The Redesign
When Tools of the Trades entered its fifth year, the visual identity it had carried since launch no longer reflected what the conference had become. We needed a system, a coherent direction.
A rebrand was not a cosmetic decision. It was a necessary one.
Why Lauryn Samson?
Tools of the Trades brought in Lauryn Samson as Lead Designer for 2026, a role that had never existed within the initiative before. The decision was deliberate. Lauryn had spent three years as a core creative force within CraftNOW Philadelphia, the organization behind Tools of the Trades, contributing design leadership across Create!, CraftBlast!, CraftBUILD, and the CraftNOW Symposium.
She did not need to be briefed on the mission. She already understood the community, the stakes, and what the platform owed to the people it was built to serve. That institutional knowledge shaped every decision she made.
The Scope of the Work
Lauryn defined the creative direction for the 2026 rebrand from the ground up. Before a single design file was opened, the team held a working session to examine the foundation of the initiative: its values, its mission, and who it was actually serving. Those answers became the strategic framework.
The work that followed was comprehensive. She developed a refined color system, established a typographic hierarchy, and rebuilt the content architecture of the Squarespace website so that users could navigate it with clarity and confidence. She extended the identity across every touchpoint: social media templates, event signage, promotional materials, and email graphics. Every element was built as part of a coherent system.
