Elm Leaf Studio, Essex (2026)

20/03/2024

Creating a memorable brand-experience through cohesive and compelling designs to connect and engage your customers.

Aligned brand identities, perfected packaging, greener websites, on brand touchpoints and compelling marketing for conscious, consumer-focussed, feel-good brands worth talking about.

Strategic design can help your business:
- stand out
- build recognition
- establish trust
- convey your values
- connect to your target audience

Head to elmleafstudio.com to find out about working together.

20/03/2024

Hey! I’m Kirsty McGill, one of those ‘creative types’.

I’m a designer and have been since graduating in 2010 (yikes!), I’ve worked as a designer in-house for a makeup company, a bed company and a retailer, agency for fashion e-commerce and at a marketing agency plus freelance work.

So my background is broad and commercial with a big focus on websites - embracing my geeky side! I’m as happy in Adobe design software as I am getting stuck into some code.

I’m also an artist/illustrator which is how I have come to love combining my design and illustration skills into unique brand identity design.

I’ve been working professionally for 12 years but technically my first creative commission was for a hand drawn card for the grand sum of £1 when I was in junior school and a teacher asked 😂. I happily sat in at breakdown to complete the masterpiece.

Ok the totally professional bit out of the way... I’m a mum to a toddler, a wife, a cat lady and we live in Essex.

When I have any free time I like to read, feel like I’m learning (oh all those purchased courses I’ll never have time for) and watch trashy reality TV. I’ve been known to pick up hobbies like crochet for awhile. Pre pregnancy I played roller derby for a few years and even attempted some ramp skating - maybe one day I’ll get back to it! I’m a huge fan or trying any new and unusual (vegan) snacks. Oh yes so I’m vegan - cue the “how do you know if someone is vegan” joke 😉

20/03/2024

If you have a product or service then it’s important to think about your website and marketing reflecting the experience of using your product or receiving your service.

This creates a consistent brand experience for people.

What’s the vibe people get when they come across you on social media or at fairs/markets, does your website convey that, what about your order confirmations or your email marketing?

And that’s not just the visuals either but your messaging and brand voice.

It’s about connecting all the dots, ideally.

My primary focus is brand and website design as I love thinking about the creative direction and get nerdy about building websites. But I feel that one of my strengths is the fact that have gained a broad and valuable experience from working in agencies and in-house for consumer-focussed brands requiring for a wide range of design needs. I believe this blend of specialisation and diverse expertise enables me to craft designs that are on brand, unique yet commercially-focussed. We can start with your brand identity and then website, and I can also work on packaging, print and marketing design requirements too with a ‘brand guardian’ mentality.

Do you know where the gaps are for someone getting a seamless brand experience? Looking for some design help and want to chat things through then get in touch via my website.

11/10/2023

On Monday a new website redesign was launched for the best, creative client ever! Ok, it’s me, it was me. 😂

The whole website for a fresh and modernised look after not being updated in design for about 4 years or so, which in web design circles does often mean it’s time for a redesign!!

But most importantly I relaunched my shop with a whole new range of illustrated products 🎉

It’s definitely something I will need to do more work on, but sometimes you just need to launch the thing even if it’s not ‘perfect’ 😉.

15/08/2023

Your website should work well at any size on any device (responsive design). Allowing your visitors to easily use your site even if they are on the go and on their phone!

Think mobile menus, columns that collapse down to one, fonts that scale accordingly and potentially hiding extraneous decorative elements.

So check how easy your website is to use on mobile and/or a tablet! Are buttons and clickable areas large enough, has text been scaled to fit, does your menu work, is it fast or slow, is it easy to still read? Tools like google can also help to check some of these things too and flag areas for improvement.

Ps. Want me to check cover your website in detail and your brand presence? Book a brand presence audit to get your website ready for Q4

14/08/2023

We are about half way through this month so if you have a Wordpress website then don’t forget to run updates for your website!

Just like your computer software your website needs to be kept up to date to be secure and operating at its best. On a WordPress website the core WordPress CMS (content management system), the theme and any plugins all need to be kept up to date.

If you use something like Squarespace or Shopify sometimes they release new versions of the platform or themes that you can update to, but it is a lot less regular than WordPress! Maybe take the opportunity to review if it’s been a long time 😊. You can also look if any content needs updating.

The good news for clients is that I offer WordPress Care Plans after a website build to keep their website supported and maintained. I won’t typically take on websites I haven’t built for care plans, but in some cases after an assessment and tune up, or if I’ve done some ad-hoc work on a website it might be an option.

09/08/2023

Got this lovely testimonial yesterday! We've worked together on an ad-hoc basis and so this feedback made me smile 🙂

"I highly recommend Elm Leaf Studios. Kirsty McGill is both competent and conscientious. Her work ethic is wonderful. She lets you know what she’s willing and able to achieve in a reasonable time frame and what would better be accomplished by another professional. I’ve enjoyed and continue to enjoy working with her."
- Elisa, Enlivening Consciousness

08/08/2023

Confession time, ok it’s not really much of a confession or secret… but I’m not great with consistency. I’ve said I was going to attempt 30 days of micro content and it’s honestly a miracle I’ve remembered as much as I have 😂.

I didn’t post at the weekend but it was pretty jam packed with early starts both days into outer london on Saturday and central london on Sunday! It was the first time my son has been on a proper train and gone to London plus got to see my family so was pretty cool 😎. It was also great to be there as I hadn’t been since before the pandemic!

I kind of feel done with Instagram too and I think I fight my wordy and introverted nature by trying to hang out here 🤔. So there we go, let’s see how I get on for the remainder of me trying to commit to it! Maybe I’m wrong but it sort of seems like increasingly more people are feeling like this too? Are you still loving Instagram or kind of done?

04/08/2023

If you have a product or service then it’s important to think about your website and marketing reflecting the experience of using your product or receiving your service.

This creates a consistent brand experience for people.

What's the vibe people get when they come across you on social media or at fairs/markets, does your website convey that, what about your order confirmations or your email marketing?

And that’s not just the visuals either but your messaging and brand voice.

It’s about connecting all the dots, ideally.

My primary focus is brand and website design as I love thinking about the creative direction and get nerdy about building websites. But I feel that one of my strengths is the fact that have gained a broad and valuable experience from working in agencies and in-house for consumer-focussed brands requiring for a wide range of design needs. I believe this blend of specialisation and diverse expertise enables me to craft designs that are on brand, unique yet commercially-focussed. We can start with your brand identity and then website, and I can also work on packaging, print and marketing design requirements too with a ‘brand guardian’ mentality.

Do you know where the gaps are for someone getting a seamless brand experience? Looking for some design help and want to chat things through then get in touch via my website.

03/08/2023

🫣 If you just have one version of your logo then you might be missing out on some benefits of a full logo suite!

I prefer supplying variations of a logo so that it can be used across different applications. An icon or brand mark could be used as a favicon or watermark, it might also work well to create a brand pattern.

A word mark version could be used in your footer of your website or the reverse on print design. Your stacked or alternate version might be a better fit for your website etc.

It gives you the flexibility to use what will work best for the format.

31/07/2023

Many businesses can benefit from showing rather than just telling the transformation that you offer your customers/clients. This might look like before & afters, user generated content or reviews/testimonials for example.

You can just ask of course, shortly after ‘purchase’ can work quite well when the food will is there but also worth following up. Don’t hassle obviously! Another idea can be to encourage or incentivise maybe you could run a competition, offer a discount code or just say you’ll share to your grid/stories. (Google reviews and other review platforms do not allow you to reward reviews!)

Graphics for social media is perfect for sharing these however your website should have reviews as text based for the most part for accessibility, responsiveness and probably a bit of seo - of course some genuine screenshots can be really powerful to share too.

If this is an area you know you need to work on is running a £6 😮 workshop all about social proof TOMORROW!

And if you’d like some help with getting it sorted on your website or some social media templates that let others do the talking then let’s chat 😉

30/07/2023

I don’t know about you but if I can book online, fill in a form or find information out online then that is what I am going to be doing rather than giving a business a call!

As someone that has struggled with social anxiety sometimes making a phone call has felt very uncomfortable! But even now as i@ quite introverted sometimes I’d just rather not 😬

How can you meet the needs of your potential customers/clients?

Elm Leaf Studio

20/03/2024

20/03/2024

20/03/2024

11/10/2023

15/08/2023

14/08/2023

09/08/2023

08/08/2023

04/08/2023

03/08/2023

31/07/2023

30/07/2023

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