She Got Let Go on a Friday. By Spring, She Had a Brand. Meet The Swan Project

A Zoom invite. 1:33 p.m. on a Friday.

The day before a family trip she'd been looking forward to for months.

That's how Marie-Claude's corporate career ended.

And that's how The Swan Chapter began.

Starting From Zero, On Purpose

Marie-Claude didn't come to us with an existing brand that needed refreshing. She came with a vision, a story, and a very clear sense of what she didn't want.

Not hustle culture. Not "reinvent yourself in 30 days." Not generic career advice dressed up in pretty fonts.

She wanted a calm, curated space for women 50+ navigating a career reset. Real talk. Practical next steps. No urgency, no spin.

Our job was to build a brand and a website that felt exactly like that.

The Salt Aura (Brand Kit) Foundation

Marie-Claude started with our Salt Aura Brand Kit — a semi-custom brand system — as her foundation, featuring clean and elegant typography. She paired it with a palette of warm terracotta and soft blues that felt grounded and sophisticated without being corporate.

From there, we built the full website on top of it.

This is actually one of our favourite approaches for founders who are just starting, know their aesthetic, but aren't ready for the full done-for-you branding investment. Start with a kit. Build the website. Grow from there.

The result looks completely custom. Because it is.

The Technical Challenge

Here's the part that doesn't make it into most portfolio posts — the back end.

The Swan Chapter isn't just a brochure website. It's a growing content library. Training series. Resources organized by how you want to consume them — Listen, Read, Do. A Cozy Corner. A newsletter. Blog posts that needed to power multiple pages simultaneously without creating a content management nightmare for a founder running this solo, who isn't tech-savvy.

The solution: we built the entire site using Wix's blog as the central CMS. One place to add content. Multiple places it appears — organized, categorized, and completely manageable without a developer on speed dial.

That's not a small thing. That's the difference between a website that works for you long-term and one you abandon after three months because it was too overwhelming.

What We Built

A semi-custom brand identity rooted in the Salt Aura kit — adapted and built out specifically for The Swan Chapter's voice and audience.

A full website with a homepage, about page, resources section, training series, Cozy Corner, and newsletter integration — powered by a single blog CMS that Marie-Claude can manage herself.

SEO foundations, mobile optimization, Google Search Console setup, and a coaching call so she knows exactly how to run it going forward.

The Result

A 50+ executive who got blindsided on a Friday afternoon built something entirely her own by spring.

A brand that looks polished and intentional. A website that's genuinely useful to the women it serves. A back end she can actually navigate without calling anyone.

That's the whole point. 💗

Visit The Swan Chapter at theswanchapter.com