Projects: Hellbetty Jewelry Part I

I recently completed a really fun project for Hellbetty Jewelry, a small company that makes upcycled jewelry out of old domino tiles, Scrabble tiles, etc. When I say small, I mean just the two owners, Tarrah and Jen, a couple of crafty rock-n-roll moms with a passion for making really cool stuff, which they do completely by hand. Being this small gives them the opportunity to easily go in a number of directions without spreading themselves too thin, they sell at fairs and markets, as well as wholesale, they offer home parties, and do custom designs for the individual, but they also do band merch—for example, they did some really cool stuff for the local band, The Warshers. Really unique and creative stuff.

Originally they had an existing logo and business card design, but they wanted some tweaks, however, for a number of reasons, including the fact that we didn't have access to any of the original vector files, we decided to completely re-brand Hellbetty Jewelry complete with a new logo, new colors and the addition of a devil girl mascot type character, tentatively named Betty. At the beginning of the project I met with Tarrah for coffee and we went over what she was looking for, the people she was trying to reach, short term goals, long term goals and that type of thing. Once I had a good idea of what was needed, Tarrah pretty much turned me loose to see what I would come up with, you can see the results below. It was a pretty big project, so I'm going to split this into two different posts, this one, which is just a brief overview, and then the second post, which will go into the design process a bit more. I'll also be doing the corporate ID design on the Hellbetty sister company, HB Jewelry, which will focus more on sports team fundraising and family stuff, so there will be a third post when that is all done. And now without further ado, I present the Hellbetty Jewelry Project: Part I.

This is the logo, which is pretty straightforward. It's bold, and legible and the tail and horns give it just enough mischievous character to match the spirit of the company. There are three different variations: shadowed, red, and black, which will pretty much cover any given situation. 

This is Betty, the Hellbetty girl, I'll focus more on her in the next post, but she is such a big part of the ID that I couldn't leave her out of this one. There is a longstanding tradition of devil girl characters in lowbrow/alternative culture since at least the late 40's & early 50's when motorcycle and hot rod clubs (gangs?) first started using them in their logos, or maybe even the days of WWII, I believe I've seen photos of devil girls painted on the noses of a couple of bombers. Of course, they became even more popular when legendary underground comic artist, Robert Crumb unleashed his character, Devil Girl on the World.

The business card is truly the workhorse of any small business, even now in these modern days of eBusiness. This is the front and back of the Hellbetty business card. It's really cool because it offers the best of both worlds, one side features the traditional horizontal layout, while the other has a more contemporary vertical layout. The design is strong, bold and memorable, but most importantly, it's legible.

This is a tightly cropped version featuring the logo and and a head shot of Betty. It's intended for a square sticker, and while this version of the design is 2" X 2" we've got a vector version so that it can easily be increased to T-shirt size, or even as big as a billboard if necessary, with no pixelation or  loss of quality.

This is co-owner of Hellbetty Jewelry, Miz Tarrah posing with the outdoor banner (which is based on the website banner) and will be used for the Hellbetty table/booth at fairs and such. It's the piece that I am proudest of, if for no other reason than because it is so big!  It is 8' X 2' and I've never had a chance to see my work this large before.

Photo: Copyright 2011, Tarrah Moore. Hellbetty Jewelry