Practice
Full scope
Scope
Strategy; Identity; Packaging; Guidelines; Web Design; Framer Build
Year
Client
Vessel
Link
Vessel
Brand identity, packaging, and website for an independent lifestyle brand.
Vessel made a small range of handmade ceramic homewares — bowls, cups, vessels in the literal sense — sold through a combination of craft markets, two independent stockists, and a direct-to-consumer online shop that accounted for roughly 40% of revenue and was growing. The founder had been making and selling for four years under a brand that was warm and honest but visually underdeveloped: a hand-drawn wordmark, packaging that varied by product run, and a website assembled on Squarespace with a template that had been customized in small ways until it no longer quite worked.
The brief was a full commission: brand from the ground up, packaging system that could scale across a growing product range, and a new site built on a platform the founder could maintain alone. All three in a ten-week window before the Christmas selling season.
The challenge
Full‑scope projects carry a unique risk: if brand work stalls, web work can’t begin, and deadlines slip in ways single‑practice projects don’t. With a fixed ten‑week Christmas window, sequencing was critical — each discipline had to progress without waiting on the other. Coordination itself became the design challenge, as vital as the creative output.
The work
Vessel’s brand centered on objects with a second life — ceramics that grow richer with use. Identity was severe: roman wordmark, wide spacing, clay‑based palette. Packaging used a flexible label system; the site mirrored the identity. A lightweight CMS let the founder update in minutes. Coherence came from treating brand, packaging, and web as one system.
The outcome
Vessel launched brand, packaging, and site six days before Christmas. Sales rose 41%, packaging drove repeat purchases, and the editorial site doubled conversion — coherence delivered performance.
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