Crafting a Unique Brand Identity

MY MISSION

“I didn't start this business to sell earrings. I started it because I believe women deserve to feel seen — in their creativity, in their bodies, in their joy. The earrings are just how I say it out loud.

That's my brand identity. Everything else — the colors, the fonts, the packaging — is just trying to look like that sentence feels."

What My Brand Actually Is (Hint: It's Not My Logo)

I spent a lot of time in the early days of Anam Cara Clay Goods trying to build a brand. I researched color palettes. I agonized over fonts. I made a mood board that I was genuinely proud of. And then I set up my first market table and a woman walked up, ran her fingers along the spine of one of my vintage books, and said, "This feels like my grandmother's house."

That's when I understood what my brand actually was.

It wasn't the logo. It wasn't the color palette. It was the feeling.

Creating the Invitation

I'd started bringing old books and antique cameras to my market displays almost by accident — they were just things I loved, things that felt like home to me. But customers kept commenting on them. Not on the jewelry, at first. On the table. On the smell of old paper and the chipped paint on a little antique jewelry box. People would stop, slow down, touch things. And in that slowing down, they'd start talking. About their grandmother. About a book they loved. About something that mattered to them.

I realized the display wasn't decoration. It was an invitation.

That's the thing about brand identity that no one tells you at the start: it's not what you design, it's what you mean to people. And you don't always know what you mean to people until you watch them stand at your table and exhale like they've found something they weren't looking for.

The visual stuff matters — I'm not going to pretend it doesn't. A consistent look, colors that feel cohesive, photos that are clear and well-lit. That's real and it's worth doing. But it's in service of something deeper. For me, that something is belonging. The feeling that you showed up somewhere and you're welcome. That there's a place for you here.

Home is Where the heart…I mean jewelry is.

So now when I make decisions about how Anam Cara Clay Goods looks and feels — what I post, how I package an order, what I say in a newsletter — I come back to that question. Does this feel like home?

That's why every order ships with a little jewelry pouch and a care card with a discount for the shop. Not because it's a smart marketing move, although I think it is. Because it's the extra thing. The thing you didn't expect. The equivalent of someone handing you a cup of tea when you just came in from the cold.

Your brand is the sum of every small decision you make about how you show up. The ones people notice and the ones they don't — but feel anyway.

It’s a work in progress.

Mine is still becoming what it wants to be. I'm still learning what Anam Cara Clay Goods means to the people who love it. But I know it starts with a feeling. And I know that feeling has less to do with fonts and more to do with the smell of old books.

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