Mrs Smart Money

Mrs Smart Money is the personal brand of mindful money coach, Kel Galavan. When Kel approached our brand design agency, she arrived needing support that elevated her brand image in line with her service offering.

The Results – we helped Mrs Smart Money:

Increase her online following by over 5k
Gain recognition from Irish national media
Become confident in her brand and reputation

Services

Brand Strategy, Brand Messaging, Brand Identity Design

Client

Kel Galavan

Year

2020

blonde haired woman in front of a grey door

The Challenge

A former excessive spender, founder Kel created Mrs Smart Money after she overcame her splurging habits using her unique financial system she devised. When she began sharing her story and system online, people took notice and her followers soon numbered 15k+.

With this public presence came a challenge for our brand design agency: we were tasked with helping to refresh Kel’s brand image and elevate it to new heights, whilst keeping true to her roots.

woman sitting on top of a ridge looking down at a beach and ocean

blonde woman standing in front of a door outdoors and five logos to the left side

blonde woman sitting on a grand chair and blond woman standing outdoors

family of five walking in countryside greenery and image of woman relaxing under a gazebo

Brand Strategy

Instead of just looking at a revamped logo and brand identity we took Kel through a brand strategy and messaging exercise. Due to budget constraints, we provided a strategy workbook for her to go over, step-by-step with our guidance.

This helped to clarify her target audience, what she wanted to offer, and how.

Together, we arrived at her purpose, ‘Spend Mindfully, Live On Life’. 

mustard background with large white text saying 'live on life'

company logos on different coloured backgrounds

stone background with five mathematical symbols in different colours

Brand Visual Identity

When exploring Mrs Smart Money’s brand identity, we wanted to create a flexible and useful toolkit of brand assets and examples. These assets could then be used on social media and on her newly designed website, which we also helped to create.

We recommended getting some personal brand photography taken which she did locally. This gave us something to work with and enhance. Our brand idea was to blend personal and practical advice based on mindful and mathematical spending.

We created the idea of ‘life formulas’ utilising the mathematical characters + / x = with imagery and shapes to create visual messages. We created a simple and bold logo, with the m’s aligning nicely. It can be used freely in different colours and placements. It was purposely made to contrast with the elegance of the serif brand font ‘Taviraj’.

woman stand with arms folded and looking at the camera and text beside that says 'superhero' pink background

grid of images including family, a woman, beach and home

magazine mock-up with image of a woman and her child on the beach and other woman

Brand guidelines and progression

Finally, we applied the branding to some example assets and provided high-level brand guidelines for Kel to be able to reference as she started to own the brand. In terms of the website, we used an off-the-shelf WordPress theme and adapted it for Mrs Smart Money.

grid of images including people, tea, homes, mountains and babies

“Are & Be helped me to revamp my website and develop my brand identity and messaging. I cannot recommend them enough. My eyes were opened to a whole world of the creative process. They listened fully and translated my passion and values into a new look and feel in such a well-thought-out way. Lifting it in ways that would never have occurred otherwise. The team is knowledgeable, professional and pays attention to the details and I would be delighted to work with Are & Be again should the opportunity present itself.”

Kel Galavan
Founder, Mrs Smart Money

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