was given the more characterful script face, Jendral Writing Latin Pro.
Brand Documentation, Tone of Voice & Lexicon
The final part of the project coincided with the pandemic beginning, so there was a hiatus in the project for many months as wedding venues felt the full force of the Government’s isolation measures. In recent months the project was completed and the brand guidelines that Artemis and we jointly designed were finalised. Included in these guidelines are guidance on tone of voice, as well as a lexicon to help ensure consistency in the way the venue is described. The refreshed identity is now being rolled out across all on and offline collateral.
https://mythebarn-weddings.co.uk/
https://www.mythebarn-events.co.uk
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