Delivering a Brand and Marketing Sprint for a High-Growth Health and Wellness Startup

In collaboration with the founders of Whole Harmony, our first task was to get the brand ready for the NY Now trade show. After an upfront working session with the founders, we did a deep-dive into the Whole Harmony brand, learning about their dedication to plant medicine, their passion for herbal tonics and remedies, and their superior products that had immense effects on the people who used them. All of this inspired our creation of a fully branded trade show experience, complete with innovative data capture via digital tablet, immersive digital content experiences, and an automated post-show email drip campaign.

The next step in our engagement was jumping into a brand sprint for Whole Harmony’s physical retail store, “Tonic.” Though attached to the Whole Harmony brand, this required our team to consider how to differentiate Tonic from its parent brand while also paying homage to it. What we ended up creating was a fresh, modern, and sleek visual identity that speaks to the plant-based inspiration of Tonic and Whole Harmony. Pairing the glyph of the hibiscus flower—which is a huge brand inspiration due to its healing properties—with the Tonic wordmark also gives the brand design flexibility and options to use one or the other (or both together) depending on the execution.

In laying the ground-work for the Tonic brand, we had to move fast. This part of the process was a real sprint, and logo, color, typography, and marketing collateral were all accomplished in under a week. The end result was a brand board we created for Tonic’s team, designed to help them create marketing materials and branded messaging on the fly. In fact, this is something that any high-growth startup with a small team needs in order to be successful. The brand communications are endless, and part of the challenge in securing your place in consumers’ hearts and minds as a reputable brand is consistency. This Tonic brand board provided a means for Whole Harmony’s team to maintain consistency in their look and feel, enabling them to improve awareness and stay relevant long after the grand opening of their store.

In preparation for Tonic’s grand opening, we quickly wireframed, designed, and developed a visually immersive and user-friendly digital experience. The key here was to ensure that the website visually reflected Tonic’s elevated brand while still maintaining accessibility and functionality that kept users feeling good throughout their time on the site. From a design standpoint, by pairing blacks, grays, and the red that represents the hibiscus flower with the emotive photography of Monique Sourinho, we successfully delivered an experience that spoke to the energy and emotion of the Tonic brand.