Bella del Mar
When we began working with the owners of Bella del Mar, they had secured a lease on a beautiful modern property in Corona del Mar, California, a popular beach town with heavy foot traffic. The unique characteristics and personality of this beautiful seaside community became the inspiration and launching point for our brand development work with them.INDUSTRY
- FASHION
SERVICES
- BRAND DEVELOPMENT
- PACKAGING
- PHOTOGRAPHY
- SOCIAL MEDIA & PR
- SPACE DESIGN
Brand Development: Naming & Positioning
Our work began with brand name development, with two distinct brand positionings and a broad naming exploration with themes ranging from beach-inspired to high fashion references. Plays on words made the names ownable and unique, and gave the naming options a clever twist. The selected name, Bella del Mar, incorporated the Corona del Mar name with a multi-language twist, and captured the unique and beautiful feeling of the beach town.
Identity: Logo & Hangtag Design
The identity for Bella del Mar had to embody the upscale California casual feel of the products in the store and the beachside community while being legible from a distance on store signage and collateral. With these parameters, our exploration centered around proprietary wordmarks and simple, clever icons. The final identity was a clean, modern monogram that combined the letterforms in the Bella del Mar name with a nautical wheel symbol, paired with a simple and sophisticated type treatment.
Space: Store Design Concepts
The store design concepts for Bella del Mar took mirrored the brand positioning options with two distinct directions, inspired by the beach, fashion, and modern design inspiration. Our first presentation included floor plan and store layout options, and proposed solutions for ceiling treatments, flooring, lighting, furnishings, front window displays, clothing displays, and accessories.
Space: Final Store Design
Since the building architecture was already clean and sophisticated, our priority was to make sure the brand name popped with dimensional logo signage. A custom window display inspired by ocean bubbles was designed to serve as a design element both inside and outside the store, while bringing color and visual interest to the space. Furnishings were a balance of modern and rustic, mixing elements such as wrought iron, natural woods, and metallics. Nautical touches were included in accessories and wallpapers throughout the space.
Packaging: Store Packaging
To reinforce the premium quality of the products, Bella del Mar wanted a unique packaging system to make each purchase memorable to the customer. Our solution was a unique combinationof custom and stock materials that balanced upscale quality and the rustic, casual feel of the store.
Social Media & PR: Integrated Social Campaign
Bella del Mar couldn’t rely on foot traffic alone to let locals know about their new store. Our social campaign started with teasers about the opening, and evolved into sophisticated fashion-centric content such as custom editorials, celebrity looks, fashion quotes, and store brand features. Connecting with the local community was also key – our press strategy was highly localized, encompassing traditional and digital outreach to publications in the OC area. We created and distributed branded releases to selected outlets and landed Bella del Mar into leading publications within the first week of the store’s opening. We also created custom press photos of the to make coverage simple for editors and coordinated a store ribbon cutting ceremony and press event to secure additional coverage for the grand opening.
