THE CRUISE CUSTOMTHE CRUISE CUSTOM
Established in 2017, Chris Cruise understands the value of patriotism. Combining his wife’s Kentucky roots and his own veteran background, the company was created when Chris built a flag for their own home. Rapidly expanding over the past two years, Cruise Customs Flags now includes apparel and accessories as part of their product line, in addition to their popular bourbon barrel flags. While many of the products from Cruise Customs are repurposed, ALL of the products are hand-crafted by veterans from the military.
CUSTOM COLLABORATION
Beginning with the design and development of their new website, Hatfield Media has had the privilege of working with Cruise Customs to achieve their ongoing digital marketing needs. When redesigning Cruise Customs’ logo, Hatfield Graphic Designer, Morgan Fletcher, noted that “The logo needed to capture a sense of pride and American culture. The new logo has a grunge texture to it with an icon of the American flags similar to the ones made by Cruise Customs for their customers.” Fletcher chose a color palette with patriotic colors to enhance the brand. From product photography, graphic design of their trade show booth displays, to the production of their ‘Our Story’ video, the Hatfield team has assisted Cruise with multiple projects as the company has continued to flourish.
CUSTOM WEB DESIGN
The rapid expansion and increase in products called for a more polished and agile website. “It was fun to collaborate with Chris about specific features of the website that he wanted. I liked getting to expand my knowledge of Shopify and help support a veteran-owned business. The project really proved just how well we could work together as a team, despite the COVID situation," says Hatfield Media Backend Developer, Nathan Klein “It was an exciting opportunity to work with such a noteworthy business and their one-of-a-kind products.”
“The product personalization that Cruise wanted was very unique, so unique in fact that we had to get an add-on for it” noted backend developer, Mark Russ. “There was a lot of stuff we had to customize. The product personalizer works around Shopify's limitation of not being able to support in-depth personalization, by essentially creating a new product any time someone finalizes their customization. One of the challenges faced was figuring out what each newly created product shared in common, so that we could exclude them from appearing in the store.”
CRUISE CHARACTER
Just as our military men and women served the U.S. with a flag on their sleeve, Cruise Customs Flags now wants to serve them. Veterans once served a greater purpose and bourbon barrels once served a great purpose. Cruise is helping them both find new purpose in their handcrafted American flags. Hatfield Media is thrilled to be able to continue aiding Cruise Customs in that purpose through their ongoing social media and email marketing campaigns.
"Hatfield Media has taken our branding, social media, and website to another level,” says Cruise Customs Flags owner, Chris Cruise. “Their responsiveness to quick change is also a great attribute of the company. We are pleased with their graphic design in particular. Our story and look now compliment each other thanks to the team at Hatfield Media!"
