case study
uptown
celina
TEXAS
CREATIVE STRATEGY + BRAND IDENTITY
+ NAMING + DIGITAL DESIGN + CLIENT HAND-OFF
A brand built from a single message on LinkedIn.
Out of the blue, a stranger reached out after seeing my work online and asked if I’d be interested in branding a new residential development north of Dallas. That message became Uptown Celina—a project that turned farmland into a future community and gave me the rare opportunity to create a brand from absolute zero.
The goal: build an identity that honors Celina’s wheat-growing heritage while feeling sophisticated, current, and enduring.
context
Celina, once a quiet farming town, is now attracting Dallas residents seeking open skies, nature, and authenticity.
The challenge was to create a brand that captured that agrarian heritage without relying on rustic tropes.
With no existing brand equity, Uptown Celina needed a full system—mark, tone, color, and digital expression—that would define the development’s voice from day one.
option A: nature’s first green is gold
Earthy greens, wheat golds, rooted, organic, optimistic.
APPROACH
We rooted the identity in Celina’s agricultural history—the wheat bundle that appears on its water towers and civic crest—but refined it into something timeless.
We also explored other iconic objects to include during our initial moodboard+logo explorations.
option B: under a high & Magical sky
Sky-blue tones, open, airy, and forward-looking.
option C: past is prologue
Pale gold and white, modern farmhouse, shown per client request.
Through critique and iteration, we landed on the theme
“Nature’s First Green as Gold”
a palette inspired by early growth and morning light, contemporary yet grounded.
OPTION B
OPTION C
OPTION D
logo + identity system
The final mark: a single sheath of golden wheat: elevated, minimal, and elegant. It symbolizes renewal and upward growth, paired with a refined serif wordmark that balances heritage and polish.
After landing on the final mark, we explored four different styles and additional typography to support the final logo.
Deliverables included the full identity sheet, brand lockups, color palette, and typographic system.
OPTION A
solutions
impact
With no pre-existing identity, Uptown Celina entered the market with a mark that felt born, not branded—a design equally comfortable in civic context and lifestyle marketing.
The new identity gave Rockhill a visual and verbal foundation for future developments while establishing Celina as a destination where heritage and progress coexist.
Client Collaboration
+ Hand-Off:
The complete identity package was delivered to Rockhill Capital & Investments, the land developer behind Uptown Celina.
Impressed by the clarity and execution, they later invited me to redesign their corporate website in partnership with Edit Your Brand.
web site option
+ digital expressions
To demonstrate the brand’s scalability, we created three landing-page mockups, exploring how the visual language translated online.
Hero imagery of Celina’s landscape was paired with narrative copy and subtle wheat-icon animations used as interactive details (hover states, cursor ripples, and line underlays).
reflection
This project began as a cold message and became a career milestone. It reminded me that when you start with nothing—no logo, no system, no precedent—you gain creative freedom to build something pure.
Uptown Celina reaffirmed a truth I return to often: when design is grounded in story, even a single piece of wheat can grow an entire world.