Shelter Institute

Shelter Institute is a three-generation, family-owned timber framing company based in Woolwich, Maine. Founded in 1974 by Pat and Patsy Hennin, the business has spent over 50 years teaching thousands of students the art and science of timber framing—and has since expanded into custom timber frame design build services, an in-person and online tool store, and a catalog of in-person and online courses. It’s a rare kind of company: deeply rooted in tradition, but always building toward what’s next.

Services:

Brand & Identity

Web Development

Platforms:

Webflow

Industry:

Building Industry

When we first began working with Shelter, the business had grown significantly from its origins as a timber framing school. Multiple distinct divisions had emerged, each with its own audience and value proposition. The team recognized an opportunity to bring more structure and cohesion to how these brands presented themselves to the world.

Our engagement started with comprehensive brand positioning work. Through a brand workshop with the Shelter team, we explored the attributes, audiences, and tone that defined each arm of the business. From that process, we developed a strategic brand architecture that elevated Shelter Institute as the umbrella company, with Shelter Courses, Shelter Tools, and Shelter Design Build positioned as individual brands beneath it—compared to their previous structure, which had Shelter Institute functioning as the courses sector of the company, with a tools store underneath it.

We delivered a unified visual identity system, including a logo suite, tagline system, brand elements, and monochromatic color palettes that gave each brand its own character while keeping them unmistakably a part of the same family.

With the brand foundation in place, we started bringing it to life online. For the Shelter Institute website, we held an extensive inspiration discussion with the team to identify the visual language that would represent the brand’s personality: professional and knowledgeable, but warm, fun, and deeply personal at the same time. The goals were ambitious—entertain and inspire users, tell the Shelter story across five decades, and serve as the connective hub that drives traffic to each of the Shelter branches.

Portfolio Restructuring & User Experience

The result is an immersive brand experience built on Webflow, featuring a textured background reminiscent of sandpaper, vintage photo collages spanning the family’s history, large-scale video, and custom hand-drawn illustrations.

A detailed timeline traces the brand’s journey from its earliest days in a rented second-floor space in Bath to its thriving Woolwich campus. The site also houses a robust content hub and content marketing strategy that spans all branches and supports long-term SEO growth.

For Shelter Design Build, we took a more focused approach. The immediate need was a clean, straightforward one-pager that clearly outlined the paths to working with the design build team and made it easy to get in touch. The design was intentionally crafted as a child of the Institute site—sharing typography, graphic elements, and the textured aesthetic, but distinguished by its own color palette. We designed tailored contact forms for each of Design Build’s three service tiers—complete design and build, cut and ship packages, and custom cutsheet packages—streamlining the client intake process and improving internal workflows. As more professional photography and project case studies become available, the site is built to grow with them.

Together, the two sites give Shelter a digital presence that matches the depth, personality, and ambition of the company behind them.

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