ꔛ New branding ꔛ
In my years as a marketer for a huge corporation, I learnt that branding is much more than a logo and colour palette. It’s how you want your brand to be perceived by customers, basically what your brand’s personality is.
Luneta is turning 4 this year, so it has had the same personality for quite a while. And in many ways, Luneta has stayed the same throughout this time: Since its inception, we have focused on making sustainable jewellery that’s not boring, made possible by using vintage beads as our main material. We have also always been very intentional about our creations, they’re always very considered in their design. We’ll never stand for an ugly patchwork of vintage beads put together without harmony.
However, our style has certainly matured over the years, as have the quality of the vintage beads we’ve used. We have really zeroed in on the types of beads we like and don’t like, have moved on to using better quality hardware, have learnt a lot about how to identify vintage beads, how to best clean them, about jewellery making itself, about product photography and social media. Our creations are now better fit to stand the test of time, as have our vintage beads (some of which are almost 100 years old!).
So in the last few months, it’s seemed like our old logo, colour palette, tone of voice, social media posts and even photography no longer corresponded to the level of quality, and dare we say luxury, that using these little pieces of history brings. Because there is no greater luxury than wearing something made ethically, with sustainable materials that have a story to tell, that still allows you to be your best colourful self.
And so our new branding project was born! And it required getting to grips with what we want Luneta to inspire and how a new branding would better represent that.
Our new branding moodboard, sources at bottom of page.
Tone of Voice: “Old” Luneta was very chirpy, in a way that now feels almost dysfunctional to me. We used so many emojis, it was like Jim Carrey was narrating every single line of copy making grimaces at the reader. I believe we have now outgrown that and can withstand finishing a sentence with a simple period. Phew, that didn’t kill us. There, we did it again! This doesn’t mean we’ll never use emojis again, we’re just going to use them more intentionally, as being intentional is what we are all about.
Social Media Content: As you might imagine, it’s quite different to do social media for a small business after having worked at a huge corporation for almost 8 years. I used to work for Amazon, who mostly didn’t have to explain what they were all about and also had basically unlimited budget for advertising. So when making content for Luneta, I let myself be swayed by small business social media gurus who said I needed to show behind-the-scenes content constantly, post at least once a day, always show my face as founder, etc — all of which have only meant that I was worried all the time about filming my processes instead of producing quality products and content and that I constantly felt like my person wasn’t “aspirational” enough for customers. This also meant I was publishing a lot of subpar content, which went directly against our brand’s intentionality. If you’re a keen observer you might notice I archived about 1/3 of Luneta’s past content, and it’s all the sort of content I don’t think I was intentional about when posting. From now on we’ll be posting much more about what inspires us than talking about ourselves endlessly.
Logo: Luneta means telescope in Portuguese, so I made our first logo to resemble a telescope looking out at a star while on a Photoshop free trial. I still think it’s a very cute and fun logo, but it doesn’t inspire that aforementioned premium quality. The new logo somehow looks both retro and very modern and is made up of beads (!), so it couldn’t be more on point. I also added the word Creations to the new logo to emphasize that what is sold here has been upcycled/transformed/re-created in some way. This goes in hand with removing the vast majority of original vintage we used to sell in the form of trinket boxes and vintage greeting cards. We still sell the occasional original vintage jewellery, mostly clip-ons and brooches, but 98% of the products available on this website have been improved upon by us.
Brand Colours: Colour-wise, our website’s background is now a much less jarring cream (as opposed to a sort of neon pastel yellow before), and we have removed purple altogether. The pinks and blues are colder, and we have no qualms specifying the inspiration for these colours came from Wes Anderson’s Bar Luce. Bar Luce (and Wes Anderson films in general), with their nostalgic/antique vibes, whilst being very colourful and unmistakably contemporary, have been and always will be a big inspiration here at Luneta. We are also making use of more graphic elements like stripes and tiling throughout the website, and our buttons are now more bead-shaped.
Product Photography: I have invested a lot in learning about product photography and better equipment since starting Luneta, so much so that I have also started offering product photography services to other brands. I believe updated photography made a huge difference to the success of this rebranding. I took new photos of all products on offer using very crisp flash and removed the background of the main product photos, which instantly gave the website a more high-end feel. I will continue taking product photos with props for my next drops, but will maintain having the first photo crisp and without background.
Who’s to say if this will be the last branding iteration Luneta will go through? All I know is that to me it feels like Luneta will be much more consistent from now on, and extra considered in all its manifestations, like a friend who has started going to therapy. Still themselves, but just better! We hope you’ll love it. If you have any suggestions or concerns, please do reach out via email or through our DMs on instagram.
-Marianna, founder
Moodboard sources, clockwise from top left: Still of Anna Karina sighing in Une femme est une femme (1961) via Sigh with Cinema on instagram; Model photographed by Otto Storch for McCall’s (December 1967) via @discobombshells on instagram; Flower on satin sheets via @decorhardcore on instagram; Wes Anderson’s bar Bar Luce logo in Milan; Edwardian dog purse from @moonbabyvintage on instagram; Pastel tiled bathroom by @buchanan.studio on instagram; Antique dog portrait from @epicdecordk on instagram; Vintage pastel slips from @winning.and.losing on instagram; Watkin Pink Silk Lotion ad from 1958 via pinterest; Cake from the Victorian Book of Cakes via @trionfi_mondo on instagram; Palazzo Castelluccio in Sicily via @craigamarkham on instagram; Pastel mint bar area via @designlovefest on instagram