Final Logo Done

In the last post I showed glasses vs no glasses on the mouse/rat. I've been playing around with the size of glasses, color of glasses, eye position of mouse with no glasses and then eye position of mouse with glasses. Whew! I finally settled on 2 I liked. 

The mouse with no glasses is cute and has a cleaner look but I also felt that it made the whole logo too cutesy. I do make whimsical things but I didn't want my logo to represent something so very child-like. I am going to make some products for children but some are for adult collectors too. Quite honestly I could keep re-fining and designing forever and never be happy, so I set aside the no glasses mouse (sorry Cindi!) and am calling it done.

On the alternate logo I'm still undecided on the smaller mouse head vs the larger mouse head. See the choices never end! Anyway it is what it is for now.

So next steps will be to re-design this blog using the logo, colors etc. Order product tags (I currently make my own). Finish my packing design. Design my website. Shoot my product. Oh yeah and finish my product! Weeks and weeks of work to go, but my lists are keeping me focused and I'm not overwhelmed yet. Thanks to all who comment and are sharing this journey with me.

Want to see more about this? You can find Part 1 here and PART 2 here.

Glasses or No Glasses?

Well today I was going to post the logo design I decided on but I got a comment from a long time friend that got me thinking. She said she thought the glasses on the mouse/rat were distracting. The only reason I put them on was because I wear glasses and the mouse is me. But I decided to take the glasses off and see how it looked and I think she might have been right. I'm going back to the drawing board and playing around with the color and size of the glasses too...just to see. Well here's one of the 2 logos I picked with and without the glasses. What do you guys think?

Want to find out more about this? You can find PART 1 here and PART 3 here.

Starting From Scratch....

turning what was a hobby business into a real business. I was so ill for the last few years I wasn't able to run a proper business but now that I'm better health wise I'm eager to do this properly.

To start I need a real logo. Then I need to create a brand. I did some branding designs a few months ago but I wasn't happy with them and I still didn't have a logo. Here's one design, it was very specific for a certain kind of doll I was making at the time. Cute, but this doesn't solve any of my problems.

I really liked the color palette I originally had, it was whimsical and bright without being too childlike, so I decided to keep it. Since I'm starting a new venture with new dolls I flirted with the idea of changing my business name. I wondered if I'd outgrown it? If it was still me? I started on ebay with this name almost 10 years ago selling vintage toys. I did some research and discovered I have a really good google presence with this name so I decided to keep it but tweak it a little. My original name was four words which I found to be unwieldy, so I decided to make Packrat one word and it became cleaner and simpler, much easier to work with. 

So I dusted off my graphic design skills (such as they are after all this time) and sat down, thought, researched, sketched and came up with some ideas that I liked. Here are four versions of one design I thought had some potential.

The logo will need to cover a couple of different style of handmade dolls, plush and possibly some paper goods too. Once this is finished I can move on to doing a selling site (I'm leaving etsy), changing up my blog, business cards and other promotional materials. I may just be talking to myself at this point but if anyone finds any of this interesting leave a comment.

Want to read more about this? PART 2 and PART 3 can be found here.

Making Changes...

...to this blog. I really want to make this blog a big part of my social media family, engage with people and hopefully provide interesting content. So that being said I'll be making changes on this little blog.

Some of the ideas I have are to bring back my Friday Favorites. I really enjoyed showcasing wonderful things I found out in the world. 

Another idea is Artist Profiles. This will be difficult for me as I'm an extremely shy introvert but I think pushing myself to do this will be beneficial. I'm going to start with artist friends and work from there.

I'm also going to breakdown my doll making experience. I'm starting on a new doll making journey and a complete change to my business that other makers, beginning makers and/or customers and others might enjoy seeing the whole process. So I'm really going to over share about my doubts, insecurities, issues, pattern problems, forays into positioning my brand on social media etc, branding my work and what that means. And if no one reads it but me then I have a written history of this process which is valuable to me in it's own right. Stay tuned!

Worktable Friday

I made a bunch of body blanks to practice new hair styles on. I used to sew each strand one by one by hand but what a time-consuming task that was, I also wasn't super happy with the result either. The first one has crazy, multi - textured hair like mine and is my favorite.

 

I have one more tomboy type hair to do then I'll start making dolls. The dolls won't be orange, I'm just using orange bodies for pattern making etc. I hope these dolls I'm going to make will find happy homes.