Gill Hall GardensBrand designer · Jan to Mar 2025A dormant account rebuilt so people could find her.
Built a brand mark, a content system and a social presence from scratch for a London garden designer. Monthly reach went from 75 to 4,283 in three months, 80% of it from people who did not already follow her.
- 4,283monthly accounts reached, from 75
- +5,767%reach across the three months
- 80%of that reach from non-followers
What the client says
Haris did an amazing job setting up my business on social media platforms and creating content. He is creative, flexible and hard-working and really knows what works - his expertise creating reels was especially good.
The brief
Good work.
Shown badly.
Gill runs a small garden design studio in London. She had a strong portfolio of completed projects and almost no digital presence to put it in front of anyone: seven posts, 92 followers, an inconsistent grid and no route for a new client to find her.
The work she was doing was beautiful. The way it was being shown wasn’t.
She needed two things. A brand identity that matched the quality of the work, and a social presence that could turn discovery into enquiries.
Profile and grid, January 2025 against the end of the engagement.
What I built
Two greens and a beige.
Then everything else.
Logo and brand mark
Designed the round green tree wordmark now used across the profile, the highlight covers and every carousel template.
Visual system
Built a palette around two greens and a beige, then designed the carousel templates, highlight covers and typography system that hold the feed together.
Profile rewrite
Restructured the bio to lead with what Gill does, who she is for and how to enquire, replacing a three-line description with a clearer hook and a call to action.
Founder layout
Designed and produced the "Hey, I'm Gill" introduction post, which became one of the most-saved tiles on the grid.
Content strategy
Four pillars.
Each one with a job.
Project showcases
Garden transformations, completed work, before and afters.
Job: prove the workProcess content
Behind the scenes, planning stages, design walkthroughs.
Job: show how Gill works, not just what she shipsFounder-led content
Gill on camera, founder posts, brand personality.
Job: make the brand humanGarden education
Advisory content on the design process, planting choices and what working with a designer actually involves.
Job: build authority and earn reach beyond existing followersA pillar in action
London Fields transformation.
A 60-second Reel edited from Gill’s existing client footage, built on a before, process, reveal structure and closing on the new brand mark.
- Led on a clear visual change in the first second to stop the scroll.
- Paced so the full 60 seconds held attention rather than front-loading the payoff.
- Closed on the brand mark, so the views built recognition and not just impressions.
- organic views~4,000
- views in total9,328
- of them from the ad64.4%
Reel, around 60 seconds · project showcases pillar
Execution
Over the three months.
- Designed and shipped branded carousel templates and Story highlight covers across the full feed.
- Edited Reels from Gill’s existing footage into platform-native short-form.
- Established a posting cadence and a consistent content structure.
- Coordinated content direction across Reels, carousels and Stories.
- Wrote the copy, from the bio through to captions.
Tools: Adobe Suite · Canva · Lightroom
What it produced
75 to 4,283.
In three months.
- 4,283monthly accounts reached, from 75
- 80%of that reach from non-followers
- 204followers, from 92
- 684profile actions, from around 70
- 659profile visits, from around 65
- 25link taps to gillhallgardens.co.uk, from around 5
Her next client has never heard of her. So the number that matters is reach from strangers.
Followers moved from 92 to 204 while monthly reach went from 75 to 4,283. The account was reaching roughly 57 times more people without an audience big enough to explain it, which is the number that matters for a studio whose next client has never heard of her.
The client put her own budget behind one Reel at the end of March, in the closing days of this window. Everything before that was organic, and the figures above are the account’s own insights, not an attribution model.
What I recommended next
The foundation’s built.
This is what’s next.
Volume of short-form video
Reels were the strongest discovery driver by a distance. Moving from occasional to weekly is the highest-leverage change available in the next quarter.
Lead capture
25 link taps is a starting point, not a funnel. A free design consultation form on the site turns profile taps into qualified enquiries.
Testimonial system
Completed projects are the strongest asset. A repeatable client, space, before and after format turns every finished job into reusable content.
Search-aware captions
Most enquiries come from London-area searches. Captions built around area and service keywords compound discovery beyond the algorithm.
Outcome
Dormant in January.
Found by strangers in March.
In three months Gill Hall Gardens went from a dormant Instagram presence to a recognisable identity with a working content system and measurable discovery behind it.
For a small local business the leverage isn’t in chasing follower counts. It’s in building a brand that earns reach from people who have never heard of you, and then turning that reach into enquiries.