I didn’t plan to rebrand.
There was no strategy meeting, no mood board, no agency. There was just an early morning where I was trying to photograph my dogs for the website and realized the photos weren’t doing justice to the dogs OR the collars. So I called for reinforcements.
That phone call to Joanne at @fivefreedomsphotography started something I didn’t see coming.
Side note, please check Joanne out – I cannot sing her praises highly enough!
It Started With a Question
Preparing for a photoshoot with Joanne isn’t just about showing up with your dogs and hoping for the best. She asks questions. Pointed ones. What do you want to capture? What’s missing right now? Where do you want this business to be in five years?
I hadn’t sat down and really thought through those answers in a while. And somewhere in that process of preparing…envisioning the future, identifying what was lacking, imagining what I wanted Cora’s Canine Collective to grow into… I landed on something I’d been quietly uncomfortable with for a while.
My logo, and my stubborn refusal to put myself out there.
I drew my logo when I first started the business. I loved parts of it… the Pittie silhouette, the heart on the chest, the collar. Those felt right. But the rest of it felt outdated. My tastes had changed. My direction had changed. The logo didn’t reflect the growth that had happened, or the direction I was heading.
So I opened Procreate and started playing.
Many Late Nights
I went through so many versions. So many. Trying to keep what I loved; that Pittie silhouette, that heart… while making everything else simpler, cleaner, more refined. More me.
I’m not an artist. I’ll say that upfront. But I’m someone who obsesses over things until they feel true. And I spent a lot of late nights on this, pushing and pulling and starting over, trying to find something that had heart without feeling overdone. Something that felt like Cora’s Canine Collective in its next chapter.
I still don’t know if I got it completely right. But I love it for now. And in creative work, “true for right now” is often the most honest place you can land.
The Laser That Unlocked Everything
Around the same time, I bought a laser engraver.
The original plan was practical. I wanted to make personalized ID tags and engraved name plates for a new adventure collar line. Simple enough. Except if you’ve read my other posts, you already know what happens when my neurospicy brain gets a new tool.
The laser didn’t just give me a new way to make things. It gave me access to entirely new product categories I hadn’t imagined when I started. Keychains. Jewelry. Memorial pieces. Keepsakes. Things that let me reach not just the dogs I love making things for, but the people who love those dogs.
It unlocked something I always felt was missing; a way to make meaningful things for the humans that love their dogs more than anything in the world.
The Photoshoot That Showed Me What We Could Be
When the day finally came, Joanne showed up knowing my dogs, knowing my vision, and ready to capture something real.
What she gave me wasn’t just beautiful photos. It was a mirror. For the first time, I could see Cora’s Canine Collective the way I’d always imagined it; heart-centered, authentic, full of love, true to my pack and why I do what I do.
Those photos made me cry. And then they made me rebuild my website.
What Home Feels Like
Before all of this, my website felt like I was selling products.
Now it feels like I’m sharing a part of who I am – sharing the things I love most in this world with the world.
That’s the difference. And I didn’t plan any of it.
It started with a phone call. A question I wasn’t fully prepared for. A logo I’d outgrown. A laser I bought for one reason that turned into something much bigger. A photoshoot that finally showed me what this brand could look like when it stopped holding back.
If you’ve been feeling like something about your own creative work doesn’t quite fit anymore, maybe it’s not broken. Maybe you’ve just grown.
Follow where it leads. You might be surprised where you end up.
— Jenni 🐾