A little more than a month ago, I applied for a crowdfunding loan in order to get the funding to rebrand as a step to getting into stores. We raised $5,000 in record time! (Thank you, I'm still taken aback by the kindness of you all!)
Let me explain a little bit about Top Shelf Cookies logo. In 2011, all I knew about Top Shelf Cookies is that I wanted it to exist. I wanted a different life than I had. I thought cookies might be the answer. There was no market research. I didn't have a font or pms colors. I just had a wish. I worked with an artist friend of my sisters and we put it together. All I knew was that Top Shelf Cookies, it wasn't going to be a hearts & flowers kind of bakery. No pastels, no cutesy stuff. That logo, it was for me. It put a face to my wish. It made me motivated to make it more than a wish.
I started Top Shelf Cookies with a small amount of money (mostly borrowed) to find out if cookies would lead me to a new life. So the logo stayed. When I got the first business cards and labels, Top Shelf Cookies seemed more real to me.
So, now we are a year and a half into this thing...and it's time to grow the business. I had to move on to a cleaner look. I bake cookies, I'm not a designer. I went to school for marketing, but it's not my specialty as that was 20 years ago. I have great marketing resources, so I've been able to get by.
Picking a designer was easy for me. Kris DeVoe had come to CommonWealth Kitchen to speak at a marketing symposium that was held for the food entrepreneurs at our kitchen. I like to try to utilize anyone who is kind with their time to our kitchen. We are all small businesses trying to compete and need all the help we can get, so I try to utilize people that are generous with their time for me and my kitchen buddies.
When I sat with Kris, she listened to what I knew about Top Shelf Cookies and what I wanted it to be. She quickly returned with options for a new logo. All of them were great, but to have a choice was amazing. She chose the colors from Hazel's Chocolate Chip cookie on an instagram photo. For me, that's sentimental. The first cookie I ever baked was a chocolate chip with my grandmother Hazel, so it's special to me. Everything Kris did, felt like a perfect fit. I couldn't have been more thrilled.
I have a great big sign up in my office that is the old logo - because it'll always remind me of bringing a little wish to life.