Harlem Candle Co. Packaging Design

I have had the pleasure of working with Teri, founder of Harlem Candle Co. for about a year now.
She came to me for a logo upgrade and needing packaging and labels for her candle line.

Truth be told, I actually really liked her logo.
Usually when clients tell me that they need help with their logos, they do.
The story usually starts with

My Mom (or, best friend, 12 yr old nephew, boyfriend etc) got a copy of Photoshop and created this logo for me...

Coincidentally, Teri's logo story started the same way, however in this case, her Dad ;-)
1. Was smart enough to use Illustrator to create a vector based logo
2. Kept it simple and clean looking
3. Has talent!
I tweaked a few details, made some slight typography changes but by and large, the essence of what he had created stayed. I thought he had done a great job!

Teri had been using labels on her various candles before coming to me, however, this time, she wanted her new labels to really reflect where she was taking the line, with luxurious new fragrances and new glass vessels. She also felt that she was ready to take things to the next level in terms of her brand and wanted me to design some custom packaging for the line

We started by creating the labels for both beauty and utility ; a label for each fragrance in a rich saturated corresponding colour and a gold foil. Since custom boxes can get expensive and Teri was starting this venture with a small-ish print run, we opted on only one box design for all the different fragrances. I did this by creating an area on the front of the box that could accommodate the same label as the vessel, so every boxed candle would have a label on the front of the outside of the box and on the glass candle vessel. Since we could use the same label, it increased her label volume and thus, ended up bringing her (per piece) label price down, so it worked out perfectly. By only creating one box at this point, it also ruled out some of the pitfalls of printing lots of different custom boxes, like running out of some and having overstock on others. With this scenario, we only had to worry about labels. Plus, Teri could introduce new fragrances by only adding a new label to the existing box.

I stayed with the classic black and gold of the original Harlem Candle Co. aesthetic for the boxes and created an all over pattern using the H, accented by spot gloss on the H's. This gives the box some texture and although the H pattern is black on the black background, it stands out in a subtle way depending on how light catches the gloss and resembling custom wallpaper. On the inside of the box, Teri was granted permission by the family of the late artist Elmer Simms Campbell to use the amazing illustration of his Harlem Night Club Map.

In March, Teri presented her all-new line in her exquisitely designed booth at the Architectural Digest Design Show in NYC, it was a huge success!

We are working on her next new ideas together and I'll be sure to keep you in the loop.
You can enjoy these beautiful candles in your own home, (I have burned several and the fragrances are divine), definitely order a few for yourself or someone you really love!

Private Label Candles

Happy 2016!

This year I am not going to call it anything, like a resolution, I am just going to do it.
So, let's do this.

First up, Private Label.
I know I get retailers and wholesalers and designers and event peeps here, (because you write to me, and I enjoy that), so I thought this might be fun to share, plus I'm super excited about it.

Just launched,
the Private Label Boutique with my awesome clients Scentations Home Fragrance.
What is it, you ask?
It's a small-batch run program starting at just 100 candles.
Scentations is a 30 year old, second generation family run home fragrance company that makes beautiful candles and home fragrance products in Pocahontas Arkansas. They have been taking care of large private label accounts for many years, but now, I have helped them design a simple and affordable way to offer custom candles to smaller retailers, for events or corporate opportunities.
It's a super simple process where you choose your vessel (4 offered), your fragrance (over 20 offered) and your label shape and style (designed by yours truly).
It honestly could not get any simpler. We can also add your logo and use your requested colors.

If you are planning an event or have always wanted to create your own line of custom candles for your retail environment, event or even your design business,
you should definitely get in touch with Scentations.

The Mock-up; From an idea to a booth

Happy 2015!
I decided not to wait another 2 years before my next blog posting, :-)
I have been asked over and over again - Nadine, how do you come up with fresh booth ideas for smaller companies who don't want to spend a gazillion bucks and who want an awesome booth but with a relatively quick set up and tear down.
Here it is, my (now) not so secret process.
I start with A LOT of thought, much is pretty straight forward, but each case is always a little different. I think about the product that is being sold, how it will be sold at retail, who I want to sell it to, and, what type of a setting suits the product. I go through the obvious list of what the exhibiting company has or has not already done in terms of a booth pre- Nadine.
Do they have a catalog? great photography? full on branding? or maybe things are a little scattered look-wise, maybe we want to make the look more cohesive and pardon the expression "on brand" (ugh). So many questions, but SO important to know before you start to mock things up.
...How big is the booth? (usually my client's booths are between a 10x10 and 10x15), how many products do we need to show? do we want to do a lot of repeat? ie: 12 of each item? if there are only a few items in the line, or, is the line vast and the booth space limited?

Now, what about style? Visual inspiration.
The line could be gorgeous dainty jewelry, but how am I going to get buyers out of the aisle and into this booth to take the time to look at the gorgeous dainty jewelry, when there's a daiquiri machine a few booths down and a clown and puppies? (not quite, but almost)

Does my client's line have great style already? or does it need to find its look? Is there something in the line that can inspire the entire look of the booth, maybe a great photo in their catalog that can get the ball rolling?... How extravagant can I get with this booth? What's the budget? Can we ship in 10ft antique armoires?, yeah, didn't think so.

I happen to think in images, I can build a booth in my head first, literally swapping out fixtures, paint colors and signage with my eyes closed, lying in bed. Odd? probably, but it's how I roll.  Funny thing is, when I was doing my own booths, I rarely did any kinds of visual mock-ups, I imagined my booths and simply made lists. (When I look back on it, I probably would have saved some time by mocking it up after imagining it, but too late now). Most of my clients are not into the whole imagining thing, understandably, they want to see it, or something very close to it, before they show up in the booth, so I create mock-ups, and that is what we are going to talk about today.

I am going to take the initial launch of the lovely Eleven Point - Fragrance Merchants line, this past summer. Before we did anything in terms of a trade show for his newest brand, David (the owner) wanted to see something that he could really sink his teeth into, all the pretty words and descriptions weren't going to cut it, he wanted visuals. Here is what the very first mock-up looked like.

A little background, the line is inspired by nature, the fragrances, memories and experiences David and his family had growing up on the Eleven Point River. The initial launch would show 6 different fragrances in 6 different product categories (white glass vessel candle, black glass vessel candle, reed diffuser, room mist, travel tin candle and fragrant sachet). The line was designed to coordinate in rustic or modern settings, for women or for men. To have a lived-in comfortable, relaxed look with sophistication and elegance, focusing on the amazing fragrances of the line; River Fern, Bonfire, Cotton Creek, Honeysuckle Rain, Coconut Moon (my favorite) and Blackberry.

Charcoal painted walls with the box pattern as wallpaper down each wall, gold wall sconces, signage like the brand's packaging, two perfectly weathered leather club chairs, one large wooden wall shelf, large nested table set and weathered wooden floors. I knew this was simply a jumping off point to get things moving along, it might not all be feasible, but we needed a start. Also, when starting with a mock-up like this, you can really walk through a few orders in your head and really think about what you need in your booth in terms of supplies and what you need to show in terms of product. And yes, it's a wholesale show and buyers know how to buy, but buyers are also regular people who shop too, so I like to think about what I like, what attracts me to a store, how I like to shop.

It just so happened that before doing the Eleven Point booth, reps and showrooms were hired, so we quickly switched things up for the limited space of a showroom. Here are the mock-ups.

Dallas showroom, approximately 8 feet of wall and approx 6 feet of floor. 

Here's the Mock -up

 

in progress

 

end result (very bad photo/color)

Las Vegas showroom, 8 feet of wall with about 10 feet of floor.

 

Wait, what now? I can have ceiling electricity?... we can do this.

They might have a table we can use? it's rectangular? okey dokey.

 

result (excuse the photo quality, it's all they sent me!)

 

 Atlanta - variation on the same theme, again with a round table

You are getting the idea now, right?
For technical info, I use Adobe Illustrator to create these mock-ups, truth be told, I wish I could use Illustrator for everything, it's amazing. But if you are not into the big guns software, you can certainly use other things, or even draw it out, or make your life a little simpler and call us.
(please note that we were NOT present for any of these showroom set-ups, they were done by the showrooms themselves based on our mock-ups, and, they did a great job! This go around of shows, I am getting really detailed about exactly where we want product displayed and on how many samples are sent to each show, you will see that soon, Atlanta is being set up right this second as I type this post :-)

Here are few sources for items that were used in the showrooms - round table in Las Vegas Showroom, battery powered wall sconces were purchased on ebay for all showrooms, custom self-adhesive wallpaper.

Next up, how we tried a few looks before settling on this NY Booth last summer.

The Head of the Class!

I have done some fun little jobs lately, like immediate gratification for a designer.
As much as I love the big jobs, sometimes the little ones are just, well, refreshing!
Both were to design new website headers.
The first was for the adorable and talented Nicole Cohen of www.sketch42blog.com
She was a dream client, really knew what she wanted and could communicate it beautifully (sounds like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how hard it can be for some clients to tell you what they want!).
Plus, I was using her gorgeous painting as the header's backdrop...hello?, again, makes my job easy. She told me what she was thinking, I proposed some ideas and, as she is so adept at doing (read her blog!) she took it to the streets for opinions...In the end, chose the typography that she liked the best. I think she chose very well and am proud to say that I helped her design her new header. I am a fan of her blog and her work, take my advice, spend some time on her site.

The next header was for my fabulous friend, writer (can't-believe-we-met-through-twitter-because-she-feels-like-freaking-family!) www.nataliekarneef.com  She, knew a little less, what she wanted, but,  she did know what she liked, again, a good starting point (read on). My challenge was to find the thread that brought all the things she liked together (or some of them). Here are some examples of what she liked; vintage-ish, turquoise, red, brown, green, granny wallpaper, flowers, black and white photographs, good humor, drinking humor (she'll appreciate me sharing that!)  and naturally, as you'd suspect... old maps, typewriters, motorbikes and scooters... (this was not the entire list) but, let's face it,  it's pretty obvious, right?
Here's what she got,

Ok, it might not have been that simple, we went back and forth a few times, hey, I am a designer, not a psychic, but seriously, want to know how much fun is it to go back and forth and throw around ideas about headers until the cows come home with someone you adore?...you can't even put a price on that kind of fun!
Would I sound super cocky saying that I freaking love the result?..oh well.
Oh, and, get familiar with Natalie, and her writing, you will be happy you did!
Need a header? get in touch. Headers make me happy. (that sounds wrong)

Sarah's Chandelier (how to wire a chandelier to plug in)

When my Dad's Mom, my Grammy, passed away several years ago, most of what was left in her apartment was sold. There wasn't a whole lot of great value, but I liked her chandeliers. There were two, one smaller, one a little bigger. I painted the smaller one white and used it in the bedroom of the house I owned with a former boyfriend. That little chandelier, stayed in that house. When former said boyfriend and co-owner of said house turned into very angry person when I wanted to leave, and then even angrier when "negotiating" his purchasing of my portion of the house, said small sweet chandelier got caught up in an apparent custody battle.
I asked him if I could pick it up a few times, but it was clear that he was going to hold that chandelier hostage...I decided to let her go. Seems he felt quite attached to that little fixture. I moved on.
Well, for some reason, I had totally forgotten about the other, larger chandelier...A few weeks ago, as I was truffeling through my father's basement aka my storage area, I came across her... She came to the loft for a visit and I began to ponder her future.
Our loft only has 2 actual spots to wire lighting into the ceiling, one in the kitchen and one in the entrance hall, and I decided to leave the simplistic white ball lights with the foot long stems...I like them, they suit the place. So my first step was deciding that I would like to wire the chandelier to plug in, rather then wire into the ceiling.
I googled like mad and found that the descriptions were a little tedious and complicated.
I went to my local Home Depot with a few photos instead.
this was what I found at the end of the wire (this was where you would wire the chandelier into the ceiling)

 When I opened up the chandelier, it was pretty straightforward...Each of the little lights had both a black and white wire running from it (these wires are attached to the actual candles that hold each light). These wires all met under the ornate bottom cover part of the chandelier, that came off very easily by simply unscrewing the parts beneath it (don't let any of this confuse you, it's super simple and your fixture will likely be a little different anyhow, so don't dwell). All the white wires were assembled with a plastic cap and some electrical tape, all the black wires were assembled with a plastic cap and some electrical tape...c'est tout!

 I checked all the lights to make sure that the wiring was working...I had one broken one, which I was able to replace for $2, the little candles (the electrical bits that your chandelier bulbs screw onto) might look complicated, but again, piece o cake!...like any lamp, you put the white wire around one screw and the black wire around the other, tighten the screws around the wire ends, and voila, done.

So, it was really the wires just hanging out the top that I needed to concern myself with. How to get this situation to plug in. My Home Depot guy showed me how. I bought a simple wire kit with a switch on it and a plug, the ends were bare, like my wire. All I had to do was attach the ends of my wires to the ends of the plug wires, twist a plastic cap onto them to hold them in place and (Home Depot helper suggested) I wrapped each little plastic capped-wire-couple with some electrical tape. DONE!

I then held my breath and plugged her in (with the single chandelier light I had on hand)

Now came the decisions. Style decisions. The fun part. I spent a few days pondering my possibilities... I could spray the entire thing in a fun modern color (once painted, a chandelier is not easy to unpaint...which is fine, but I was not ready yet), what color candlestick covers, what kind of light bulbs...the thoughts went on and on....Finally, not being able to patiently make any decisions, because the excitement of getting it up and working was more than I could handle (you can tell where my life presently is on the excitement scale), I ran (well, I drove) back to Home Depot (whereupon we had a Zombie boy sighting) and, with Tess chatting my ear off and her burning desire to pull every single plant in the plant section off shelves, I spotted some teeny little pink bulbs. Tess approved...she actually more than approved, she did a happy dance, and song and pulled more stuff off shelves in her state of pink bulb happiness. I grabbed 10 of the them, threw her and the bulbs into the shopping cart and high tailed it back home.
Here's what happened. I did not paint, I have not even decided on candlestick covers, I put the little pink bulbs in, placed a big heavy hook into one of our wooden beams and she is so darn pretty that I might not change another darn thing about her. Tess finds the pinkish red lighting fun and exciting and wants it on as soon as she wakes up in the morning until she goes to sleep at night. I will keep you posted if I decide to continue the chandelier transformation, but for right now, I am simply enjoying her prettiness.
And to the ex boyfriend who might still have the smaller chandelier, painted in the distressed white shabby chic-like style of yore, I truly hope you are enjoying your chandelier, as much as we are enjoying ours.

Now, go forth and make something old new again! Make it yours and most of all, enjoy it!

ahhhhh the headboard....

it's done! the headboard of LIFE (as I lovingly call it, is done!)
I am making it sound like it was some huge thing to make...it wasn't! but it sounds more interesting, non? (that's french, not a typo).
You got a quick lookie here,
and I know that you thought, "hmmmm, what's she going to do with that?"...
Voila :

 and here was more or less the process...(minus a few steps because I forgot to stop and snap a photo...I swear I am getting better at this documenting-each-step-of-way thing, but it is taking me longer than I thought to get used to doing it)



I started with a gorgeous frame...I am pretty sure there had been a mirror in it originally, as there was some left over silicone on the inside edge...Let me just take a moment here to tell you this...because I'll bet some of you are thinking "I really really REALLY want to make a cool headboard like Nadine, but I don't have the time or patience or budget to go looking for a fabulously ornate frame to use!" (I'm like a psychic right?)

Listen up, you do not NEED an ornate frame to make an amazing headboard!

Here are some ideas; use a simple rectangular frame, paint it in a high gloss fabulous color (like black or white or red or tiffany box turquoise-ish robins egg) and choose some great fabric...upholster the inside, as I did and presto, just as beautiful! Hate high gloss? no probs, choose matte, REALLY matte! it's stunning.
And, I see it like this, if the frame is plain-ish, go a little more over the top with the fabric colors/pattern or paint...if the frame is a statement piece in itself, you can go a little simpler in the paint or fabric because the shape is making a statement already...it's sort of like fashion, if you are going to wear statement shoes, you might opt for a simple black dress...if you are going for the statement dress, you might opt for a simpler shoe...you might also just freaking GO FOR IT...in which case I say AMEN, heck, we only live once right?...just make sure to take photos and share please! (Share...don't Scare!)
Another idea is to use a plainer frame and instead of painting it, why not upholster it too?! you can use a different fabric or the same fabric that you will use in the puffy headboard part...(I say use a different fabric...but what do I know?)...again, take photos and please share!
I chose to use the same paint color as my walls, A: because I love it, B: because I had leftover wall paint, C: because I have no budget.
I chose a fabric from...wait now...IKEA!!!!!! you are thinking, "oh NO you dint!!!!"
...yes I did!!!! Listen, I am going to tell you something here, for $6.00 how the heck can I possibly go wrong????...I actually blew the budget a little and bought 3 different fabrics before deciding to use the black and white. I chose a stripe first, because that was really what my original idea was. I even had a magazine photo, which I can't FOR THE LIFE of me find that I had seen and saved from years ago...oh well...something else will turn out stripey...I found it a little juvenile looking.

then I saw this little number and took pause...I wasn't nuts about the white background, however, I liked the drawing feel to it and the hints of pink and just the overall look of it...of course, when I got it home and held it up, (although I still really like it), I started getting all Feng Shui-ey about it and thought, "birdbrain, living in a bird house, up in a tree, tweet tweet, not much to say..." I don't know, I could free associate on this fabric till the cows come home, but I realized, NOPE...don't want birds watching my back, that's kind of for the birds...

and that is how I chose the black and white floral-ish/geyser-ish Wooshy type design...

As a last little Ikea fabric shopping point, may I also just say that many of the fabrics at Ikea have very large scale patterns...this might suck when making a skirt...but it ROCKS when making a headboard! I actually did not even go with the pattern, I chose a piece off the roll that was even in between the repeat and did not center it either...just adds something extra and super cool...dont you think?

From the collage photo above, you can see that this whole process only took a few steps...(minus the trips out to get all the supplies and schlepping La perfect baby with me to do all the schlepping...).

Once the frame has a few coats of paint on it, I place a large piece of gatorboard underneath it and traced the frame shape on it in chalk.

What's gatorboard? It's like plastic currogated cardboard

Why gatorboard? I did NOT want to start with heavy wood and saws and blah blah blah...so I decided to go with something light weight, easy to transport, relatively sturdy and most of all cuttable with a box cutter or xacto type blade.

Could you use hard cardboard? YES

Could you use wood or MDF? of course!

Was I being a little lazy? NO! I was being practical...leave me alone and stop judging...jeeeeeeze.

When the shape of the frame was traced onto the gatorboard I cut it out with my xacto to fit into the back of the frame. I will state the obvious here, when you put the board behind the frame you do NOT want it to fall out the front, you (really) want it to stay in the back, as though you have framed the board...

Ok, I then played around for a few hours with the best possible way to use the foam padding I bought. Let me just say, not the cheapest stuff around! I did not go to town and get the super thick stuff, I did not even go to the little town and get the kind of thick stuff...I went to like, the suburbs and bought 2 packages of the thin stuff...(remember my non budget)...turns out, it's great!

What also worked best for my piece was to cut the foam to fit through the FRONT of the frame...when I cut it bigger to really stuff it in and make it super pouffy, it just didn't look right...so again, I cut to to fit the front of the frame perfectly and then figured out where I wanted my fabric/pattern to line up.

When all this was done, I flipped it over (front of the frame facing down on the table), followed by the fabric (pattern facing down on the table), followed by the 2 layers of my thin-ish foam padding, followed by the piece of gatorboard cut to fit into the back. I now had a headboard sandwich...all there was left to do was staple gun the gatorboard onto the backside (lip) of the frame. I shot in a few staples and then really made sure that the fabric was not puckering or doing funky stuff on the front side by flipping in over a few times and checking. I also pulled the fabric to make sure it was smooth before stapling. It worked!

There is a bit of POUF to the board, but not too too much and the fabric is nice and smooth.

I also decided to hang the headboard about 8 inches higher than the mattress top to give it a little more grandeur...(needless to say, I used some good picture mounting slide-in heavy duty brackets to attach the headboard to the wall...hello?????...I mean c'mon right?!...couldn't resist some headboard joke! ;-P)

ET VOILA!

the headboard of LIFE!

my total costs? about $45

for good measure...la petite kid!

comments? would LOVE you to post them right HERE!

the news!

I touched on the fact that I had some news here and then published it here. Aching to know what it is?
Well, I am going to tell you anyways!

The little homemade, sewn press kits (that ended up making me a little crazy to create) but turned out pretty darn cool, contained more than cute stitching and our new, for the show, logo...it contained this:

then this:

followed by some of these:

these are patterns and artwork that I have working on whenever I have a free moment (and there are lots more!) designs that are not exactly what you are used to seeing from Bluedogz Design, but that are still very me! So what does all this mean?

It means that I am looking for design work outside my BlueDogz Design realm, it means that we should talk, we should shoot around some ideas, we should create some really beautiful things together.

Email, call or comment right here. Let me know if you need design or display work, don't be shy, and hurry up like my mother says!

By the way, spreading the word is always appreciated, so if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone, let them know!
keep surfing! ;-)