Competitor review
I reviewed comparable nursery-art sellers to understand how products were positioned, presented and grouped into collections. This helped identify ways to create a more distinctive and consistent Sleepy Friends Studio offer.
Case Study 5 · Brand & business development
From an idea to Sleepy Friends Studio.
After graduating, I helped a family member turn an idea for an Etsy shop into a developing small business. My role covered understanding the market, exploring pricing and marketing approaches, shaping the brand and helping define the business’s initial offer and plan.
Brand in practice
One identity across every touchpoint
The branding was designed to work consistently across product images, the Etsy shop and the standalone website, helping create a cohesive customer journey.
Brand identityConsistent nursery styling and customer-facing imagery
Character buildingA consistent visual direction across customer touchpoints
01 / The opportunity
Turning an early idea into a clear proposition
A family member wanted to launch an online shop, giving me an opportunity to apply my marketing knowledge to a real-world project. I helped turn the initial idea into a more structured proposition: understanding the category, considering how the offer could stand out and deciding how the brand could be presented to potential customers.
Sleepy Friends Studio focuses on gentle, watercolour-style nursery artwork featuring animal characters, designed for children’s bedrooms, nurseries and playrooms. The current Etsy shop includes both digital downloads and physical print listings.
02 / Research & pricing
Understanding the market before launch
I researched the market landscape to build an understanding of the category and the types of products already available. This included looking at competitor positioning, product presentation, pricing models and the marketing approaches used by comparable shops.
Research into action
Pricing & offer structure
I compared approaches to pricing, physical prints and digital downloads, considering how format, product presentation and perceived value could shape the offer.
Decisions informed by research
The research helped shape the initial product range, coordinated collections, pricing approach, listing presentation and the decision to develop a standalone brand website alongside Etsy.
Research→Collections→Pricing→Listings→Website
03 / Brand development
Creating a consistent identity
The shop’s current positioning uses the line “Gentle Friends for Little Dreamers” and presents collections of animal artwork in a soft, coordinated style.
Building the brand
Visual identity
Developed a soft, recognisable visual direction around gentle watercolour characters, a calm colour palette and consistent presentation suitable for nursery spaces.
Customer-facing assets
Applied the identity across banners, product imagery and listing presentation so Sleepy Friends Studio felt like one connected brand rather than a collection of individual products.
Brand consistency
Extended the same visual approach across Etsy and the standalone website, helping create a consistent experience as customers move between different brand touchpoints.
Characters→Colour & style→Product imagery→Etsy→Website
04 / Offer & business planning
Giving the idea a practical structure
Alongside the brand work, I helped define the structure of the initial offer and contributed to a business plan. This helped organise the thinking around what the shop would sell, how the products would be grouped and how the business could develop over time.
05 / From marketplace to owned website
Planning for the next stage of growth
Once the Etsy shop was established, I suggested developing a standalone website at sleepyfriendsstudio.co.uk. The intention is to create an additional brand destination alongside the Etsy marketplace. The website is currently in development, so this stage is focused on planning rather than reporting launch results.
Once the website is ready, the next phase will be to define how to attract relevant visitors to both platforms. This could include search visibility, social content, audience testing and a simple measurement plan to understand which channels generate engaged visitors.
07 / Reflection
Applying marketing thinking to a live project
This project gave me the opportunity to apply market research, competitor analysis, pricing considerations, brand development and business planning outside an academic setting. It also highlighted that launching a brand is only the beginning: the next challenge is to build awareness, understand visitor behaviour and use evidence to improve the marketing approach.
As the project develops, I plan to help shape a practical channel strategy and use performance data to inform future decisions.
Project context: This project was completed in collaboration with a family member. The Etsy shop is live, while the standalone website is still in development. The work above describes my contribution, without claiming sales or campaign results that are not yet available.