Our services
Arcana Creative provides a wide variety of design, communications, and strategy services for digital and print applications. We start with listening, walking you through a discovery process to uncover the scope of the problem. Then we propose a package of services that’s right for you, integrating both strategy and solutions.
Want to join our roster of incredible clients?
Popular service packages
- Brand Strategy
- Story Strategy
- Web Design
- Illustration
- Social Media
- Graphic Design
- Print Design
- Strategy & Campaigns
- Packaging
- Animation
What it is
- A Brand Strategy maps out a unique personality, voice, and visual identity for your business, organization, or project.
What it means for you
- Gain the tools and templates you need to communicate with confidence across all channels,
- Foster strong brand recognition with your customers, clients and funders, leaving a memorable impression at every touchpoint.
What to expect
- The branding process starts with discovery to develop a narrative framework for your brand and a visual identity to match.
- From there we build out a Brand Kit complete with typefaces, colour palette, a responsive logo system, and guidelines for bringing it all together.
What it is
- Story Strategy lays out the foundation for your brand, content, or communications project with a focus on the core values, motivations, context, and assumptions underlying your work.
What it means for you
- Go deeper into understanding who you are communicating with and why, and gain skills for doing so with clarity and conviction.
- Walk away with key messaging to start implementing across websites, social media content, pitch materials, service packages, and marketing tools.
What to expect
- We apply the structure of storytelling to your brand and draft a series of story pillars as the building blocks of your strategic messaging.
- Hand-off includes a Story Strategy, with key message frameworks, theme and concept development, audience analysis, and recommendations for next steps.
What it is
- A website is the coming together of strong messaging, consistent visuals and compelling solutions. If you don’t already have these foundational elements in place, we recommend starting with Branding and/or Communications Strategy before embarking on this big investment.
- Redesigning your website improves layout and user flow and modernizes your look, and building a site from scratch can kick-start your digital presence.
What it means for you
- A carefully thought-out website architecture streamlines information for digital users, ensuring that they find the information that’s most important to them in the least amount of time.
- Reduce inquiries to your staff by making it easy for users to find information on their own.
- Elevate your digital presence and level up your professionalism to attract donor dollars, demonstrate a trusted foundation for your advocacy, and sell your products with ease.
- Discover digital solutions for your complex problems – from member portals to online stores, searchable directories and robust resource libraries.
What to expect
- Storytelling & copywriting support is available. In the absence of a brand story, a small story discovery will be required.
- If you don’t already have a needs assessment developed, we guide you through this process of determining the problems, needs and solutions for your site. In this strategy stage, we will scope out the project, create a cost estimate and a timeline.
- Wireframes are developed to layout the flow of the site, and content is provided by you, or our team. Everything comes together in the design and development phases, and then we prepare for launch. We explore your launch strategy, your plan for long-term maintenance, and provide training for content updates.
- We’re around for any variety of continued support – whether you need help write & upload your blogs, site maintenance, or on-call advice.
What it is
- Illustration crafts a visual language to convey your concepts, messages, and ideas.
What it means for you
- We don’t communicate through words alone. Use the power of custom, hand-drawn, or vector illustrations to highlight your message.
- Illustration not only elevates your project aesthetics, it speaks to the nuances of the subject, makes content more digestible, and can support representation.
What to expect
- We take time to understand what you’re trying to express and how illustration will be integrated alongside copy and other design choices.
- We’ll work with you to interpret a style and tone that aligns with your goals and produce a suite of high quality, versatile graphics.
What it is
- Social media support involves strategy development and template creation, all the way through to hands-on management.
- We focus on developing a framework, story pillars, key messages, and content calendar to set you up for successful internal implementation.
- Monthly strategy meeting to reflect on the last month and determine plans for the month ahead.
- Monthly content creation – including written copy, photography and/or graphic development
- Scheduling & publishing content
What it means for you
- Gain custom social media templates and easy-to-use messaging guides. We equip you with a framework to maintain a regular social presence without the daily mental load.
- Or, choose to offload this task altogether and have peace of mind that it will be taken care of, with check-ins each month to keep content ideas timely and engaging.
What to expect
- We will lead a discussion around audiences, pain points, needs, goals for your social platforms.
- We develop a plan suited for you in consideration of sustainability of online presence, and budget.
- You’ll experience the support of trusted guides throughout the process, however involved you’d like us to be.
What it is
- Graphic design is about making complex or emotionally charged topics easier to understand and digest
- Often, it involves solving key pain points in communications
- Apply your unique brand to all forms of materials – print (business cards, brochures, posters, billboards, bus wraps, packaging, more) and digital (online ads, social graphics, e-newsletters, website graphics, etc.)
- Graphic design can look like one-off projects or a monthly design needs retainer
What it means for you
- Gain support from an experienced team who understands your brand, your context and can execute with professionalism and impact.
- Impress your donors and connect with your audiences.
- Keep your internal staff focused on the jobs they do best while maintaining brand integrity.
What to expect
- We start with an assessment of the problem at hand, and consider your needs and your budget to determine a plan that fits your constraints.
- We work with you to review & refine the design, and explore additional areas of support such as copy, content pillars to guide graphic development, or a launch strategy to give you confidence sharing your new visual tools.
What it is
- From billboards to annual reports, and infographics to educational guides, print design helps make an impact through tangible tools, allowing you to reach new and different audiences right where they’re at.
What it means for you
- Reach new, diverse audiences through products and platforms that are specific to where they are and how they interact with the world.
- Gain concrete tools and guides for your audiences to engage with offline, and make an impact through personal touches like a thank you card or a high-impact publication like an annual report.
What to expect
- Print doesn’t mean just a boring brochure. Let’s get creative and think outside the box. Solve problems by thinking about how and where your audiences interact.
- We review the problem at hand and consider the uses and contexts they’ll be used and by who. We consider things like accessibility, language, brand, use case etc. We design for the user.
- We can provide the story framework, copy, design, illustration, and even coordinate print.
What it is
- Out of necessity, it’s common for clients to start work without having a solid foundation to support it. Without an internal communications professional, responsibilities get assigned to everyone and no one. Key messaging to funders, partners, communities, and clients, is last on the list, or falls through the cracks altogether.
- We develop a communications strategy to guide you out of chaos into a plan to keep your communications ecosystem thriving.
What it means for you
- Walk away with a clear sense of your audience, goals, priorities, key messages and content pillars.
- Gain a framework for implementing your strategy through an integration of your communications tools that will reduce time and save money.
What to expect
- We encourage stepping back to define your audiences, goals, motivations and priorities. We consider the full spectrum of communications tools you’re using – like a website, social media, an online store or newsletter – and develop a plan for integration to eliminate the huge overhead that can come with trying to maintain everything at once. We walk you through a discovery process and develop your communications strategy and an ecosystem framework, including goals, ideas for success measures, and a guide for implementation.
What it is
- Your products are designed for a specific customer demographic – why not design the package to engage that same audience?
- Packaging is a prime opportunity to express your brand, highlight key information, and draw attention to the main features of your product.
What it means for you
- Make a personal and lasting impression with your audiences while encouraging brand recognition and expressing your brand personality.
- Generate repeat customers by demonstrating a commitment to values like quality, sustainability, and representation through your packaging choices.
What to expect
- If you don’t already have a brand in place, we will work with you through your brand story and brand identity development.
- We support you to explore a packaging strategy – asking what will resonate with your audiences, what sizing, materials, sustainable choices you’re making, what’s worth the investment and what’s not.
- Next we develop concepts for review, and refine as needed. We coordinate and test printing before the big run!
- Product photography and marketing supports are also available.
What it is
- Animation brings your story to life for short videos, marketing tools, educational materials, and more.
What it means for you
- Whether you’re breaking down a complex concept or inviting your audience to take action, animation can help activate your message.
- Animation is the perfect medium for expressing motivated actions, character-driven narratives, and complex concepts.
What to expect
- We develop a storyboard to structure the flow of information and visuals, including the development of any illustration or graphic design needs.
- In addition to creating the final animation, we offer support for script development, voice-overs, music, and captions.
Our fees
We work hard to keep our rates accessible to those we want to support, and we offer many of our services on a sliding scale. When you come to us with a budget, we customize a service package that maximizes your value. We prioritize trust with our clients, working with hourly rates or project budgets, and we include a transparent breakdown of budget allocation from the outset. If there are any changes along the way, we review the allocation together and determine how best to proceed.
Give-back fund
Got a problem to solve but short on resources? We recognize our privilege within unjust systems of racial, economic, and social inequality. Twice a year, we choose projects to take on that give back to community champions who are making waves without enough support. Apply today!
Work with us
We thrive on creative, strategic projects with people making a difference in our communities. Sound like a good fit?