Crafted Collars
Anne started sewing during the first Covid lockdown. She was experimenting with dog collars for her own greyhounds and a few friends', and the reaction was immediate enough to make her take it seriously. What followed was a gradual build: Etsy listings, local events, a growing reputation among dog owners who valued something handmade, considered and genuinely different from what the mainstream pet market offered.
Crafted Collars now produces a full range of handmade collars, leads, bow ties and bandanas using materials including Harris Tweed, premium Biothane and coordinated tweeds for matching sets. Every product is made by Anne in her Scottish Borders studio, with meticulous attention to component quality and a flexibility for bespoke orders that larger suppliers simply can't match.
The business had grown through word of mouth and events. What it lacked was a visual identity capable of carrying that reputation into a digital space — and a website that could handle the complexity of a product range with between three and four hundred individual variations.
The brief
The starting point for this project was Anne's honest assessment of where things stood. The temporary logo she'd been using didn't represent the brand well. The existing Shopify setup was largely untouched due to time and knowledge constraints. At events, she was losing potential customers who wanted to browse and buy after measuring their dogs at home — and had nowhere to send them.
The goals were clear. A brand identity that felt as considered as the products. An ecommerce platform that could handle ready-made and bespoke orders, connect with Shopify POS at events and give Anne genuine control over her own listings going forward. And a suite of physical assets — signage, tags, trade flags, care sheets, packaging materials — that would create a consistent and immediately recognisable presence wherever Crafted Collars appeared.
The brand personality Anne described was specific and useful: elegant, classic, creative and a little blingy. Friendly and approachable in tone, with room for humour. The deep, rich colours of her product display — teals, purples, blues, oranges and the metallic effects running through many of the hound collars — gave a strong visual starting point.
The identity
The brand development process began with moodboarding and sitemap planning before any visual direction was committed to. The resulting identity combines strength with softness — bold typography with subtle hand-finished detailing that nods to the craft behind the products without tipping into an aesthetic that would feel out of place alongside the more contemporary Biothane ranges.
The colour palette draws from the Borders landscape and the richness of the product range itself. Deep, considered tones that sit together as a coherent family and photograph well across both event signage and ecommerce product shots. The system was designed to flex across a wide range of touchpoints — primary and secondary logos, supporting graphics, typography and colour guidelines all developed to give Anne the tools to be consistent whether she's updating the website, printing a price tag or setting up a trade flag at an agricultural show.
The Shopify build
The website brief required careful structural thinking before design began. A product range of three to four hundred variants — across sizes, materials, styles and bespoke configurations — needs a platform architecture that makes browsing straightforward rather than overwhelming. The Boost theme was selected and tailored to handle both in-stock products and made-to-order workflows, with bespoke ordering processes that notify Anne directly and connect with her fulfilment setup.
Shopify POS integration was a significant part of the brief. Anne attends a range of events and agricultural shows throughout the year, and the gap between her in-person and online inventory had been creating administrative friction. The integration means online and offline sales now speak to each other — stock accuracy improves, and the experience for a customer who encounters Crafted Collars at a show and then wants to order online afterwards is genuinely joined up.
Email marketing setup through Klaviyo and payment options including Klarna and PayPal were built in from the outset, alongside an events page giving Anne a simple way to share her schedule and link to the shows she attends.
Training and handover
Post-launch, comprehensive tutorial videos were produced covering every aspect of day-to-day site management: product uploads, image formatting, SEO basics, POS operation and form handling in Klaviyo. For a sole operator building a business without technical support, that kind of structured onboarding is the difference between a website that gets updated and one that quietly goes stale.
Physical collateral
Alongside the digital work, a full suite of physical brand assets was developed: business cards, a double-sided flyer, hanging banners, a trade flag, care sheets, price tags, stickers and Canva social media templates. The event environment is where Crafted Collars first encounters most of its customers, and the physical presentation needed to be as coherent and considered as the website.
As Anne noted after launch, visitors to her stand had previously walked past without realising everything on display was handmade. With consistent signage and a clear visual identity, that changed — the brand now does the explaining that previously required a conversation.
What it sets up
Crafted Collars now has the foundations to grow across both online and in-person channels without the two sides of the business operating independently of each other. New materials, seasonal ranges, potential wholesale — the platform and identity are built to accommodate what comes next without requiring a rebuild.
For a business built on genuine craft and personal service, a brand that finally reflects that quality at every touchpoint is a meaningful shift. The products were always worth finding. Now they're considerably easier to find, and considerably harder to walk past.
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