Back-to-back charettes today and tomorrow, a special treat to my followers to make up for a quiet last week! This first design charette challenge comes from Erin of Sweet Pickin’s, a brand-new line of cute hand-made and up-cycled goodies which include babywear, jewelry and other fun hand-sewn gifts. Erin lives on a farm and her brand name is a play on words of her (and her husband’s) last name as well as the home-grown inspirations from her beloved garden. Erin wants her brand to be organic, vintage, rustic and hand-made but fun enough for new mommies, babies and craft fans.
Freshly picked from the hand-made 'garden'!
The challenge for me was to present a logo and identity that was distinctively reflective of the Sweet Pickin’s hand-made line, but still sophisticated enough to grow with Erin as her line expands beyond babywear. It should also be easy enough to brand on packaging, stationery and fabric items and be bold and eye-catching. Because of Erin’s farm, berries and garden inspirations, and her taste for the rustic and vintage, texture thus becomes very important in both the graphics and the material it is finally printed/reproduced on.
A rustic, natural textured line
The final graphic that I have chosen from the exercise is a simple pencil-drawn spring green basket with distinct textures and a hand-written script in a lovely berry color. If digitally printed, the graphic itself is simple and bold enough to show up on the most rustic of textures-canvas, burlap, seeded handmade papers, and the like. And if Erin prefers, it can also be reproduced as a 2-color screen print, which would be lovely for fabric labels and other highly textured packaging and materials.
I envision it on natural unbleached muslin baggies for small hand-made goods like wallets, mini purses; on unbleached frayed-edge muslin ribbon for wrapping her goodies, printed on handmade fabric-backed earring-namecards and seeded hand-made paper hangtags that double as notecards. An Etsy banner idea of the Sweet Pickin’s Shop will perhaps feature the logo/basket on a hand-drawn garden against a linen cloth scan.
I’m so excited for Erin and her new venture and wish her all the best!
In case anyone missed out on the announcement first time around, Design Charette winners will receive 30% off the Etsy listed price for their kick-start branding package- the studio’s way of showing support for emerging creative businesses! Visit the TreeSpace Studio Etsy Shop here.