L.V.Harkness
L.V.Harkness has a long-standing history as a provider of luxury fine goods, decor and giftware in Lexington, Kentucky.
For over 25 years, L.V.Harkness has been part of Lexington’s most treasured moments. Family-owned from the beginning, they know what it means to pass down cherished objects — and the stories they carry.
During that time, L.V.Harkness has thrived mostly offline, with a loyal local customer base entrusting the store to help them mark life’s big moments. With the next generation of the Harkness family taking the helm and breathing new life into the store, they reached out to Neverland to give the brand a significant up-level, contemporary appeal, and access to new (online) markets.
To begin, we set our sights on up-levelling the original L.V.Harkness brand identity, which was dated and used inconsistently, weakening the brand impression and damaging their high-end reputation. The goal was to preserve brand familiarity and trust for their existing customer-base, while introducing modern flair and usability.
To achieve this goal, we maintained a traditional, serif font with a time-honoured feel. We introduced improvements to its style, layout and legibility and introduced an elegant, opulent ‘V’ character. What’s more, this decorative character gives the identity a monogrammatic impression, typical of high-end fashion houses and esteemed family brands.
In addition to the Primary Logo and Brand Monogram, the bird from the original family crest has been re-imagined as an elegant brand icon and all elements come together in an Extended Logo, with a formal, ceremonial feel.
With the brand identity solidified, we set our sights on reimagining the brand’s dated, hardcoded website that was purely ornamental and non-functional for customers and staff alike. This was a major Shopify E-commerce build involving not just bespoke design and user-experience work, but significant back-end systems strategy, with multiple thousands of in-stock brands and products, complete registry integration, fulfilment strategy, and store POS synchronisation. This necessitated a collaboration with the team at Theory Digital, which resulted in a website that is as systematically-strong as it is stunning and user-friendly – functional, easy to navigate and stunning at every touchpoint.
As the brand continues to make waves in Kentucky and now, online, we are proud to be working closely with the Harkness family to ensure brand cohesion and consistency at every touchpoint (think: merchandise, packaging, gift/note cards, stationary and beyond).
Kudos.
I was initially urged to contact Dani at Neverland Studio based on the brilliant feedback I have received about her work. I am thrilled I was given this recommendation because she is brilliant!
Everything Dani creates is wonderful! I’m extremely grateful for all her amazing contributions. I could not recommend Dani and Neverland Studio enough!
