With deep roots in the shelter industry spanning collective decades, we’ve cultivated a specialized understanding of the unique needs and challenges builders, architects, interior designers, building professionals, and hospitality clients face. That's why we founded Vernacular: to provide shelter-specific branding and marketing strategies to help you grow your business, whether you're just starting out or have several years and dozens of projects under your belt.
Our Work
Whitten Architects
Since 1986, Whitten Architects has been designing thoughtfully considered homes throughout New England, focusing exclusively on residential projects from camps and cottages to new homes and historic renovations. Based in Portland's historic Old Port, the award-winning firm has been extensively published in residential design books and magazines.
Services:
Brand & Identity
,
Web Development
,
Media Buying
,
Platforms:
Webflow
Industry:
ARCHITECTURE
Website Redesign & Digital Strategy
Over a decade ago, Whitten Architects partnered with us to create a modern, responsive website that showcases their stunning portfolio while highlighting their unique design process. We developed an image-forward site that leverages their professional photography investment and tells the deeper story of what differentiates them: their emphasis on site-specific design, exclusive focus on residential projects, and hand-drawing process.
Our strategic site architecture allows seamless navigation between project categories organized by geographic region, site type, house style, and project type. We overcame technical challenges with their extensive image catalog using advanced caching and content delivery networks to ensure high-resolution images without compromising user experience.
Results
WhittenArchitects.com now ranks #1 for over 25 targeted keywords, including "best architect in Maine," "Maine Architect," and "Portland Maine Architect."
Strategic Communications & Growth
When Whitten Architects expanded its leadership team in 2018—the first time founder Rob Whitten would be joined by two rising principals—we delivered a comprehensive PR campaign that successfully communicated this milestone to shelter magazines, local press, and online publications. Our ongoing PR efforts focus on pitching the firm's completed projects to local and national publications.
We continue to support their growth with PR and strategic communications, as well as comprehensive content creation including project narratives, monthly blog posts, quarterly newsletters, and social media content, all backed by strategic audience research and demographic analysis.
Brand Modernization
After 15 years of collaboration, we recently helped modernize Whitten's brand ahead of their 40th anniversary. Through strategic sessions, we helped them define their core brand values, particularly their commitment to "site-specific" design that helps clients live harmoniously with nature.
The new brand identity draws inspiration from nature throughout. The logo takes inspiration from sun paths and solar cycles, while the expanded color palette adds sophisticated teal shades to their original black, white, and yellow scheme. We developed unique patterns from the firm's own site sketches for authentic design elements, and selected complementary serif and sans serif typefaces to modernize the 40-year-old brand.
The refreshed identity authentically represents their values and commitment to intertwining design with natural beauty.
TESTIMONIAL
"We've had the pleasure of working with Helm for the last several years. With the initial redesign of our website they met our goal of creating an immersive experience for prospective clients that features our design work in the best possible way. The website has since garnered numerous kudos from both clients and colleagues in our local community. They are both professional and kind human beings that genuinely care about us and what we do. We couldn't recommend them more highly."
— RUSS TYSON, PRINCIPAL