While not my usual creative entrepreneurial branding session, this one was one that pushed me outside of the box and showed me I really can create imagery to support all types of industries.

Mago Construction is a paving and asphalt company in Bardstown, Kentucky. It just so happens that Caleb works there and mentioned that I was a photographer. That brought this incredible opportunity to work with the folks over at Mago in multiple capacities.

Although not super typical, I have actually worked with a construction company before back when we lived in North Carolina. I designed their website and took job site photos for them for their online galleries. This really came in handy as we dove into Mago’s goals, one of which was to establish a professional online presence by way of website.

This discussion led to speaking about all of the intangibles that make them unique–family-owned and locally-founded. These were the three main themes we wanted to encompass within their website, and thus, their branding session.

The main pages that we wanted on the website were an all-encompassing Home page, an About page that spoke to their family-centered values and local roots, practical information that allowed those looking to get in touch with one of their many plants to be able to do so, an accurate Project Gallery page that showcased the different types of work they do, an Employment page where individuals can fill out an online job application, and finally two contact pages–one where citizens can contact the office directly with any questions or concerns and one where prospective clients could request a bid for a project. All of this was accomplished and the website proved to be very professional and consistent with images from their plants, projects, and branding session sprinkled throughout.

Now comes my favorite part–the creative part, which, believe it or not, can still happen with a construction company! The planning of a branding session really pushes me to bring intangibles to life. So those concepts like “family-owned” and “locally-founded” can all come to life in photographs.

In order to illustrate that the company is family-owned, we added a picture of Mark, the President of the company, and Nika, his daughter, the Vice President of the company, to show the family roots. Mago employs multiple sets of family members, of whom we were able to get a photo! Finally, I wanted to tell a small anecdote about the first time Mark and Nika met our kids. They welcomed them with open arms and wouldn’t let them leave without the sweetest book about a paving construction site. This inspired me to show a different part of the “family” value of Mago by photographing Huxley reading that book!

Next up, we wanted to show the deep, local roots that Mago has. I had Nika if she could dig up some of the early artifacts of the company and, oh my gosh, did she deliver! She found the “receipt” for one of the first pieces of paving equipment that was purchased by her grandfather. It was pulled by a horse! What a cool piece of company history to show their roots in Bardstown are deep and dedicated.

Mago really enjoys working on projects for local distilleries, seeing as Bardstown is the Bourbon Capital of the World. They had worked with multiple distilleries before and we incorporated bottles of bourbon from those distilleries into their session to showcase who they wanted to work with.

One of the final goals for their branding session was to create images with white space that could be used for social media posts, like the monthly work anniversaries that Mago celebrates and road closures to alert the public.

It was a successful branding session and website design for Mago. And, as always, I feel so thankful for the opportunity to work with local small businesses in all industries!

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