Across five distinct projects, our team’s shared approach to strategy, creativity, and experience helped shape work recognized by the North Carolina Home Builders Association.
On a night celebrating achievement across North Carolina’s home building industry, The Real Estate Studio earned four 2026 NCHBA STARS Awards and an Honorable Mention.
The program included approximately 315 entries across 80+ categories, recognizing work by builders, developers, designers, marketing professionals, and industry partners throughout the state.
Entries are evaluated by judges selected for their relevant professional expertise and drawn from across the United States, with most residing outside North Carolina to support impartial evaluation. Within the marketing and advertising categories, each submission is scored across four areas: concept and execution, effectiveness and impact, innovation and uniqueness, and the challenges encountered and addressed. The total scores determine the results within each category.
*NCHBA awarded Honorable Mentions to select entries in exceptionally competitive categories when the margin between first and second place was less than one point.
“Each of these awards recognizes a different expression of the same belief: that every touchpoint should help people understand what makes a company, community, or home distinctive and how the experience should feel,” said Laurie Evans, president and founder of The Real Estate Studio. “I am incredibly proud of our team and grateful to the clients who trust us to help shape and share their vision.”
The four awards and an Honorable Mention span five distinct projects, but each was shaped by the same team-wide commitment: to understand what makes a company, community, or home distinctive and translate that understanding into an intentional experience at every touchpoint.
A logo is often the most visible expression of a brand, but it is not the brand in its entirety.
The Real Estate Studio identity was designed as the foundation of a broader experience. Its signature monogram, typography, supporting logo configurations, and visual structure were created to work across brokerage, new homes, community marketing, signage, collateral, digital platforms, and client communications.
That flexibility matters because a brand must be able to move with a company. It needs to create recognition without restricting growth and provide consistency without making every expression feel identical.
Receiving Best Logo for an Associate at the STARS Awards was particularly meaningful because the same identity was recognized as Best Logo for a Company at the 2026 MAME Awards. This second honor reinforces the value of building a system around the logo rather than treating it as an isolated design.
Before many clients speak with us, visit a community, or tour a home, they encounter The Real Estate Studio online.
We designed our website with that moment in mind.
Buyers, sellers, builders, developers, and industry partners may all enter the site with different questions. The experience therefore needed to accommodate multiple paths without feeling fragmented or overwhelming.
Navigation, page hierarchy, property discovery, community resources, original editorial content, and visual presentation were developed as parts of one connected system. The goal was not simply to make information available. It was to help visitors understand where they were, identify what might be relevant to them, and move naturally toward the next step.
Being recognized for Best Website for an Associate affirms our belief that hospitality can begin digitally. A website can offer clarity, consideration, and a sense that someone has anticipated what the visitor may need before a personal conversation ever begins.
The Best Logo for a Community award recognized the identity created for Forest Ridge, a new home community by WHW Builders in Franklinton, North Carolina.
The Forest Ridge identity began with the character of the land. Its wooded setting called for a brand that felt connected to nature without becoming overly rustic or predictable.
“The setting gave us a strong point of inspiration, but we did not want to rely on the visual conventions commonly associated with a wooded community,” said Caroline Wisner, creative director for The Real Estate Studio. “Our goal was to create an identity that felt distinctive and refined while still carrying the warmth, character, and natural beauty of the land.”
Elegant typography and a botanical logo mark established the foundation. From there, the system expanded through color, patterns, illustrations, mapping, iconography, signage, collateral templates, and digital applications.
Every element was created to help Forest Ridge become recognizable while maintaining the warmth and sense of place that first inspired the identity. The result is not simply a logo placed on different materials. It is a visual language capable of supporting the community throughout its development and sales journey.
For North Ridge, the opportunity was different.
The Poppy and The Sterling were 2026 Triangle Parade of Homes Winners. The character of each home was shaped by distinct architectural perspectives, curated materials, and detailed interior decisions. A conventional brochure focused primarily on features would not fully communicate that level of thought.
The designer lookbooks were developed as editorial experiences. Photography, narrative, product details, and design insight guide the reader through each home while revealing how individual selections contribute to the whole.
The goal was to help prospective buyers understand not only what had been included, but why it mattered and how the completed home was intended to feel.
The North Ridge work received Best Brochure for a Community at the STARS Awards after receiving the same recognition at the 2026 MAME Awards. That continued recognition speaks to the value of presenting a home as a cohesive experience rather than a collection of individual specifications.
The Backdrop for Life was one of two sponsorship commercials developed by The Real Estate Studio and presented at separate points during the 2026 MAME Awards Gala. Each was designed to stand independently, but together they explored two complementary dimensions of homebuilding.
Protecting What You’re Building addressed the business realities of development. The Backdrop for Life turned toward the human experience made possible by the finished home.
The concept was built around a simple truth: people rarely remember a home because of its MLS listing, price point, or square footage. They remember how it felt and the experiences that unfolded within it.
Written from the future homeowner’s perspective, the commercial centers on memories, traditions, gathering spaces, and the emotional significance of home. Warm lifestyle imagery, deliberate pacing, and restrained branding were used to support the story and keep the focus on human connection.
“We wanted builders to feel the significance of what they create beyond the plans, specifications, and sales milestones,” said Beth Kuhn, vice president of marketing and brand strategy for The Real Estate Studio. “A home becomes the setting for traditions, gatherings, and the moments people carry with them. Builders do not simply create houses. They create the backdrop for life.”
The project was developed entirely in-house, including concept development, scriptwriting, voiceover direction, video production, and post-production editing. The objective was not simply to generate awareness. It was to create something builders would recognize as authentic, memorable, and reflective of the lasting influence their work has on the lives of others.
Receiving an Honorable Mention in the Best 30 to 60 Second Commercial category affirms the emotional and creative strength of that approach. The STARS Honorable Mention distinction was awarded to select entries in exceptionally competitive categories where less than one point separated first and second place.
Two of our STARS-winning projects had already been honored at the MAME Awards: The Real Estate Studio logo and the North Ridge brochure.
The STARS Awards added two new areas of recognition through the Forest Ridge community logo and The Real Estate Studio website.
Together, the four awards and Honorable Mention create a fuller picture of the work. They recognize the identity and digital experience we created for our own company, as well as the branding and marketing experiences we developed for our clients and their communities, and the story we shared through film.
Although the expressions are different, each began with the same questions: What makes this company, community, or home distinctive? What does someone need to understand? How should the experience feel?
That shared perspective is central to how our team approaches marketing. We believe the strongest work is not created by pursuing one outstanding deliverable in isolation. It is created when strategy and creativity are aligned, and every deliverable contributes meaningfully to the same story.
Recognition is not the starting point for the work. It is one meaningful result of a team aligned around a shared purpose and willing to bring the same level of thought and care to every expression of a company, community, or home.
We are grateful to the North Carolina Home Builders Association and the STARS 2026 judges for recognizing these projects, and to the clients and team members who helped bring them to life.
The four awards and Honorable Mention affirm the value of the questions that continue to shape our work: Does this create clarity? Does it express what makes the client or community distinctive? Does it make the experience more considered? Will it continue to work as needs evolve?
Those questions, and the shared vision behind them, matter long after an awards evening has ended.
Explore all four awards and the work behind them on our 2026 STARS Awards Recognition page.
