Claire Drinks
Claire Blacker is 1 of 151 women in the world (418 in total!) who are Masters of Wine. In 2005 she founded Case Studies Wine School, which successfully trained many students and informed many more enthusiasts about the world of wine.
SarahCreated
Logo
Branding assets
Printed collateral
Website
About the Project
In 2021, Claire rebranded to Claire Drinks in order to position the business better for different course types including spirits and beer. Needless to say, a new brand and a new website were needed which is where we joined forces!
Claire Drinks aims to deliver high quality, customer-focussed wine and spirits education and experiences — wherever you are in the world.
Claire chose to hire me for the full core branding package, and an e-commerce website build — both large scale projects in their own right, but such a pleasure to be part of this journey with Claire.
Brand development
Working closely with Claire, we planned the progression of both projects and started to breakdown the individual tasks within each package.
Starting with the brandmark or logo design, Claire was keen to have a logo that reflected the quality of her courses and master classes, her personal input to each student and tie that up into a modern, clean design. I gathered some further examples and designed a moodboard to align the approach for the start of the development which is always one of the most important steps.
Claire and I collaborated within our moodboard which then led us clearly into the design phase. With minimal amends, Claire’s new logo was borne. A mark which brought the personality with a scripted, but still legible, typeface for her name, paired with a bold and authoritative font for ‘drinks’ completed with a confidence-giving full stop. A monogram for use in smaller places was also designed, intertwining the c & d.
To further help Claire to create assets herself in the future, further branding graphics were drawn to represent the array of drinks covered in courses and workshops. Having these additional assets, in conjunction with the brand palette and font choices stood us in good stead for progression to the website design.
In order to hit the ground running with her new branding, I designed branded Tasting Mat’s for supply with course workbooks and samples, sample pouch & postage stickers, business cards and some templates within Canva using the additional graphics mentioned above.
Website development
Claire Drinks website was a complete overhaul from the existing Case Studies Wine School Wordpress site which was outdated and lacked the functionality to move the business forward. The vision was to become the premier provider of online drinks education in the UK and be moving the offering towards a global audience. We were to create an informative, useful and active resource for drinks education across all drinks types which was to increase customer base continue to develop Claire’s reputation as a credible and authoritative professional educator and communicator for wines and spirits.
From an e-commerce perspective, the site needed to allow for the purchase and registration of all the 8 WEST online courses taken by Claire. The ability to book spaces on workshops and masterclasses was also a required, as was the purchase of gift vouchers.
Sitemap development was first on the cards, once this was approved I designed wireframes to ensure that the layout of the page was clearly explained and to ensure that the content being produced would be housed suitably on the page.
Wireframes approved, it was time to start designing the website using the brand colours, font and logo designed. At this point, Claire enlisted the services of a photographer to capture some headshots and tasteful wine-drinking images to inject some personality into the brand.
Automated emails were styled, designed and re-written so that when a purchase was completed, the brand was taken right through to the inbox of the customer or student.
Finally, given Case Studies Wine School was a well-established brand and website, it was important that we created a strong re-direct plan to ensure that no traffic visiting the old site was lost when trying to contact or find out more about Claire.
Within 1 week of launching, and no formal promotion beforehand, Claire Drinks had it’s first course sale! Claire was a fantastic client to work with and has also complimented the ease of using her new website, compared to her old site — thanks to the user-friendly CMS that is Squarespace.
