Las Vegas K9 Training, informally referred to as @lvk9 is the dog training company that I started when I was fourteen, and formally incorporated in 2011.  Since inception, the company has struggled with its visual identity.  There are so many niches and specialties out there, I didn’t know which one I wanted the company to stand for.  I iterated until a path emerged, and when it did, I set aside a few weeks to put together a formal identity kit to go with the company’s new, grown-up set of professional services.

I knew that a strong visual identity would rely on good photography, so I arranged a pro-bono photoshoot with the German Shepherd Rescue of Las Vegas, and after a few days with my Canon Mark III and lots of wonderful dogs, I had thousands of pictures to choose from.  I curated images that showed a mix of happy, serious, and introspective dogs to use across the website, and applied a sophisticated black & white filter to keep the style consistent.

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These images were also provided to the German Shepherd Rescue for free, and resulted in the adoption of lots of dogs!  I think it’s very fitting to showcase rescue dogs on the website, and aligns perfectly with the company’s mission and vision.

Along with some other photographs from my morgue file, these images were reused for business cards and printed assets.  In an earlier point in the company’s history, I had identified with a yellow-orange color (#f9bf37) for accents, based loosely on the bronze hardware found in professional grade training equipment, and it worked exceptionally well against the black and white photographs.  It became a staple of the new design.

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The statement, A private dog training company, is evolving.  It’s not the tagline the company deserves, but it’s the one the company needed.  What started as a hobby has grown into a highly specialized, custom training solution for pet owners, with a focus on private, one-on-one training.  I wanted diction that was confident and vaguely exclusive: still, it’s a work in progress.  The dark formatting does make for good t-shirts, though.

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The company logo and mark are still in development, and their evolving shapes will appear on the website from time to time.  Using color and text in lieu of an official logotype is growing on me – transitional, and always evolving like training itself – but admittedly, I have been working on iterations of the company mark for too long to stop now.  Anything final is a long way away.

View the website here.

 

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