Shelter Institute
A brand architecture, identity family and two websites that unite a timber framing school, tool store and design-build firm.
Shelter Institute is a three-generation, family-owned timber framing company in Woolwich, Maine. It began as a school and grew into a design-build firm, a tool store and a catalog of in-person and online courses, each with its own audience.
Our Vernacular team ran a brand workshop to define each part of the business, then created a new brand architecture. Shelter Institute became the parent brand, with Shelter Courses, Shelter Tools and Shelter Design Build beneath it. A shared identity system of logos, taglines, brand elements and color palettes gave each brand its own character while keeping the family clearly connected.
We then built two websites. The Shelter Institute site tells the family's story through textured backgrounds, vintage photo collages, video, hand-drawn illustrations and a detailed timeline, and acts as the hub that sends visitors to each branch, backed by a content program built for long-term search growth. The Design Build site is a focused one-page site with separate inquiry forms for each of its three service options.
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