The Client
Forum began with Amy and Kailey, two women in Edmonton opening their first business. They had a space in West Block, Glenora, and firm convictions about how Pilates should be taught: on the Reformer, in small classes, by instructors who actually know the body. They believed a studio could be built on health rather than appearance, on how a session makes you feel rather than how it makes you look. What they had was a space and a point of view. What they didn’t have was a brand, or any way to take a booking. They came to ANVL for the rest, which made us less a vendor and more a growth partner.
The Problem
A new studio in boutique fitness opens with no track record and no trust, in a category loud with transformation talk and body-image pressure. Forum wanted to stand for the opposite, health over appearance and calm over noise. The risk was getting pulled onto the category’s terms anyway, competing on hype it didn’t believe in, or staying so quiet it never registered. And as first-time owners, Amy and Kailey needed to turn a strong point of view into a real business, one people would commit to before the doors even opened.
- Industry
- Boutique Fitness, Reformer Pilates
- Year
- 2024 to Present
- Services
- Brand Strategy, Brand Identity, Voice & Tone, Launch Campaign, Business Advisory, Photography, Web Design & Development
The Thinking
The category sells how you will look. Forum would sell how you feel, and what you can be a part of.
That reframed everything. A studio built on health had no reason to trade in shame or urgency, so we cut both and let restraint carry the brand. Calm reads as premium. Noise reads as desperation. A quieter, more considered studio would feel more valuable than any volume of hype could manufacture.
The second move was belonging. A forum is a gathering place, somewhere people choose to come together. We built the brand on that idea, with community as the product rather than a perk, and the doors open to a nervous first-timer and a seasoned regular alike. That is what let Forum feel premium without feeling cold. It is also what turned its members into its best marketing.
Underneath both sat the startup truth. A new studio has no proof, so the brand has to stand in for proof until the real thing arrives. Every choice pointed at one feeling: this place has been here a while, and it is for you.
Quote
"The category sells how you look. Forum sells how you belong."
The Work
We built an identity that feels closer to a sanctuary than a gym. The palette is warm and earthy, walnut and terracotta grounded by hunter green and ivory. The type is a quiet serif set sparingly against a clean sans. An arch mark carries the open-door idea built into the name. Then we gave Forum a voice to match, warm but never soft, grounded but never clinical. It trains for health, not looks, and it says so plainly. In a category that shouts, Forum speaks once and means it.
This is where we worked less like an agency and more like a growth partner. Amy and Kailey arrived with conviction and a space, so we helped turn that into a business, shaping the offer and the membership model around the value of the room itself: small classes, real instruction, and time on the Reformer that earns its price. Then we built the launch around belonging instead of discounts. Join the Forum. Due to that campaign, founders memberships sold out before the studio ever opened, so Forum welcomed its first members into something that already felt like a community rather than a soft opening.
The website carries the same restraint. It leads with what Forum offers, says why it is different, then invites. We designed and built it, and integrated Mindbody so the schedule, memberships, and booking all run in one place. A first-timer can go from never having touched a Reformer to booked in under a minute. A full studio shoot gave Forum its own library of real instructors and members so it wouldn’t have to lean on stock.
The Result
Forum opened already feeling established, and the community took it from there. The studio fills its schedule, and its members do the marketing, in reviews that win over even the skeptics and in a monthly challenge they keep showing up for. For a studio barely two years old, the brand now draws partners far larger than itself, including a sold-out wellness night with the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald and lululemon. Women-led, health-first, and still growing.
A studio that opened with no track record and no way to take a booking now turns people away at sold-out events and is weighing where to open next. The premium was never in the noise. It was in the calm. Forum proved it.
