Lorenzo was an independent professional dog trainer who was a design client of mine here and there over the years. I really only designed and updated an occasional brochure or telephone book ad, which amounted to his entire set of brand communications. In 2010, the 'Great Recession' forced me to close RedTail Creative after a ten-year run and I announced the closing to all of my clients. Lorenzo asked me to work for him full time to help him build his business. He wanted to hire and train dog trainers and grow his company's gross revenue from just over $100K/year to over $1M/year. We negotiated a deal and developed an aggressive plan to build a compelling brand identity to reach the $1M mark in just over three years.
I rolled up my sleeves and learned the professional dog training industry from the bottom up. I put on my marketing hat and conducted surveys, interviewed clients, studied the competition, identified strengths and weaknesses, and developed marketing plans. With the new data, I went on to create composite clients so that I could understand how to use design to reach more of them. After the first year, Lorenzo began to refer to me as the company's 'Secret Weapon' and we began to grow steadily. Within three years, we took the company from Lorenzo, myself, and one other staffer to a respected professional dog training company with 19 trainers in nine states. We crossed the $1M mark at the end of the third year.
Lorenzo asked me if to make the new logo 'All-American' and he insisted that I include his tagline "Serious Training. Serious Results." This is the final version. The brand colors are the official Pantone® colors of the American flag.
The first secondary mark that I designed was this realistic leash clasp. I knew that I would include this brand mark in future communications, including signage and vehicle graphics. I opted to draw the leash clasp in Illustrator rather than call in a photographer because of the level of control and scalability that a vector image provides. I used a real company leash as a model and spent a few hours to create this.
The second secondary mark that I designed was a distinctive set of 'bottom bars' that I used consistently with nearly every brand communication. I introduced them with the new business card design and in less than two years, clients, trainers, and referrers recognized anything with the bars as part of the Lorenzo's brand, even if the logo wasn't present.
I worked closely with a third-party embroidery digitizer to ensure that the logo was accurately reproduced. I also specified all brand garments for staff apparel.
As the company grew, I designed and produced official seasonal brand 'gear' catalogs, including researching the products, and writing all of the copy. The catalogs were accidentally leaked to clients and many clients also wanted to purchase Lorenzo's brand apparel.
We discovered that we were able to recruit prospective trainers at our most productive referral locations—veterinary clinics. I made a series of posters and matching small postcards in a style that mimicked the infamous Uncle Sam recruiting posters of WWII. I made a digital 'painting' of my dog in Photoshop to complete the look.
This was a conceptual rendering of my new website for the brand. I designed this in late 2012 after I conducted a client survey and studied the site analytics and learned that by then most clients were already visiting the website from their phones. In 2012, most websites were not responsive and the typical solution was to develop a separate mobile site, but I had done my research and wanted to redevelop the site ahead of the game and simply make a new responsive site. We learned that typical top navigation may have been completely unnecessary because the typical site visitors knew exactly what they were looking for and generally did not waste any time browsing. I wanted to make the site's UI super intuitive and easy to scroll, with all of the main navigation available on the home page.
(*This design was voted on by the entire training staff and deemed 'too radical'. I ended up designing a more conservative site.)
Lorenzo asked me to develop planners for the trainers that were similar to Franklin Covey planners. I designed specific, custom pages that included easy check box areas for the trainers' clients, their dogs, their referrers, and marketing steps, such as follow-ups and lunch-and-learns. These planners proved to be extremely useful at keeping the trainers organized in the field.
I designed the cover art in Photoshop and it's an example of print collateral that only had the bottom bars with no logo. The trainers often reported to me that their clients and veterinary professional recognized the planners as part of the Lorenzo's brand.
I wrote and designed many brochures, postcards, and other marketing print collateral while I was with Lorenzo's. This is the inside spread of a typical tri-fold brochure.
I also wrote, designed, and produced a brand newsletter that was distributed to referring veterinary clinics, groomers, and pet stores in all of the markets. This turned out to be a prolific lead generator because there were never any hard sales in them. Instead, I developed a formula that included featuring a different trainer on the covers each month, with some relevant or timely dog-centric news items on the insides, and client testimonials on the back pages. The newsletters were designed to be quick reads for pet parents who were waiting in veterinary offices and their primary purpose was to create brand familiarity.
This is a rendering of vehicle graphics for the trainers' vans. I always say that vehicle graphics are generally undervalued and advertising mediums but these vans are powerful brand awareness and lead generators that work 24/7. I included a special card system that includes a weather-proof business card holder that contains discount cards for people to take. The cards save prospects $100.00, which is perceived value. I used a graphic image of a $100.00 bill to draw people's eyes to the card holder. This worked especially well when the vans were parked head-in in the parking lots of busy pet stores, veterinary clinics, or dog parks since passers-by could stop and take a card.
This image represents one of many co-marketing events that I developed with referrers. This particular one was for promotional event at an exclusive pet resort in Scottsdale, AZ. The management there asked that I come up with something "..cute and retro, like a fun movie from the '60s..."
This was the 2012 holiday card that I designed.
This was a printed wall mural for the executive office at Lorenzo's Dog Training Team. I was asked to come up with something impressive and motivational to office visitors. The final print was approximately 15 ft. wide x 8 ft. high.
While I was employed at Lorenzo's Dog Training Team, the company trained a service dog for a disabled client who was wheelchair-bound. The trainer kept the dog with him for nearly a year of intensive training and the client was very excited when the time approached for her dog to finally come home. She planned a catered reception at her Shaker Heights home and asked me to create a very unique invitation.
The dog's name was 'Sophia Loren' and the client wondered if I could do something retro. I used the August 11, 1961 cover of LIFE Magazine as a style guide and designed the invitation cover to create the early 1960s feel. I used my Canon EOS Rebel SL1 to shoot photos of the dog wearing a variety of scarves in the morning, and then shot clouds separately later that same day to get just the right look. I added other details, such as the client's address label and scratches that made it look as though it passed through the postal system of the day. The client was so happy with the final result that she asked me to provide a larger version so that she could have it framed.