Larkspur Creative really enjoyed working with Evan Foxcroft of Fox Electric Inc to create his logo, brand identity, and website. Starting up a new business can be very exciting but also terrifying and overwhelming. Evan had all the electrical and trade experience, but didn't really know where to start with with his brand or digital presence.

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From the start, Evan knew that he wanted to incorporate a fox into his logo, since his last name and business name is Fox. He didn't have much else in mind, so we asked a few guiding questions to get a better idea of his personality and his company's ideals. We were able to work with him on a few different ideas and really had fun with the design process! His whole family got involved and the resulting logo is very personal and meaningful. This is what we learned:

• Evan was starting his new company to give himself and his family more financial freedom and flexibility.
• His main goal is to give clients top-quality electrical services with clear communication and full integrity.
• He talked about the unfortunate state of the construction industry, where deceitful practices are common and where clients are often left in the dark or taken advantage of. He wanted to give clients a completely different experience.
• He emphasized safety as being very important to him.
• What was going to set his electrical business apart from others was his quick response time, honest quotes, and willingness to teach clients.

Why is it important to know personal and business details like this when designing a logo? We think it's crucial to understand who our design clients are so that we can accurately translate their personality and goals into a visual identity for their brand. We find that this drastically reduces the amount of design time and revisions as well, since we're starting out with a basis of knowledge about the client instead of blindly taking a stab in the dark and hoping to nail a design that the client likes.

From this information about Evan and Fox Electric Inc, we had a few key points we wanted to make sure came across in the logo design:

• Clarity is key. Something simple and bold was going to work best.
• Orange would be the primary colour - for both the emphasis on safety and the fox element.
• Honesty and vigilance would be important to convey visually.

With all of this in mind, we began design with a few quick options to get immediate feedback from Evan. Often times with design clients, they don't know what they like or don't like until they see it. Because of this, we always run through a few quick options at the start before going too far with the design. This saves time and money!

We focused on the typography, letting the text take the majority of the visual - being clear and upfront, like Evan's business values. The fox we showed being alert, vigilant. In the fox illustrations, we included a subtle 'lightning bolt' element to tie in electricity.

After this quick first round we got some great feedback from Evan about the general layout, fox style, fonts, and colours. Evan also wanted to get his family involved, which we were very happy to hear. When clients get personally and emotionally invested in a logo project, the results are extraordinary. His wife and daughter wanted to sketch out some ideas which we welcomed.

Evan came back to us with the actual sketches that his wife and daughter had worked on. We took these sketches and ideas and completed a second round of quick designs.

Evan and his family really liked the geometric design fox logo, which they called "origami style"! We worked on this design as the final design, landing on the font and Electric baseline style. There was a version with the lightning bolt graphic in the ears of the fox, but it wasn't clear enough to work in function.

The logo was finalized, and a simple brand guide was created for Fox Electric Inc! Using the new branding, we created various designs for Evan to use in his business, including:

• Vehicle magnets
• Business cards
• Electrical panel stickers (metallic)
• Half-fold brochures

As a print broker, we supplied Evan with all of these print materials as well, combining services for extra savings to him and his new business!

Setting up Evan’s digital presence was a natural continuation of our relationship. 

For his website, we opted to continue the same animated, bright style we had used in his logo for his website. It served as reinforcement of his branding, providing a unity between his logo, print and web material. It also served as an immediate differentiator from his competition who all had more traditional trade websites with background images of their projects mixed with stock photography.

We chose to group the services into four main categories and then list the sub services below them so that it would be easily scannable and not too overwhelming (Fox Electric does a lot!). We also created custom images to echo the types of images we were seeing on his competitors sites of service people doing electrical work, but in an animated style and colour that tied seamlessly to his branding.

Along with showcasing his services, we really wanted to communicate who he was as a company. It wasn’t just the “what” but the “why” as well since one of the original goals of the business is to change the way the construction industry operations and move towards a model with more honesty and transparency.

Another decision we made was the addition of a “why people choose us” section that appears between the testimonial and the contact form. This serves as a recap of the “who we are” section, as well as reinforces the positivity of the reviews just above it. It’s also an implicit call to action - here’s what other people say, why they chose us, and now you should reach out and choose us as well.

Concurrent to the website setup, we also set up a Google My Business listing. We did this right away as verification can take two weeks or more, we wanted to start gathering reviews, and we wanted to get him onto maps as soon as possible. Since he had an existing Facebook page, we used that as the “website” for the time being. It ended up being the right decision - here’s just a few stats from the first 30 days:

• 120 users discovered Fox Electric in a general search for electric services. This represents 78% of the total organic search traffic (the remaining 22% searched for his business name directly).
• 95 users discovered Fox Electric on Google Maps, reinforcing that people tend to look for, and find services that are geographically close to them.

Our next steps on GMB will be to encourage more reviews (very few reviews had been posted in the first 30 days), as well as post more photos to lend additional credibility to the listing. We will also, of course, be swapping out the Facebook link for his new website.

Excellent experience with Larkspur! I get constant comments of appreciation for my logo/design work thanks to Kristinas great work on what started as a very basic conceptual drawing. Through the process I was about as difficult as a customer could be with constant minor detail changes which she accommodated quickly and accurately along with creative options I hadn't thought of. It was clear that they are passionate about their work and making a product their customer is happy with. 10/10!

Evan Foxcroft

Owner

This was a fun design to work on with a great client, who got very involved in the process after starting with very little direction in mind. These are the kinds of projects we love working, where we get to make a connection and deliver a design that really fits the client. If you're looking for help with your new logo design, a logo update, branding or web design - we're always happy to help! Contact us to start the conversation.