Beyond Zen

CREATIVE CHALLENGE: How does a designer quickly and accurately communicate the supporting and spiritual nature of a boutique studio that offers a variety of fitness options?

THE CLIENT: Beyond Zen, in Granger, Indiana, offers pilates, yoga and fitness classes along with many massage options in a spiritual, supportive, loving and spa-like atmosphere.

THE ASSIGNMENT: Owner Bridgette Clark came seeking help with the website, desiring a site that interacted with industry-standard MindBody software, yet enabled staff to edit content.

DESIGN OBSTACLES: I helped Bridgette see the value of an editable and responsive website. Additionally, I convinced her that her business needed consistent branding through type, image, and color. Before working with me, they were using several different brandmarks and yoga clipart.

CREATIVE RESULT: After hours of research on the competition, word clouds and sketching I landed on a beautiful brand signature that communicated what Beyond Zen represented. The brandmark is a cute, asexual figure in motion forming the boat position, which is iconic in both yoga and pilates. Additionally, the brandmark merges the letter B (for Beyond and Bridgette) with a heart to support the loving nature Beyond Zen wanted to create. I crafted the logotype to match the cuts and shapes found in the brandmark. The colors were selected to inspire relaxation and match the studio color scheme.

For the website, rather than a textual list of courses, I chose to visually represent each class with a picture so users that were unfamiliar with everything Beyond Zen offers. I also integrated MindBody software so that any changes they made in MindBody would automatically push to their website.