Creating Your Western Identity
California native Kate Biaggi grew up surrounded by animals and a deep love for the Western lifestyle. She discovered a passion for graphic design in high school, and after graduation, began editing photos and designing Western boutique logos to generate some extra income. When she started moving to different ranches across the West, Western Identity was born. Although she enjoyed bringing businesses’ visions to life, she couldn’t help but wonder if there were something she could design that would be more permanent.
Kate Biaggi. Photo by @oneshotshae
“It took me around two years of continuing to make logos to have the idea of offering livestock brands and then completely switching my business from more complex logos to just livestock brands,” Biaggi says.
The brand creation process is a very detailed, collaborative effort between Biaggi and her clients. To build a solid foundation, she asks for letters, numbers or symbols they may be interested in incorporating into their new brand and any backstory they feel might be helpful during the creation process. This could include historical aspects, a land feature on the ranch, a foundational horse they’d like to pay tribute to, any family nicknames, or something else specific to the client, their family or business. From there, she hand-draws different options to send back for notes and critiques.
“We get really creative, and it’s just so fun trying to make something so detailed,” Biaggi says. “In total, I offer 20 sketches for one of my brand design packages. I send them about five sketches at a time, and they’ll give me feedback on them, tell me what they like and tell me what they don’t. Throughout the 20, I’m just trying to really hone in on their style and what they want to see.”
Western Identity, custom livestock brand company. Photo by @oneshotshae
Not only does Biaggi offer custom brands and brand digitizations, but she also recently created her “brand alphabet,” a custom font accessible to anyone.
“I created a brand alphabet for Tatum Snyder with Dandy Designs because she was offering kitchenware with brands on it. So, if people had a last name that started with an “l,” she could just offer you kitchenware with an “l” brand on it,” Biaggi explains. “You wouldn’t necessarily need your own custom brand for it to still fit your family. She then gave me permission to make my own because I loved that idea. I didn’t want to offer it exclusively; I wanted multiple people to be able to use it, so I decided to make it into a font so people could just type it.”
More than nine years in graphic design and hundreds of custom brands later, being able to hear each client’s story and bring their vision to life continues to bring Biaggi immense joy in her work.
“I discovered I loved working with the ranch moms, the farm wives, the small-town entrepreneurs, and other unique families, businesses and individuals within our Western-based industries,” Biaggi says. “It’s really cool to see all the first-generation ranchers and farmers and cowboys and cowgirls who are coming to me because they’ve never had a brand passed down to them. They must do it all by themselves, so I really like to see how we can make their brand unique to them and their story to represent that.
“It’s always fun just to find something that my client can connect to in their brand because everybody else looking at it would have no idea what it represents, but they do,” she continues. “That’s why it’s so special to them, and that’s why they chose that one as their brand instead of the millions of other designs they could have chosen. I’ve met awesome clients just doing this work. Everybody feels like a friend, and that’s great.”
Follow Kate on Instagram (@westernidentity and @thewesternidentity) and order a custom brand of your own at thewesternidentity.com!
The post Creating Your Western Identity appeared first on Western Horseman.