American Express OPEN Forum: Powering Small Business Success

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WOMAN
American Express Open is empowering business owners. Follow our new mini-series as we pair different small businesses, each with their own experienced branding agency, who is also a small business. Previously on Project RE-Brand, small business owners Iris and Elliot Schreier from ArtYarns, met with Dominic and Lesley from Officelab, a New York City-based branding agency. In their first meeting, Dominic and Lesley discovered that although ArtYarns hand-painted yarns represented quality, luxury and value, their branding didn’t do their product justice. After several intense weeks of submersion into the world of knitting, Dominic and Lesley are ready to present a range of directions and concepts to ArtYarns.
DOMINIC SINESIO
What we want to do today is show you the summation of the positioning work that we’ve been back and forth on, talk about some core values that ArtYarns embodies. And then show some logo directions and the design. The process this last month has been about understanding the brand really. Really knowing what the differentiation from other yarns is and understanding their positioning and their core values. Iris Schreier loves to knit. Her vision, her expertise, her art began to demand something more from her medium. And that medium didn’t exist.
IRIS SCHREIER
Fantastic. (Laughs)
ELLIOT SCHREIER
They have a good way of honing in on certain characteristics, I mean the whole notion of touch and … and … and getting right to the point of who we are and what we do and what we produce is … is really, you know, very, very interesting to watch how they do it.
IRIS SCHREIER
And also give us the why of (Overlap)
ELLIOT SCHREIER
Uh-hm.
IRIS SCHREIER
… why we exist and to elevate the art of knitting. And it’s really (Overlap)
ELLIOT SCHREIER
Uh-hm.
IRIS SCHREIER
… important.
DOMINIC SINESIO
For the discerning, uncompromising knitter ArtYarns is the premiere innovator of luxury yarns tailored made to elevate the experience of knits and the art of knitting. So I’ll start with … romantic. Classic. Opulent. And then we have, lastly, understated. Uniform strokes, quiet efficiency, subtle metaphor. This direction says as much about what isn’t there as … as what is.
ELLIOT SCHREIER
These look like a … like an elegant … already like an elegant magazine ad (Overlap)
DOMINIC SINESIO
Yeah.
ELLIOT SCHREIER
… like you’d see in, you know, “New York” or “The New Yorker” or something (Overlap)
IRIS SCHREIER
I really like this one. I see our brand a little bit differently now that they’ve presented me with the language to use to describe it. I think instinctively I’ve always thought these things about ArtYarns but perhaps I never had the tools to actually communicate them properly.
ELLIOT SCHREIER
I think the stuff in this looks great. I think, um, you’ve captured so much in like just a couple of strokes a couple of letters. Just great. The Don Draper of our time.
(LAUGHTER)
DOMINIC SINESIO
The logo development, the new tag design and the advertising will make a difference for ArtYarns.
IRIS SCHREIER
I really … I really like this approach. It’s just … it resonates for me and I like the simplicity.
ELLIOT SCHREIER
Well, how do you … normally with the process, do you let the client like live with this for a while?
LESLEY MAIA HOROWITZ
Uh-hm.
DOMINIC SINESIO
Yeah. (Inaudible) (Overlap)
LESLEY MAIA HOROWITZ
You guys need to sit with us and he’ll come back to it.
IRIS SCHREIER
Right.
LESLEY MAIA HOROWITZ
You take it home.
ELLIOT SCHREIER
Yeah.
LESLEY MAIA HOROWITZ
He’ll get it up to dinner. (LAUGHTER)
ELLIOT SCHREIER
My only apprehension is that given our somewhat tight time constraints, so we have a lot to do in a short amount of time, especially of time especially Officelab. So I’m hoping we get a lot of stuff done in the next short few weeks.
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WOMAN
Next time we discover if Officelab can take ArtYarns’ preferred direction and complete the rebrand. Or is the time pressure too great for Lesley and Dominic?
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