bryna blum
Case Study: From private journals to a book, a brand, and a healing community.
Several years after her husband’s passing, Bryna took part in a workshop that had a journaling component. That started her putting her feelings and thoughts to paper. Those thoughts led her to become a life coach for widows and widowers a life she never expected, where she encouraged others to write down their feelings as well.
Those writings became Mourning Pages: A Widow’s Journal of Healing, released in June 2026.
Together, we developed Bryna’s brand identity, custom website, and the social presence that are supporting Bryna’s work as an author, speaker, grief coach, and community builder
The book
Designing the book cover
Our work together began with the design of the cover for Mourning Pages: A Widow’s Journal of Healing.
Bryna favors clean, simple and modern styles with an abundance of black and white. The cover needed to reflect these elements and convey the deeply personal nature of Bryna’s writing while giving the book a professional presence that felt calm, thoughtful and hopeful. It could not feel clinical or rely on the familiar visual language often used for books about grief.
Bryna was preparing to introduce herself publicly as an author, speaker, grief coach and community builder. The visual direction established for the book became the starting point for a broader identity, a website, a private membership experience and an ongoing social presence.
What began as a book-cover project gradually revealed the larger structure needed to support Bryna’s work as an author, speaker, grief coach and community builder.
Basic Brand Guidelines
Extending the visual identity.
The book cover established the visual starting point for the wider brand.
From there, the visual identity was extended through Bryna’s wordmark logo, typography and a restrained palette of black, white, grey and coral. These elements created a consistent foundation for the website, member areas and social media.
To achieve an accessible font for the website, that worked well with the typography on the book and Bryna’s social media, we selected Urbanist for H1 and H2 headings and the ever-popular and highly readable Inter for content.
The result is an integrated visual system that feels calm, personal and professional while supporting Bryna’s work as an author, speaker, grief coach and community builder.
Logo & Color Palette
Typography
Structuring the vision
The brand architecture needed to make several related elements understandable without separating them from one another.
Bryna Blum is the voice behind the work.
Mourning Pages is the published book developed from the writings she began following her husband’s death.
WidowsJournal.com carries the original Widow’s Journal idea forward as the broader digital home.
Social Presence extends Bryna’s work through public reflection, short-form content and ongoing outreach.
The Healing Circle is a free private membership area. Prospective members request access, and each request is reviewed and personally approved by Bryna. It is intentionally protected as a safe space for personal reflection, journaling and healing work. It is not an open social group or paid online program.
training & Implementation support
Supporting a confident handoff
WidowsJournal.com combines three publishing areas, membership controls, and several types of public and private content within one customized WordPress system.
Ongoing training and implementation support were built into the launch process so the site could be managed consistently as new content, members, and needs were added.
Publishing workflows
Training covered the different processes for adding public Reflections, private Journal Prompts, and entries for Bryna’s Musings.Membership support
Support included access requests, member approvals, user management, and the protected areas of the Healing Circle.Ongoing training
Regular sessions following launch provided time to review processes, answer questions, and reinforce the tools used most often.Practical support
As new content and needs arose, workflows could be reviewed, adjusted, and documented within the existing system.Long-term usability
The goal was not only to launch the website, but to create a platform that could be maintained and developed confidently over time.
A social presence built around reflection
Maryle is a creative visionary. She gets to know you and then proceeds to build a website that reflects exactly what you’re trying to convey. I’ve known her in several capacities for years; and as I was writing my book “Mourning Pages, A Widow’s Journal…” I immediately thought of her to build something exactly like I would if I had her talent. She’s the best!
