Ballyhoo Curisoity

What is Ballyhoo Curiosity?

Located in the Historic District of Ballard, Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop fits somewhere between a natural history museum and an antique store. You'll find an eclectic array of all things unusual, unique, and out of this world.

Client: Ballyhoo Curiosity

Product: Enamel Pins and packaging

Time Frame: On going

Role: Product and packaging Designer

Challenge

While having drinks with Ryan, the owner of Ballyhoo, he mentioned he wanted to focus on merchandise for his shop. There were many ideas thrown around, but enamel pins would take the win. I had previously designed an enamel pen for a band I was in, so I felt pretty good going into this project. The goal we set out for was to create 2 enamel pins and the packing to go along with it.

getting started

It is hard to find one thing in the shop that best represents Ballyhoo. Everything down there is odd and amazing. There was no wrong choice to make for choosing an item to model the design after. This made conceptualizing the pins more difficult than I would have liked, but it also gave me the fun task of going down and spending time in the shop. I found a series of items that I thought would be a good fit and asked Ryan which ones he wanted to go with. Below are a few that I found interesting but didn't end up making the cut.

Selection 

After talking with Ryan, We decided to go with one of my favorites and one of his. The two headed cow is one of the first things you see when you walk down stairs into the shop. I think that makes it one of the most recognizable pieces from Ballyhoo. The dental Phantom is a very interesting piece that is both creepy and fascinating. I was very excited that Ryan had chose the dental phantom because I could instantly see how it would translate into a enamel pen.

Sketches

Two headed cow and dental phantom without banner

Alternative options

final two

I had found out that if there is and additional charge for internal cut outs of the enamel pins, so that eliminated the full body cow. After showing my sketches to Ryan He decided to go with the two headed cow with banner below and the dental phantom inside of a ballyhoo crest.

manufacturing and Design Requirements

I searched online for reasonable price points for the manufacturing of these pens and saw consistent prices across the board. It wasn’t until a friend of mine recommended a company called Night Owls out of Houston, TX that I found a good price and amazing customer service. It was easy for me to convince Ryan that Night Owls was the right company for us.

Two headed cow Design

Outline and raised Lines

Dropping curiosity in the banner from my sketches made “Ballyhoo” more of a focus point yet it did not take away from the main focus of the two headed cow. The black lines represent the raised edges and lines of the enamel pin while the white space represents the area that will be filled in with enamel

Backing Placement

Backing placed in center to allow even weight distribution

Colors

Final Design and Size

Dental Phantom

Outline and Raised LInes

The black lines represent the raised edges and lines of the enamel pin while the white space represents the area that will be filled in with enamel.

Backing Placement

Backing placed in center to allow even weight distribution.

Colors

Final Design and Size

Packaging

Enamel pins are commonly placed on card stock or business cards. I decided to go with business cards through MOO because I had a wonderful experience ordering my personal business cards through them. Moo offer a slightly larger business card measuring 2.16” x 3.33”. which is a perfect fit for our pins.

what's next

The next step is to take high resolution photos of the final product once it arrives at the shop and add them to this case study. Ryan and I have also agreed to continue this project and work on 2-4 more enamel pins and create a post card for the shop.