Remember The Market at Ballenger? The wonderful themed + curated local handcraft + vintage market I have been a part of since its start in 2020? Well they’ve rebranded and I’m humbled that I was hired to be the one to design their new look.
Introducing: The Merrymaker’s Market!
Inspiration included vintage 60s-70s vibes, a little Anthro-meets-Stevie Nicks, kinda boho but kinda whimsical and rainbow-y.
I don’t know about y’all, but I love an avocado green moment. It feels so perfectly 60s-70s, especially when paired with analogous colors like yellow and orange. I tried out some full-on rainbow color palettes but it really lost the retro vibe and felt a little too childish, but once I refined the palette and dropped the blues and purples it felt perfect.
I held off on making the illustrations and lettering too 60s-70s feeling just so that it would a) work on their website and other marketing material, and b) work with any future market themes they come up with.
(Each market has an overall theme which vendors are encouraged to incorporate somehow, whether it’s through their table decor or as inspiration for the products they bring.) The bubble lettering of the
Quirky Spring font felt clean enough to go from boho to disco to kitsch. Plus this font has a variety of glyphs to mix it up a bit, like the extended descender on the R that I used in the primary logo.
Because the market never really had an official tagline, I used the brand questionnaire to create one. “A handmade + vintage wonderland” tells the audience what to expect (handmade and vintage items), and the use of ‘wonderland’ evokes a magical sort of vibe. Given the vendors, themes, and overall feel of this particular market, I think wonderland is the perfect word to describe the event.
An addition to this suite is a flyer design that can be used to promote the market. Liz and Linnie can print it to display locally, post on their website, or send to all of the vendors for posting on social media.
I honestly couldn’t be happier with how this turned out. I’m so honored that Liz and Linnie asked me to create this brand design for them (given how many talented designers they must know!) and it definitely inspired me to take on more work of this nature. (Hint hint – stay tuned to see!)