When the Garnham family took over the furniture manufacturer Jardan in 1997, it was a small operation with only eight staff members. Today, the business employs over 170 people across design, manufacturing and retail, with stores in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and online.

While an entrepreneurial drive has ushered Jardan into new directions and firmly placed the brand as leaders in contemporary design, the longevity of many of those original artisans has maintained that family-run spirit.

“The wonderful thing is that we’ve kept a lot of the original staff in our twenty-odd years of running Jardan and preserved the feeling of a close-knit business,” says co-director Nick Garnham, who runs the business alongside his brother Michael Garnham and his wife Renee Brown.

It may pose a challenge for an expanding business to uphold its family-run values and history, but for Jardan, it’s remained a strong thread throughout its growth through the power of language.

“We maintain a shared language through all of our communications with the customer and our team, and the specific handwriting of the brand, so to speak, is Australian, crafted, design family and sustainability,” explains Jardan’s marketing specialist, Lani Tyler-Baxter.

Tips to create and implement a brand language

When the company expanded into retail six years ago, the creative team decided to refine the Jardan language. This involved working closely with a branding agency as well as evolving the language internally to imbed values into the day to day running of the business.

Such a considered approach has meant that the language informs everything from marketing campaigns to team meetings. Here, the creative team shares their approach to building a brand language.

Start with your values

Identifying your brand values is the first step in developing the core pillars of your brand language.

For Jardan, the pillars of ‘crafted’, ‘Australian’, ‘design’, ‘family’ and ‘sustainability’ are rooted in its values and help inform the tone of communications and the brand’s overall position in the market.

For example, a value such as ‘family’ can be steeped in the brand history and carry that thread into its current operations. Similarly, ‘crafted’ ensures that every piece id created with care and precision, and by hand.

Co-director Nick Garnham adds that a value such as ‘Australian’ creates a recognisable aesthetic, and a place for designers, makers and marketers alike to find inspiration in our country’s unique landscape, climate and architecture. “We are mindful of our local market and designing collections that suit the Australian way of life – it’s robust, family friendly, and contemporary.”

A shared brand language not only maintains a history and helps position a business in a competitive market, it also informs the future.

Take for example sustainability. “Jardan has been carbon neutral since 2014 and have changed a lot of our processes to make our products sustainable throughout the entire lifecycle,” adds Garnham.

Build a framework

Identifying and refining your values or brand pillars provides a framework for external marketing campaigns and internal communications.

The creative team can adapt the framework to ensure that all aspects of the language are touched upon with each new campaign.

“Everything needs to have its own standalone look and feel and needs to be on brand at the same time – so we design with those pillars in mind to create consistency,” says Tyler-Baxter.

Create a visual language

A framework also helps guide a visual language or the design system, says Tyler-Baxter. “Everything that we do we are mocking up using Adobe software and applying a certain Jardan language to distribute to staff and clients.”

In marketing, a visual language helps invite the customer into the brand story. “We try to create a whole Jardan lifestyle within one image – we do a lot of entire home shoots and create a narrative with styling so people can really connect with the brand as whole,” adds Tyler-Baxter.

Experiment and play

When employing a brand language, it’s important to play and experiment with creative ideas and direction – and know when to step out from the framework.

This is especially important in a competitive online landscape, says brand identity manager Patrick Monti. “Our day to day work is finding the right time to step out and the right time to stay within it, so we can communicate a relaxed, approachable feel while also maintaining quality.”

One example of finding that balance and translating a language for the digital space is a recent campaign, Made for life, Mate for life. “We revisited customer’s homes and captured them with the furniture five years later. Maybe the corner of the sofa has been chewed by the dog or a table has crayon on it from the kids, it shows that the furniture is designed to grow with families over generations. Even though its crafted and designed, it’s made to be lived with and loved,” he adds.

Remember language evolves

Just like a business, the values that underpin a brand language evolve. This often requires balancing a rich history with growth and change.

For Jardan, it’s become increasingly important to add integrity to its brand language. “We’re a transparent company – we love giving factory tours and sharing how we work with materials. There is a beauty to the level of care and attention to detail we take across the entire process and we think all those points out up to a company of integrity,” concludes Garnham.

See how Adobe plays a part in Jardan’s creative process

Writing by Madeleine Dore

Photography by James Geer