Behind the screens: BEE

Updated: May 28, 2020

I wanted to create another behind the screens, documenting the transformation process behind a commission of mine. For today's blog post, I decided to show you the transformation behind the logo design that I made for the lovely ladies over at BEE as during hard times that we're finding ourselves in at the moment with COVID-19, it is so important to support our local businesses.

Bee are located in Hoyland, Barnsley. Not only do they sell the most BEAUTIFUL clothes in their boutique but they share the best values behind female empowerment and body positivity. These ladies will always be such a big inspiration to me and I will always support them in what they do. They reached out to me wanting a unique logo that will help them stand out and showcase their personalities through their brand.

Find them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Beehoyland/

So here is how I made their logo....

First Steps:

My first steps on this commission was a meeting with the two ladies behind BEE to establish a better understanding of their concept ideas. It is very rare for me to meet my clients as often they aren't local and it is a job that takes places mostly over email/messages. However, meeting Hannah and Pamela allowed me to envelop and showcase their personalities in my design. We chatted about their values

behind their business which were promoting body confidence in all women and encouraging more women to delve into the fashion world without any fear of judgement or fear of expectations. Also, an added bonus was that I got to see their gorgeous boutique. In this meeting we came up with an idea of having the logo being two women that portray both of their personalities, one being a girly, sparkly chic and the other being a grungy rock chic with tattoos, as apposed to the two women physically resembling them. They found inspiration from one of my recent posts at the time 'girls support girls'.

The design process:

During the time of this commission, I started to draw my designs straight onto Adobe Illustrator, a process I'm still working on, as I find that it gives a much neater design in comparison to scanning and image tracing (darkens the lines, not tracing) designs.

This was the first version of the line-work:

Using the brief of girly and grungy, I took inspiration from different places:

To capture a girly personality I wanted her to have a cute long bobbed hairstyle and it might sound strange but I wanted her to carry an almost Barbie vibe.

Whereas to capture a grungy personality I took inspiration from 50s pin up looks, particularly the hairstyles again. I also added piercings and eyeliner to help tie it together.

The feedback I received was positive and they both loved it. The only adjustments they asked for the grungy girl to have a tattoo and the girly girl to have an earring.

So I took the moment and created a bee inspired tattoo design to incorporate the brand name into the logo in a less cheesy, obvious way. Taking inspiration from minimalist botanical drawings/tattoo designs.

When adding it to the design I also reduced the opacity to help it look more tattoo like.

Also, following the request I added an earring that also followed her personality but was also very bold.

The colouring process:

They approved the line-work and had no more adjustments. Also, they gave me the colour schemes they wanted: the girly girl was to have blonde hair and pink lipstick and the grungy girl was to have dark brown hair and red lipstick. I used Adobe Illustrator to digitally colour this design.

TOTAL LAYERS = 49