A Mingled Yarn Advertising and Promotional Graphics Design

Elsie the cat napping in the yarn was a highly effective ad in Interweave magazine.

A Mingled Yarn was a high-quality yarn shop that wanted to capture a whimsical, late-19th Century feel while evoking the warmth and texture of hand-made fiber arts. Using the concept of “mingled yarns”, a number of advertisements and marketing materials were created.

A Trade Magazine Ad

Even though this was labeled the spring issue, it hit the stands when winter snow is at its height (literally) and was gone with the first tulip in most of North America. It’s the peak time for most of Interweave Knits audience to cuddle up with their warmest projects as Elsie the cat (and shop mascot) demonstrated. The advertisment generated over a 100 inquiries from around the world and a 220% increase in site traffic. (Not to mention fame for Elsie and the license of her photo in a series of greeting cards.)

A Mingled Yarn Trade Magazine Ad

The Interweave magazine summer ad resulted international orders!

For the summer issue (delivered in April) a bright contrast to the dark bulk of the other ads in the publication was used to capture the eye. It also caught a sense of the lighter yarns featured in the shot. The ad not only stood out but generated calls from people throughout North America looking for the more obscure yarns listed. In addition, the marketing and branding theme of “mingled yarns” continued in the tumble mass of skeins. The marketing strategy successfully worked on distinguishing the shop from modern, discount competitors offering no customer service or attention.

A Mingled Yarn Duotoned Ad

A duotoned newspaper ad

Strict color and size limits were used to advantage.

A local paper offered a one-time single spot color advertising rate for a special gift guide mailer. The space and color choices were were limited, but the ad  generated increased customer calls. Many commented that the ad stood out against the myriad of red & black text blocks on the page and the strong tactile image reminded them they wanted to take up knitting again.

A Mingled Yarn Logo

The basic logo design for the shop

The A Mingled Yarn logo needed the feel of an Edwardian English shop.

The idea was to capture the feel of a turn-of-the-19th-century English shop combined with the idea of mingled yarns. Inspired by various print embellishments and stylized designs of the period’s Art Nouveau movement.The fonts were also selected to evoke popular period fonts and the fonts of popular graphics artists such as Maxfield Parrish. The budget was kept low by using readily available fonts from standard collections and smaller font houses.

A Mingled Yarn Gift Guide Ad

A cartoon based promotions

A Sequim, Washington cartoonist, Marion Keen, did a number of Edwardian and fiber-related custom cartoons for A Mingled Yarn and several were used as the base for ads and promotions. The font choices and positioning were designed to quickly capture the shop style and the feel of the cartoon. The whimsical black & white pieces stood out from the other staid, traditional ads despite their smaller size and got a lot of positive comment and response.  This was one of our favorite set of promotions. Unfortunately, Ms. Keen was more prolific than the shop’s marketing budget, but a highly successful exhibition of the unpublished cartoons and new works was held in 2008.

Cartoons by Sequim artist Marion Keen kept the old-fashioned yet Bohemian feel.