Branding
Charlie Mae
Bringing a growing swimwear brand together into one considered identity, and handing over the tools to keep it that way.
Services
Sector
Year
Brand identity, secondary logo, brand guidelines, social media templates
Sustainable swimwear
2026
Chapter One
Where the story began
Charlie Mae is a sustainable swimwear brand with a genuinely lovely point of view: earthy tones, clean lines and a slower, more considered approach to what we wear. Charlie had already built something beautiful. The problem was that, as the brand grew, the pieces had started to drift apart. There was a logo, but no real system holding everything together, and nothing written down to work from. Every new post or piece of marketing meant starting from a blank page, and the brand looked slightly different each time. Charlie didn't need a rebrand. The look was already there. She needed it brought together, written down and made genuinely usable.
Chapter Two
What we uncovered
The strength of Charlie Mae was never in question. The brand already had a clear personality: calm, natural and quietly confident, exactly like the swimwear itself. What it lacked was consistency, and a way to keep that consistency going without a designer on hand for every single post. Charlie is the one creating most of the day-to-day content, so a beautiful set of guidelines to admire was never going to be enough on its own. The real answer was a brand she could actually run herself. That shaped the whole project: document the brand properly so nothing drifts again, then give Charlie templates she can pick up and use in minutes, without breaking the look she's worked so hard to build.
The Outcome
Charlie Mae now looks like one brand across everything, from the website to the last-minute sale post. Charlie can create on-brand content herself in minutes, and the brand holds together whether I'm involved or not.
Chapter Three
The next chapter
I brought the brand together into one clear identity and set it all down in a proper brand guidelines document, covering the logo, the colour palette, the typography and the photography direction. I created a new secondary logo too, a simple CM mark for the moments the full logo doesn't fit, like social avatars, swing tags and the smaller details. Then came the part that matters most day to day: a set of social media templates built in Canva, so Charlie can create her own posts, sale graphics and product features whenever she needs to, without starting from scratch or losing the thread of the brand. I set the same look up as a template on her Shopify E-Shots too, so the brand carries all the way through, from her feed to her checkout. The result is a brand that feels as considered as the swimwear it represents, and, just as importantly, one Charlie can keep running beautifully on her own.
