catherine jones of cambridge | branding
The outside of the shop was freshly painted, and the styled Tudor Rose and arch was used on the windows, social distancing messages were put onto the pillars and floor stickers. The floor stickers had tickled Vanessa, as I’d designed both ladies and men’s ‘footprints’.
The shop reopened on 4th July 2020, which apart from being significant as American Independence Day, was the day other independent shops opened in Cambridge (Scruffs, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Varsity Hotel…) and was also her parents’ wedding anniversary!
The bag here is a visual.
Jewellers Catherine Jones of Cambridge after the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2021 wanted to re-open with a bit of a splash.
I began working with Vanessa Birkitt designing new branding elements to add a ‘bit of Cambridge’ for her shop. Vanessa, CEO and daughter of the late Catherine Jones, wanted to add some elements to her branding portfolio that would help visually identify ‘Catherine Jones’ as being ‘of Cambridge’, the shop having been there almost 60 years.
Vanessa had been on a trip to Venice and was taken by the style of architecture there, and thought that bringing an element of Cambridge architecture might be a nice idea for her shop. After some research, one thing I found that sets Cambridge apart is the Tudor Rose. The design of the new ‘Catherine’ Tudor Rose is a little more modern, and can be used on its own, or with leaves, or include a stylised arch element. I was also keen to impart more of ‘Cambridge’, because Cambridge isn’t just King’s College, punting, or bikes, it’s about invention and innovation. So, I also came up with a DNA ’vine’ used in the shop interior. I used the Tudor Rose as a space to highlight some elements of Cambridge, an apple and tree for Newton, a code-breaking machine for Turin, a Finch for Darwin…
We also made some small changes to the existing branding – ‘blued’ up the Cambridge blue colour, and tweaked the logo a little, adding a stylised leaf, equalising the line widths, and adding ‘Since 1963’.
Lovely, charming but eye catching… Thanks for all your hard work