Every designer dreams of leading a brand redesign from the ground up; naming, logo, identity, the full creation of something new. For me, The Framery was that dream realized. It remains one of the highlights of my career: the rare opportunity to shape a brand from blank slate to living, breathing identity.
The journey began with the name. For months, we gathered at the table with leadership, strategists, and creatives, exploring countless ideas. We debated, refined, and circled back, always asking: what name captures the essence of a bold, style-forward eyewear brand while honoring its roots in craft and clarity? After exhaustive exploration, The Framery emerged, the perfect balance of art and precision, a name that both celebrates the product and elevates it to something aspirational.
As Design Director, I was then tasked with leading the rebrand of Liingo Eyewear into what would become The Framery, a bold new glasses brand under the 1-800 Contacts umbrella. The challenge was twofold: create a distinct brand identity while ensuring alignment with the broader 1-800 Contacts design system.
We began with a collaborative brand workshop and a series of mood boards, exploring emotional tone, aesthetic direction, and personality. From modern and refined to playful and expressive, we tested the edges of possibility, ultimately shaping a brand voice and visual system that would resonate with our digitally native, style-conscious audience.
This was not just a design project, it was a complete act of brand creation:
Name creation: months of iteration, workshops, and strategic refinement
Logo creation: a mark that captures clarity, style, and craftsmanship
Visual identity: typography, color, and photography systems to scale across channels. To create brand synergy, we intentionally reused the 1-800 Contacts color palette and typeface, so users moving between 1-800 Contacts and The Framery would immediately recognize they were part of the same trusted company.
Brand guidelines: a playbook to ensure consistency across digital, retail, and campaign touchpoints.
Click here to explore the Brand Guidelines in greater detail, or here to view the Photography Branding of The Framery
Leading this rebrand was equal parts strategy and artistry, one of the most energizing and rewarding chapters of my career.
The process began with competitive research, diving deep into the branding strategies of both eyeglasses companies and other consumer brands within the vision care space. We analyzed everything from typography and color systems to tone of voice and packaging. From there, each designer on the team created their own mood boards, gathering inspiration from fashion, editorial design, and lifestyle brands. This individual exploration created a rich starting point for conversation. When we brought our boards together, it was clear we were aligned on a brand that was elevated, confident, and had a point of view.
The two incredible graphic designers who worked on these logos were Sam and Sid.
With a clear creative direction in place, I led two of my graphic designers through a rigorous exploration phase. They began sketching early concepts and refining multiple logo directions, experimenting with a variety of typefaces, iconography, and lockups. Some logos leaned into the artisanal, heritage-inspired lens of eyewear craftsmanship, while others pushed toward minimalist and contemporary elegance. We tested each direction against a brand personality matrix and refined it based on visual clarity, versatility, and long-term equity. We also explored designing our own custom letterforms, inspired by frame shapes and subtle optical references.
Gaining alignment from stakeholders was one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of the process. Over the course of four months, I led ongoing presentations and design reviews with executive leadership, marketing heads, and cross-functional partners. Every iteration required thoughtful storytelling to articulate the 'why' behind each decision, and I made it a priority to bring stakeholders along on the journey, not just show them the outcome. Earning final sign-off was a huge milestone and a testament to the rigor, vision, and collaboration it took to reimagine a brand from the ground up. It was a masterclass in brand design leadership, and one of the projects I’m most proud of in my career.
The final phase of the branding process was about testing real-world application. We mocked up everything from storefront signage to box packaging, digital ads, and email templates, ensuring that the logo held its strength at every scale and in every format. We considered tactile materials, embossing, and foil applications for packaging, as well as animation treatments for digital. This was more than just a logo; it was the foundation for a full visual language and a brand that could flex across environments and evolve with the customer. The result is a fresh, elevated identity that feels timeless, confident, and unmistakably The Framery.
Once we landed on a final logo and visual direction, I led the rollout across all branded touchpoints, ensuring consistency, elegance, and brand recognition at every stage of the customer journey. This included reimagining our promotional and packaging ecosystem, from tactile elements to transactional materials.
We redesigned the lens cloth, glasses case, and our signature in-home try-on kit, which features four curated frames for customers to experience at home. Every detail, from the unboxing flow to the tactile quality of materials, was considered through the lens of brand storytelling. We also developed new packaging for both our prescription glasses and the try-on experience, refining the balance between form and function.
Beyond physical assets, we created a new branded insert that was included in every 1-800 Contacts shipment, a key education moment introducing The Framery to millions of customers. Even the receipt was redesigned to reflect the brand’s tone and visual identity, reinforcing our commitment to a cohesive and premium experience from start to finish.
