I love getting to work with like-minded brands, and this was one of the coolest projects of the year for me. Michelle, makeup artist and hair stylist extraordinaire, reached out to me about helping her rebrand her business, the Gypsy Bazaar. Up until now, she’d been running pop-up makeup booths across the country, at places like Urban Outfitters and Coachella. She came to us wanting to expand her existing beauty repertoire into the world of bohemian-inspired fashion…but with a twist.

After noticing a huge gap in the market for flattering, plus-sized boho styles, Michelle decided to take advantage of the opportunity. The end goal was a full-fledged ecommerce site of clothing for curvy women, while still offering her trademark pop-up events and beauty products.

The inspiration

The inspiration for the brand was a bohemian, free-spirited, slightly celestial feel reminiscent of old gypsy wagons and fortune tellers, a memory of lace mixed with leather. Here’s the mood we came up with:

The logo design

With our inspiration and color palette decided, we moved into logo designs. We wanted to keep that slightly folkloric feel of the gypsy wagon alive throughout the designs while also making it modern and fashionable. We came up with the tagline “A Marketplace for Free Spirits” to represent the eclectic range of offerings she’d be featured on her site.

The brand design

We ended up blending the concepts a bit to reach the final design. She absolutely fell in love with the shining moon icon we came up with and it became the focal point of the brand.

For the typography, we chose a luxurious and slightly vintage-inspired combination of Sackers Gothic for headers, Cormorant for subheaders & quotes, and P22 Underground for body/copy. To add a custom touch, we recommended Quickpen for some handwritten notes to be used sparingly in communications.

We then crafted a signature pattern that pulled in the folkloric elements inspired by historic Bohemia with a little surprise inside – the shining moon logo icon hidden among the flowers. We added a background of twinkling stars and voila – a beautiful statement pattern. With multiple color variations, it’s strong enough to hold it’s own with minimum text on mailers, boxes, wrapping paper and more. As a contrast, we also created a subtle texture to use on solid backgrounds to give a slightly vintage feel.

And there you have it! Keep scrolling for the eye candy 😉

Photo credit for girl in pink: property of The Gypsy Bazaar

You can check out the full design for The Gypsy Bazaar in the portfolio along with some of the other magical designs we’ve come up with. Cheers!