Case Study
Sarah Stremming
The Cog Dog Coach
Sarah Stremming, founder of The Cognitive Canine, Cog Dog Radio, and now The Cog Dog Coach has been walking dogs and their people into wellness since 2012.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with Sarah twice – on a full branding package and site design for The Cognitive Canine and then again when she rebranded as The Cog Dog Coach for Sarahstremming.com.
01.
Logo Design
We began the project by working on her logo. There are a few components I immediately knew I wanted to play with. Because of her business name, there was the visual imagery of a cog, and that of a brain or head — add in that Sarah is well known for her advocacy of taking dogs off leash hiking (decompression walks) and that gave me 3 ideas to play with from the start.
Sarah and I also chatted about incorporating her own dogs into the logo in some way, and so I also pulled images of them to play with.
I presented her with a number of options to choose from, and then we iterated on further from there, until we felt we had something that embodied her brand and her business perfectly.
Early Designs
The final logo is a custom, hand-drawn representation of her border collie Felix. It incorporates the cog icon in the background, and together the two silhouettes create the feel of a sun setting behind forested mountains, giving it that outdoors hiking feel I was trying to include in the logo, even without including either of those images directly.
We created a few different color versions, and I presented her with the final images in several formats (.ai, .png, .jpg) and colors (all black, all white, and then the colored version shown here).
Original Brand Design
2024 refresh
In 2024, when Sarah decided to do a brand refresh she reached back out.
She’d decided to rebrand from The Cognitive Canine to using her own name more prominently as The Cog Dog Coach, a name that better aligned with her popular podcast. As part of the refresh we updated the logo and then began a website redesign.
02.
The Old Website
Sarah knew her old site had served her well, but she also knew she was limited by her own technical skills when creating it and was excited to have something she would love moving forward.
Before – Sarah’s website in 2018
The original redesign
03
Redesigning TheCognitiveCanine.com
When we worked with Sarah the first time on redesigning TheCognitiveCanine.com we identified key branding elements she knew were important to her to create the right first impression.
The website used a soothing color palette and wood and paper texture backgrounds to create a warm, welcoming feel without compromising on style.
An Update and rebrand for 2024
04
Rebranding again as Sarah Stremming, the Cog Dog Coach
In 2024, Sarah decided to transition from The Cognitive Canine name to working under her own name as The Cog Dog Coach and reached back out again to have us update the website accordingly.
The same general branding concepts held true — she was still looking for a soothing color palette and a textured design that would create a warm and welcoming feel. However, she was also looking for a more modern, updated look focused on driving visitors to her new service offerings.
We completely overhauled the site design with a focus on educating site visitors about Sarah’s new membership program, including a detailed page about the membership itself. We also utilized design psychology to draw the viewers eye to her most important offerings.
The homepage now feaured a specific call out for the podcast, one of the most common ways her audience gets to know her, followed by a break out of options for those who are interested in working with her. At the bottom of the page we included an opportunity for visitors to join her newsletter and receive a free copy of her guide on the Life Changing Magic of Decompression Walks.
The project included custom training videos for Sarah and her team, should they need to update the site themselves, however Sarah opted to join our maintenance program so now we handle keeping her site up-to-date for her, so she can focus on the bigger picture: helping dogs and their handlers find harmony, and walking them into wellness together.
Testimonial
“For years I fumbled along designing my own websites for my business. They were clunky, ugly, and a huge pain for me. Enter Melissa. She did the hard parts, she has a keen eye for design, and we were able to match our visions to create a site I love. I can’t recommend her enough!”
Portfolio
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