What began as a classroom assignment at Western Washington University in 2023 has grown into a lasting and visible rebrand for the Rome Bakery and Market, a community landmark that has operated at the corner of Sand Road and Mount Baker Highway since 1925. Recent graphic design graduate Grace Matson developed the new visual identity, and her work now appears across the store's signage, print materials, menus, and merchandise.
The Assignment That Started It All
WWU Professor of Design Brittany Schade regularly assigns her business redesign students a local company with branding that has not been updated in some time. The goal is to push students to go beyond classroom theory and engage directly with a real business, its history, and its customers. Schade had driven past the Rome store on trips to Mount Baker and thought its charm made it a natural candidate.
"I typically assign random local companies to students so they can go on-site and research themselves," Schade said. "I had driven by the Rome store dozens of times on the way to Mount Baker and thought it might be fun to assign as a hidden gem."
Matson liked the assignment from the start. The Rome store is a small, locally owned business that predates most of the commercial development in the area, and Matson wanted to visit the location in person to understand what made it feel the way it did. That research-first approach shaped the direction of the rebrand she eventually developed.
Finding the Right Visual Identity
Matson described the design challenge as finding the balance between the Rome store's rustic country character and the friendly, welcoming energy it projects to visitors heading up to the Mount Baker Highway corridor. The store draws a mix of local regulars and mountain-bound travelers, and the new visual identity needed to resonate with both audiences without feeling like it was trying too hard in either direction.
Her solution hit what she described as the sweet spot between those two poles. Typography, color choices, and illustrative elements came together in a brand system that feels rooted and specific to the store's century-old identity without looking dated. The espresso menu, one of the more visible daily touchpoints for customers, uses consistent typography that carries through to every other piece of branded material in the store.
Matson also designed merchandise, including shirts and mugs, which extended the brand into items that customers could take home. That level of completeness, from signage and print materials to wearable merchandise, is unusual for a student project and reflects the depth of Matson's engagement with the work.
From Classroom to Real-World Client
Many student design projects never leave the classroom, but Matson wanted hers to. With Professor Schade's coaching, she worked through the process of approaching Rome store owner Andrea Rowe as a real client, managing communication professionally, meeting deadlines while carrying a full academic course load, and figuring out how to price her work fairly.
"I had only ever really done design work for class up until that point," Matson said. The experience of navigating a real client relationship, with real stakes and real deadlines, gave her a foundation that classroom-only projects cannot replicate.
Rowe embraced the new look, and Matson continues to do small updates and additional projects for the store on an ongoing basis. The relationship has evolved from a single class assignment into a sustained professional connection, giving Matson continued real-world portfolio work while giving the Rome store a design partner who understands its identity deeply.
The Rome Bakery and Market, known informally to locals as "the Rome store," sits in the small community of Rome along the Mount Baker Highway, just past Maple Falls. It serves as a convenience stop, bakery, and community gathering point for residents of the highway corridor and a first-stop destination for hikers, skiers, and day-trippers heading toward the Mt. Baker Ski Area and the national recreation area beyond.
For students interested in the WWU College of Fine and Performing Arts design program, Matson's project offers a real example of how academic work can translate directly into professional practice. The department regularly places graduates in design roles across the Pacific Northwest, and stories like this one illustrate the applied, community-connected approach that distinguishes the program. More coverage of WWU student and faculty work is available through the WWU News site. For a look at another recent WWU development with county-wide impact, coverage of the university's new health sciences college and possible calendar change offers context on where the institution is headed.
