I’ve rebranded! And it was way more involved than I first thought! I’ve decided to write this as a blog post – firstly for the catharsis, and secondly, for anyone who would like to know a little more about the rebranding process!
WHY?
“They” say that a brand identity should last you about ten years, and it has been seven years since I bought my legacy “brand identity”. Back then I received a file of just a logo, with no variations, no colour palette and no typographies. Over the past two years, I’ve found the legacy logo quite limiting when it came to branding options, so it had always been on my mind to invest in a rebrand at some point in the near future.
In the Spring of this year, I had a website audit by a website manager who had seen my cakes at weddings, but had never viewed my website. She suggested that it might be a good time to invest in a rebrand along side a new website. Despite this being a bit earlier than I had anticipated, I went off in search for a brand designer knowing that the lay of the land had changed since my last rebrand seven years ago.
I contacted a few brand designers, a couple of whom offered discovery calls. It was during my chat with one of these designers that the topic of changing my brand name came up. “Have you thought about changing the name?” “No! I’m NOT changing the name”. She gently listened, but countered back, “When I’ve worked on a rebrand with other cake makers in the past that have had “little” or other cute names, they always have to come back and change their names as the cakes and the opportunities they get after the rebrand just don’t match the word “little”. I felt that I was already being told that my cakes didn’t match my branding, I didn’t want to invest and yet have the same problem on the other side of the rebranding process.
I still wasn’t keen on the idea, so I decided to take it to the people that matter most; my lovely clients and industry professionals. I put the question to them plainly: “Do you feel the name ‘Little Cake Garden’ represents the wedding cakes I make?” All but one answered no, and this is where the arduous, and at the time, heart-breaking part of the rebranding process began.
Honestly, I was gutted, and as dramatic as it sounds, I considered just closing. I’ve been Little Cake Garden for nine years, and I couldn’t imagine being anything else.
The feedback I had collated from my market research was that “Little” denoted amateur, start up, picnic, aimed at children – all the things that are antonyms to a good quality wedding cake brand! But I could see the point. In fact, when I started Little Cake Garden, it was so named as it was a business that was never supposed to include wedding cakes. Little Cake Garden started out as a cupcake, layer cake, sweet treat business to appear at market stalls around London. When I pivoted to wedding cakes a year or so after opening, I didn’t change the name and actually I think I’ve had good innings with it. Five years ago, I’d asked some wedding industry colleagues whether they thought I needed to change my business name, back then, it was a resounding no. But I could see this was an opportunity to align my plans for the business with a new identity. With all the deconstructing and putting back together that rebranding takes, it seemed as though now was as good a time as any to change the name of the business.
The search for a new identity.
It wasn’t as easy as dropping the “Little” and becoming “Cake Garden”. Firstly, there are a couple of other businesses with that name as it stands, and replacing it with another adjective just didn’t seem to do the trick either.
I won’t bore you with them all, but the family group chat was a buzz for a few days with suggestions and none of them were hitting the mark. Once, I thought I’d struck gold, but then I ran it past Rob and my sister, and they were less than enthusiastic about “Sugar/Sweet Symphony”.
My brother in law suggested “Layer”, which sounds fantastic for a hipster coffee shop in Hackney, but it didn’t seem to give the right amount of romance and elegance for a wedding cake brand. “The Gilded Petal” was a huge favourite amongst family and friends, but I couldn’t settle on it. It seemed to speak more to floristry than cakes and several people asked me what “Gilded” meant. I didn’t want a name I’d have to explain.
As part of the rebranding process, I was thinking deeply about what my clients have told me they appreciated about my brand, and what I wanted my wedding cake brand to be known for.
I put pen to paper and wrote down my brand values, my reasons and just hoped that something would come.
I’ve shared in a previous blogpost that I felt I’d lost my way a bit post pandemic and I saw this as an opportunity to get back to the reason I started making wedding cakes in the first place.
In all my research about branding, I kept on hearing and seeing the word ‘Stories’. ‘People love stories, what’s your story?’, ‘Share it as a story’. And it clicked – the reason I had pivoted into wedding cakes in the first place was because my hopelessly romantic self is a sucker for the love stories – it’s my favourite bit. What’s more, is that the thrill of making wedding cakes is that I get to become part of the story of someone’s wedding day.
The aim with any wedding cake, macaron tower or dessert table that I make, is that I want the moments that surround those creations to become a little, but precious highlight of a story within the fuller story of that magical day. I want the running commentary of a wedding day, to include a memory that says a little something like this “And oh my goodness, their cake! It was incredible! It was the most gorgeous cake I’ve ever seen, it was sooooo them, and it tasted even better.” When brides and grooms look back on their day, I don’t want them to be able to recount the day without mentioning the cake as a highlight. The moment when you cut the cake is one of the most photographed parts of the wedding day – I am beyond privileged I get to be part of that. The messages of thanks I get back from my couples are always so heartfelt and it brings it home to me, that more than just cake, wedding cakes and the like are highlighter details of an already incredible experience. The moments around the cake, the dessert table, they’re their very own act in a play.
Dessert tables are huge talking points at a wedding – this is it for me, it’s the creation of that storied moment.
Sugar – it gets a bad rep, but I certainly cannot make a cake, a macaron or any other sweet treat without it. In fact, it’s the first ingredient in the bowl for everything I make. So here we are, Sugar & Stories.
There are a load of talented brand designers out there, but I was immediately drawn to Tamsin from Monroe Creative. I had followed Tamsin on Instagram for a while prior to when she opened her branding studio last year. Tamsin used to own a luxury gifting studio, which was absolutely gorgeous, so I knew she understood what a captivating brand should look like, after all she’d had one herself.
Tamsin’s work, and Tamsin herself as it happens, is the embodiment of premium feminine professionalism, so who better to understand and convey the brand of a hopeless romantic? Tamsin took all my scattered wordings, descriptions and intentions and turned them into a beautifully clean, yet romantic brand identity. Tamsin was one of the designers that offered a 30 minute discovery call. Following this, she sent a proposal, and I was further sold from that point. The proposal document alone made me feel so excited about the possibilities for my brand and further cemented her as the only choice to create a resonant brand. The fact that she has a pink car didn’t exactly sway me, but it did let me know that she has an eye for the right things! 😀
I didn’t even tell Tamsin that peonies are my favourite flower – and yet here they are in my brand identity! Magic! Tamsin chose a peony as a floral accent, as they symbolise happiness and romance – synonymous with a wedding brand. A lot of my wedding cakes feature flowers, so another reason this addition was a genius masterstroke by Tamsin.
This beautiful version of the logo looks like it features two wedding rings, intertwining. Honestly, I cannot cope.
I really am touched that when I have told people about the name change, people have expressed a bit of sadness at waving goodbye to “LCG”. For me, it means that people resonated with Little Cake Garden and are fond of it. I am too, and though I am sad to see it go, I am excited about the growth and development – it was simply time to evolve.
I am more than thrilled with my new brand identity and I hope you will be just as excited. This whole process has renewed my commitment to creating cakes that become an enchanted storied moment in your wedding day and I hope you will be along with me for the ride.
All the best,
Jasmine
