So it’s a new decade – and a doubly new decade in my quarters. 2020 marks 10 years since I became a full-time family photographer (wait, what!?)
I actually thought I’d missed it as I’d started photographing a couple of years before that while still in my day job, but LinkedIn doesn’t lie, and it’s now 10 years and 1 month since Antonina Mamzenko Photography came to be.
So it seems appropriate that I’m starting this new chapter with a brand new sparkling brand.
This project has been a year in the making (because that’s what happens when you run a business and do the mum thing and home education thing at the same time) but I’m so pleased with the result!
I thought I’d give you a little insight into how it all came to be.
As I was nearing a ten-year mark (officially, a couple of years longer unofficially) as a family photographer I felt I was ready for a change. Up until now I’d pretty much hacked and boot-strapped my way through my visual identity (having written my master’s dissertation on branding, and with a background in marketing I got on reasonably well).
But I felt like I finally was confident in my identity as an artist and what I wanted to say, so I was keen to do it properly and with the help of professionals this time around.
I knew that a huge part of a successful design is a successful brief, and although I had a pretty good idea where I wanted to go with it, I felt like I was too close to it and needed an outside perspective from someone with experience working with creative brands like mine.
Through The Inspiration Space, I met Clare from Opal & Co, who is a brilliant brand consultant and a brand writer. We met over coffee, we chatted, and I instantly knew she would be the perfect person for the job. And she was. She was able to listen to my jumbled ideas, and spot all the things that make me and my brand unique and succinctly put them together into a brand blueprint.
She also came with my new tagline, “Joyful messy adventures”, which is exactly what family life is all about (according to me, anyway!)
My graphic designer Helen from Mum Folk is also The Inspiration Space connection. She took the foundation that Clare provided, some more of my jumbled thoughts, and her first-hand experience of a family photoshoot with me, and turned it into a brilliant visual identity that I feel underpins everything that my brand is about.
I hope you like my new visual identity as much as I do! I have lots of exciting plans for this new year of the new decade – and beyond, and I hope you join me for a ride.