Sunhouse Craft is rewriting the narrative on mundane everyday tasks, making beautiful, functional tools with a hyper-local supply chain and robust sustainability model. With a keen eye and a hand for craft, we refocused their brand and communications to suit their unique voice in modern Appalachia.

Existing brand elements were retained and expanded upon, giving variety and a fresh perspective across applications. With just a bit of structure, scale, and color variation, their visual language is now decidedly modern, yet rooted in tradition.

Local, local, local. Just like the products that we photographed, everything used to stage was sourced as nearby as possible. From the fig jam to the radishes, even the hand models were just a stone’s throw away.

With the help of natural lighting, fresh foods, and vintage textiles, photography highlights the warmth and character of not only the products, but also the people who made them.

Second to the digital storefront, the core purpose of the website is to share their constant search for locally produced, sustainable raw materials and the care that’s infused in every facet of their business. They hope to pass it on.

In addition to the website and digital marketing materials, the new visual language was applied to custom packing materials, a booklet, and various printed ephemera.

Sunhouse Craft

While synthetic household materials dominate the marketplace, they are designed for short term use and perpetuate a wasteful cycle of long-term consumption. Driven to make ‘everyday magic,’ the makers behind Sunhouse Craft strive to create beautiful artisan products to elevate mundane activities, like washing dishes or sweeping. Looking beyond the utilitarian beauty of their Appalachian-inspired goods, the larger focus is to bring awareness to the belief that the tools we use can reconnect people to their roots and create enduring memories centered around daily tasks that are too often overlooked.

Our designers immersed themselves in the culture and values of this woman-owned business by traveling from Chicago to Berea, Kentucky to refresh the Sunhouse Craft brand. Our team followed the owners to the hills of Kentucky where fallen timber is collected for broom handles and carving. Later, we trekked to Louisville, Kentucky to visit the saw mill that sources lumber milled from trees cut by the local power company, putting to use gorgeous, uniquely-grained wood that would normally be destined for the chipper. After our immersion, we completed a full analysis of the audiences, product sales, and partners of Sunhouse Craft, to implement a marketing strategy, curate product photography, and redesign their website.

Our implemented marketing strategy helped feature their values and process by curating a monthly and yearly content calendar that keeps the business’s social media presence updated. We ensured that their branding still catered to all who share an appreciation for natural, sustainable products by intentionally branding their website with neutral, warm colors.

In redesigning their website, a logo and typeface selection were already in place and working well when we were introduced. We expanded upon their color palette and brought a fresh perspective to the application of those existing brand elements, adding a bit of structure and variation to the existing layouts. These were applied to boxes, cards, and custom packing materials for broom making kits in which this local crop is the star of the show.

In addition to reinvigorating their online presence, we helped diversify the scope of their content to include product care and function, classes and kits to engage their clientele, and assisted in the curation of seasonal updates for their storefront. We designed signage applied to the display windows on the first floor, along with pin-mounted building signage above the entry. The display area went through iterations that best identified the business name and provided a visually welcoming space.

We also aided in updating Sunhouse Craft’s product photography and creating short videos featuring their process. The new standard for photography, highlights the warmth of the natural materials in their products. By using local food, native plants and other various handmade objects we were able to place the products in a context that truly spoke the sunhouse craft language.