After thorough research, Artquod Studio created a comprehensive strategy that followed a complete brand overhaul, from the name to all their visual assets and audience touchpoints. This overhaul doubled their visibility, expanded their brand online, and helped them present a polished, clear, and professional image to their audience.
Over 13 years ago, Cristian opened up a small print shop in the heart of Pitesti, offering basic print and copier services to a small, local client base drawn by convenience and practicality.
With a creative vision, he slowly began transforming his store into a hub for premium, personalized gifts and products. He identified a local gap in the market for high quality award tokens and velvet maps, where existing vendors were few, expensive and inconsistent.
Determined to expand his business, Cristian developed his own method for creating elegant velvet maps using top-tier materials and an original workflow. Marketing his new products, he attracted high-profile clients such as the TIFF Film Festival and Antena 3, Romania’s leading news network. Some of his products even reached iconic figure like Sofia Loren, Alan Delon, and Dumitru Prunariu.
Continuously reinvesting his profit, Cristian expanded his shop with cutting-edge equipment, including presses, plotters, cutters, laser engravers and countless other tools and raw materials. This enabled him to produce a significantly large range of personalized products, from mugs and t-shirts to custom plaques and trophies.
During the pandemic and in the following years, demand for thoughtful, personalized gifts surged, accelerating his growth. Unfortunately, his development was burdened by a lack of clarity and structure in his brand, as well as limited access to a small, local audience of passerby pedestrians and word-of-mouth.
Operating under the name “Print & Personalization”, his products were presented without hierarchy or focus, and his business lacked identity, making it difficult to connect with a broader audience effectively.
Recognizing the need for a complete brand overhaul, Cristian reached out to us to create a comprehensive identity that would reflect the quality of his work and support his expanding business.
He needed to reach a broader audience in the market for premium, personalized products, and wanted his brand to emphasize the creativity, beauty and joy they brought. His products had to be showcased in a professional and cohesive manner, with a clear hierarchy that started on his most popular items.
Additionally, his shop desperately needed an online presence that would allow him to connect with a national audience and fulfill the potential of his business.
With full creative freedom, we were tasked with defining the brand strategy, providing creative direction and overseeing implementation.
For his print and office services, the majority of his customers were local employees and small to medium businesses in need of basic print, copy and office-related services.
The shop’s proximity to a courthouse and police station brought in a steady flow of pedestrians, typically in need of quick print services. Most of these customers were within a 2-3 kilometer radius and varied in age.
The personalized products attracted casual shoppers, most between 18 and 48 years old. These customers were typically looking for gifts for occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, with a few buying for personal use.
About half of them had visited the shop, while the rest were drawn in by the shop’s exterior displays or word of mouth.
The velvet maps attracted an older, more professional audience, ranging from 25 to 55 years old. This group comprised corporate clients, academics, and event organizers purchasing for corporate, educational, or cultural events. Some were resellers, and others were individuals looking for unique recognition gifts. All of them expected a high level of professionalism in their interactions.
We discovered a clear distinction between the customer bases for his print services, personalized products, and velvet maps.
We quickly saw that Cristian’s audience was constrained by the lack of an online presence and the unstructured way his products were presented in-store. With no digital catalog, his extensive range of items was cluttered together, leaving potential customers overwhelmed by the sheer variety and unsure of what to focus on. This lack of product hierarchy and clarity significantly reduced conversion rates, and represented a key starting point for building his brand.
For print and office services, Cristian’s competition was primarily composed of local print shops within the same geographical zone. Customers typically chose the shop they used based on price or familiarity, often sticking with the one they happened to first visit.
The main opportunities to grow were to have excellent service, have a disadvantageous drop in price, or to attract customers when other shops experienced technical or service-related issues.
For his personalized products, competition was both local and online. Locally, a handful of businesses in malls offered similar products, with the most successful competitors leveraging their location, pricing, or existing customer base.
Online, there were multiple small, unprofessional shops that were competing with 2 larger platforms that had established reputations, extensive product catalogs, and streamlined shopping experiences. These platforms were able to offer competitive prices, however they lacked the personal touch and identity that Cristian’s shop could provide.
His velvet maps segment faced competition exclusively online. A few medium-sized platforms offered lower-quality products, compensating with large-scale contracts and corporate and government contacts. They positioned themselves ad bulk producers, neglecting individual buyers searching for a high quality product and experience.
The print and office services were limited geographically, with small profit margins determined by local pricing and demand.
The personalized gifts were diverse, starting with mugs and expanding to t-shirts, trophies, plaques, keychains, corporate-branded items, and more. These products ranged from printed and laminated to laser-engraved and cut items.
Lastly, he offered a variety of velvet map configurations, though selling almost exclusively two of them – “Business” and “Academica”. They were square and A4-sized, classic-looking and ideal for diplomas, official documents, and laser-engraved plaques. They came in navy blue and dark red velvet.
The brand needed to reflect a professional, yet approachable print shop. This meant the shop had to be updated with branded banners, labels and signage that maintained a connection to the existing audience while propagating the new identity.
Here, we aimed to target both the established audience, and a younger demographic who valued creativity and were looking for a personal touch in their relationships. The new brand had to be bold, modern, bright and creative.
This category required a more formal and professional tone, suitable for the more sober corporate, educational and cultural environments. The brand had to appeal to the older demographic, positioning itself as a reliable, serious service capable of handling official projects.
Based on our research, we needed to officially organize the products and services into the three emerging distinct categories, each targeting its specific audience. The overall brand had to unify these categories, offering flexibility for both the physical and online presence. It needed to honor the shop’s history, appeal to existing clients, and provide room for future growth and expansion.
Print and Personalization’ lacked identity and felt more like a descriptor. We explored several options, aiming for a name that conveyed beauty, sophistication, and the joy of giving. Early contenders included ‘Tiny’, symbolizing the contrast between the shop’s small space and its vast catalog, and ‘Zet’, referencing an A-to-Z selection.
Ultimately, we chose ‘Pavos’, inspired by the peacock (Pavo cristatus), a symbol of elegance and creativity. To maintain continuity, we retained ‘Print & Personalization’ as the tagline.
Having confirmed the new name, we then considered whether to mainly focus on a wordmark or on a logomark.
While a wordmark might have sufficed for a more utilitarian identity, the visual richness of a peacock offered a unique opportunity to create an eye-catching and memorable logomark. We were trying to portray joy and beauty, while also representing the 3 unconventional categories, so we decided on a more abstract and versatile style.
Yellow emerged as the ideal choice—bold, warm, and vibrant. It symbolizes happiness, enthusiasm, and friendship, aligning with the shop’s focus on thoughtful, joyful gift-giving. Yellow also stands out visually, ensuring a strong presence across all of the brand’s assets.
For an initial boost towards a larger audience, we’ve also planned for the roll out to include a social media ads campaign.
We aimed to focus on Facebook and Instagram, targeting 2 types of ads the personalized gifts and velvet maps audiences.
Our goals would be to present the products in a professional manner, in a boldly branded layout that will instantly become recognizable as the shop’s new identity.
From start to finish, we wanted each individual buyer’s experience to be carefully considered and improved by the new consistent, and friendly identity.
This meant that from the first point of contact to the new ‘Thank You’ card we planned on including, the experience needed to have the same voice and visuals.
Starting with the peacock concept, we explored two abstract logo options that aligned with the brand goals and allowed for flexibility across various applications.
The first concept mixed the “eye” shape found inside of a peacock’s feather with an abstract silhouette of the bird itself. The design was intended to evolve through animation, transitioning seamlessly from the peacock silhouette, to its feathers, to a close up of one of its feathers, and then to the eye of the feather which was the initial silhouette of the peacock. This would form a dynamic loop with a large creative potential within the brand.
The second concept, which was ultimately selected, used 3 intertwined ellipses to form a minimalist representation of a peacock, adding an abstract head and legs.
Beyond resembling a peacock, the 3 ellipses symbolize the store’s three main service categories. They also formed a Venn diagram, visually representing the overlap between print services, personalized gifts, and velvet maps. Lastly, the overall shape subtly resembled a gift bow, reinforcing the theme of thoughtful, premium products.
This design was more versatile, conceptually rich, and adaptable for a variety of branding needs. Through positioning, manipulation or animation, the logo could visually communicate those concepts to a casual audience, cementing the brand as confident, creative and approachable.
The logo was paired with the store’s name, enclosed in a creative frame, and featured the tagline beneath. To honor the store’s legacy, the logo prominently displayed the founding year in its primary version.
To reflect the bold and original aesthetic of the brand, we used a thick, wide font for the name, complemented by a clean, readable typeface for the tagline.
In order to improve clarity and distinguish the service categories, we’ve introduced three light shades of RGB colors – one for each category in the Venn diagram. These accent colors were used on the logo across physical and digital applications, improving the structure and audience recognition.
The simplicity of the three ellipses also enabled creative extensions of the brand, enriching it while remaining recognizable. These are a few examples of typographical and conceptual application to the overall logo shape; one variation focused on the store’s name, the other with the list of products from each category flowing along their respective ellipse, and the last representing the gift bow concept.
To capture pedestrian attention, Cristian installed a large TV screen in the store’s window, which provided a professional and eye-catching way to present his products to foot traffic.
For this, we’ve planned out and developed a looped animation system that seamlessly integrated brand assets with product presentations. Each cycle began and ended with the logo, reinforcing brand identity and providing continuous movement.
Our presentation layouts showcased his products and services from all 3 categories in a contextualized setting, creating polished and advertising visuals for the shop display.
Other deliverables included a branded packaging box, a custom paper bag, business cards, a thank you card, a logo signature version, and promotional items such as a keychain.
Aiming for an expanded audience, we created banners, posts and carousels that presented the most popular customized products and velvet maps. We designed the assets in a style meant to intrigue potential customers and drive higher click-rates.
We optimized the store’s Google Maps profile, cleaning up its presentation and including a small product catalog to better capture online search traffic.
Lastly, we uploaded a few of the products on the store’s Whatsapp profile as well.
The new brand was highly successful, with a 30% increase in foot traffic to the shop’s personalized gifts section, boosting the revenue from high-return items. Inquiries for customized gifts more than doubled, fueled by both word-of-mouth recommendations and passerby customers drawn to the professional and visually engaging storefront displays.
With its new online presence, the store gained its first online customers and established a clear, professional platform to attract potential corporate collaborations.
Looking ahead, we are scheduled to develop an online platform for Pavos. This will position the business to compete with the country’s top two platforms by offering innovative product models, cyclic discounts, and a cohesive, professional brand presence.
”Artquod Studio completely transformed our brand from an undistinguished print shop to a vibrant business with a bold, professional identity. Their extensive strategy work not only highlighted the creativity and diversity of our products – it clarified our purpose, streamlined our product lines and enabled us to exponentially scale into online and new market territories. Our rebranding was a huge success. Thanks to Artquod, the future has never looked brighter for PAVOS.
CristianPavos Owner
