Rebranding our hearts

2016, the year for change

When we got home from our two month trip in the US last year, we were transformed – we just didn’t know how much. We knew that 2016 would be a year for change and every step we took since January only had one direction: to make us happy. To make wishes we thought impossible to come true and to risk everything without looking back. Without caring about what the others were doing. To dream higher and not be afraid to fall. To have the courage to be more real and more genuine.

Retire our loved “f”

We wanted to retire our beloved “F” for three years now. We wanted to retire it with the same energy one has when letting go of something one knows is safe: with fear. To move from a logo we knew worked and to look in our hearts for a brand that would represent this new “us” wasn’t just hard – it seemed impossible. 

The moment our hearts started to live in the sequoias

I don’t think it was the trip that changed us. What changed us was our willingness to take time for ourselves and to listen to what our heart was telling us for so long. Taking the time to travel and invest in our happiness brought us the space we needed to let our hearts speak. Exploring the unfamiliar opened our eyes to something bigger than ourselves.

Seeing the sequoias didn’t change us. But realising that their greatness stayed with us, much after we left them, did. To recognise how tiny we are next to these giants was not only transforming but also liberating. Respecting their existence as legacy of gone times and think of what they’d say about our civilisation if they could speak. Learning about their resistance to fire and plagues taught us about our own resilience.

All that we are in one brand

When we spoke with Joana and Mariana about our rebranding for the first time, we had our hearts open and were set on finding something together that would work for us. That was the easy part. The hard part was letting go of the fear: the fear of not finding something that would represent us, the fear of still having our very familiar “F” in our hearts and reaching the end of the process thinking that what we had before was better.

Fotografamos is much more than a brand or a mere company for us. It’s the expression of our love for each other. We even joke about it and say it’s our first baby. And how can you create a logo that illustrates how two people feel for each other? How to create a symbol of what we have been through together and makes sense not only to us but to every person that comes our way?

Mariana listened to what we had to say with all her heart and realised that what best represents what we mean to each other isn’t a letter. It’s a tree. This tree that stole our hearts forever. It was the constant desire of running in to the woods, to hike in the mountains, to live amongst these silent giants, the sense of wonder with which we admire those roots and the parallel we make with our own lives. It’s more than a symbol: it’s everything we are in a logo.

Love and legacy

We still think that true love stories never end. We know it not only from our own experience, but also because we see other couples with our own heart, more than we seen them with our eyes. Love & Legacy is born because we want to create legacy in the shape of images. We want these images to be invaluable to you as a couple and as a future family – much more than simply creating beautiful images imitating what you see in the magazines. We want these images to be pillars in your life, to your family. To represent everything that keeps you together: be it the start of your love, the celebration of your wedding, the unconditional love for that growing belly or the unbreakable bond with the fruits of your love. We are here to tell your love story, no matter what it is. We are here to create meaning, to create legacy.

Changing peacefully

Now that we’ve reached the end of the rebranding process, we can’t stop smiling; because we found our home. Because even though it seemed impossible, Fotografamos is now even more a representation of who we are, because we feel even more genuine, because this change was more a construction than a decision to show something that we are not. Because it came from our hearts.

We now retire our dear “F”, knowing that it will forever be part of our story, and hug the sequoia with a full heart. Happily, peacefully.