Here Comes The Guide's Brand Refresh

Here Comes The Guide has been in business since 1989, and we've only rebranded a handful of times over the past 30+ years. Why, you ask? Well to put it simply, we've always been pretty scrappy.

Our small company started with just 2 sisters—and to this day we only have about 40 staffers. We're entirely bootstrapped with no outside funding or venture capital. We've always needed to prioritize simplicity and slow growth in the face of tight budgets, lightning-fast technology, and fierce competition.

But with enough elbow grease and entrepreneurial spirit, anything is possible. And Here Comes The Guide is proof. We now list wedding venues across the country and have created a company culture that leads with a heart of service and values people over profits.

With the tremendous growth of our brand, it became clear that our visual presence needed a major makeover.

We like to refer to this update as a brand “refresh” as opposed to a rebrand because it’s more of an evolution than a total shake up. At our core, the mission is still the same—to bring exceptional wedding venues and trusted planning tips to engaged couples in our signature clean & easy-to-navigate format.

It was important to us to create an evolved logo, color palette, typography, and holistic design system that communicates our values of adaptability, efficiency, inclusivity, and heart.

Although this refreshed branding is quite different from the previous "rose gold" iteration, our goal was to keep it cohesive enough to retain Here Comes The Guide’s hard-earned brand recognition.

We hope you feel even more welcome HERE.

The refreshed Here Comes The Guide wordmark logo is modern and streamlined yet still special. Our iconic H brand mark steals the spotlight with a sleek new look, while the remaining letters are a clean, easy-to-read serif.

Moving away from the overly “girly” rose gold, the primary logo is bold in black. The color black represents both elegance and power, which is quite fitting for our brand. It also comes across as clean and modern—two things that we wanted to accomplish with this brand refresh.

Even at small sizes, this logo packs a visual punch: It is clean, legible, to the point, and speaks to how far our brand has come.

Though we're a women-powered company and our user base is primarily brides, one of our core values is inclusion, diversity, representation, and equality for all. No matter who you are, what age you are, or what your love looks like, we want you to feel welcome HERE.

Since color is an integral part of any brand identity, we wanted to stay true to our "blushing" roots while simultaneously embracing a more inclusive and relevant look and feel. We wanted to create a color bridge between our “old” and “new” branding.

Our signature "rose gold" color has morphed into a softer blush, while tones of dusty pinks and blues breathe new life into the palette. The best thing about using neutrals is that they have staying power. We’re not bowing to trends here, but building something to last.

Accessibility is paramount, which is why our link and text color use meets or exceeds the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ("WCAG") Version 2.0 Level AA.

One of the most important aspects of this brand refresh was the strategic update of every font. Fonts are very similar to colors in that they have the power to convey personality and emotion. For example, a serif font may evoke a more formal feel while a script font may come across as more playful.

We knew we wanted a really special serif font for headings, rounded out by a modern sans serif body font and a clean script accent font. The fonts chosen are at once modern, stylish, clean, and legible and strike a great balance between romantic and practical.

From stamps and favicons to submarks and badges, we like to have a little fun with our branding. One of the most delightful touches is the way we’ve manipulated our iconic H brand mark. You’ll see bits and pieces of our H across our social media and collateral, as well as having it grace our first official brand pattern.

We hope you love what you see, and that our branding helps calm and center our couples as they navigate the wedding planning process.