Conservatory Cat Café

This collection of projects for a made-up cat café called Conservatory Cat Café started out as a major project for my branding class, during my first quarter at Centre for Arts and Technology. Since then, it has evolved to display a range of my design capabilities, including my print design and my web design abilities. I've redesigned and added onto the original project over the course of my enrollment, making it into what you see now.

My Initial Design

Freshly introduced to Adobe Illustrator and with a basic knowledge on design principles, my original Conservatory designs display the personality of my style, utilizing bright colours and a frequent use of shapes.

The logo was made with a lot of considerations. I incorportated a circle surrounding the symbolmark, not only as the cat's tail but to symbolize the safe housing provided to the cats at the business. The leaves are a motif that occur throughout the branding, and tie into the name "conservatory", which is a greenhouse. The font also mimics the symbolmark, having round letters and rounded endcaps.

Original brochure for Conservatory Cat Café.
Redesigned Conservatory Cat Café brochure

Redesigning

When the time came for me to create a portfolio book, I decided I wanted to give the Conservatory Cat Café branding an update. Having gained a lot of design-related knowledge since my first term of college, I had a better grasp on the programs, and how to better lay things out.

I used some of the same motifs as the original designs, but removed the parts that seemed a bit cheesy, like the vector brush strokes. The new design used much more white space so it was easier on the eyes. Additionally, textures are used to make it feel more natural and earthy, creating visual interest.

Adding on a Website

While learning Wordpress, I decided I wanted to add on to the Conservatory's repetoire with a website. The layout of this site pushed the boundaries of web designs I had done previously. I attempted to create unique section separations, and edit images to have softer edges, to keep the design from appearing too boxy. The occasional vine and paw print floating over the images also makes the site appear to have some depth to it.

The website has a custom post type to easily post new cat residents and include information on their name, gender, age, and a bio. There's also a functioning contact form so that you can choose which cat(s) you want to meet during an appointment. Also, the blog has been custom styled to match the Conservatory branding.

Website design for the Conservatory Cat Café.

The Final Product

Here is the result of nearly two years of building my skills as a graphic and web designer put towards the Conservatory Cat Café.

View the Site