Branding as an expression of art

The closing of the beloved Mary Engelbreit magazine, Home Companion, created a hole that needed to be filled for Mary’s many loyal fans. The challenge with the Mary Engelbreit website was to use the site as an opportunity to invigorate the brand and foster a deeper connection between Mary and the people who love her.

Another challenge was finding a way to organize and communicate the breadth of content and still provide an effortless and compelling user experience. Mary’s enormous portfolio of art, store products, workshops and crafts all needed a place to live on the site; every one of these items had to be successfully placed and categorized.

Through post-launch search and social media efforts, we were able to generate traffic to the site and to Mary’s blog; Mary now gets 70 to 100 comments on each blog post. And, even with a very humble initial search effort, the site traffic doubled within a few months of its launch.