Salt Design Co.
〰️ Name Development
〰️ Brand Identity
〰️ Custom Squarespace Website
〰️ Business Cards
〰️ Thank you Cards
〰️ Promotional flyers
〰️ Event materials
〰️ Instagram content and strategy
〰️ Email marketing content and strategy
〰️ Project Portal for clients
Salt Design Co. was founded by myself and my business partner, Daphne Wong, in Dec 2015. Offering brand and web design for small businesses, our focus was on creating a seamless experience our clients raved about, and providing a service that helped them gain clarity and confidence in their business and brand.
Our strategic brand services went deep into their brand strategy, helping clients define their mission, their target audience, their brand personality and more. We crafted brand messaging, did competitor audits and used this info within our brand design process.
We were also some of the first designers to be creating custom websites in Squarespace – never using templates, just using the platform as a base for our designs so that our clients could continue to use and update their own website.
Throughout our 7 years, the brand for Salt Design Co. has evolved many times. Our desire to be playful but professional has remained though.
This was represented through a deep green, a dusky pink, a mint for a fresh touch and an aesthetic that feels partly inspired by retro typography and partly inspired by mid-century modern decor and interiors.
CLIENT EXPERIENCE
Our number 1 priority as we established and grew the business, was on delivering exceptional client experiences. We focused on the experience they had as they browsed our website, inquired and then went through our design process – utilizing software to streamline everything for them.
For our process we used and became proficient in a wide range of software, leading us to then be able to make recommendations for our clients and set up their process in a similar way.
In 2022 we switched to using Notion for our client portal, however prior to that we had created a custom portal website in Squarespace that guided our clients through their paperwork and the design feedback; housing all feedback forms (separated by phase, with timeline info), contact info and admin info.
Frequently we heard from clients:
“I want a website like yours”
“I am blown away by the portal and how easy it made the process”
“What software are you using? I want this for my business!”
BRAND EVOLUTION THROUGH THE YEARS
We regularly updated the Salt Design Co. brand in order to reflect the new skills we had learnt along the way and the trends that we noticed in small business.
MARKETING AND COMMUNITY BUILDING
In 2016, after we had completed our first client project, I started focusing on business development and outreach; building our network initially through Facebook groups and by attending networking events. I worked from a co-working space in order to make more connections and soon the business took off.
From there I focused on our Instagram presence, growing our Instagram account to over 3,000 followers before transitioning it to educational content for our sister company, Design Build Grow (launched in 2018). Once that transitioned happened we launched a new studio account and grew that to 2,000 followers.
Our Instagram community was highly engaged – this was in the days before the current algorithm – we had a 20% engagement rate very consistently. Additionally through our newsletter we had a high open rate and worked to foster the relationships we had in the community.
Taking it one step further, we began hosting events in 2017 and continued to do so until just before the pandemic, with Assembly in 2019. In total we hosted 15 events across 2 years, including a mini-convention, 2 conversational multi-media interview series and a monthly panel talk event.
Additionally, I hosted lunch and learns and spoke on panels at small events and larger conferences.
