These hit the online store last week(ish) along with a few more Black Label items. Since is a new addition to the catalogue, perhaps temporary (perhaps not, though I can neither confirm or deny that), its worth a mention.

These, like the Pro-Labels, were printed in-house. There's something to be said about have a good quality printer on hand if you're a small business, handling your own packaging design. Absolutely invaluable.

( Graphic Design: Villainess Soaps - Burn! )

I should note that the rest of the labels that require plasticizing (especially in the case of bath-products that hit the water the first time you use them) are printed by Lightning Labels. (The Soap labels go out to Imagers. They're not water-proofed, per se... but kind of waxy, semi-gloss with a bit of "squeak" when you run a thumb across them.) Both companies provide great service and great quality prints, if you're in the market to switch up your quality from the home-grown to the uber professional.

Ginormous labels for ginormous pro-sized bottles.

(This is, incidentally, the size of Whipped! I'd like to keep on hand to slather with personally. Won't happen, but still... I can oogle... 32 ounces. Holy crow.)

( Graphic Design: Scintillating Smooch/Whipped in Pro Sizes )

These were handled in-house on the Official Villainess Printer (a.k.a. the night-before-the-product-is-supposed-to-ship emergency printer). That's a pretty damn good quality print, if you ask me.

While I've over-compensating for not updating this blog for some time, I might as well name-drop: I've been working freelance for Villainess since 2008, and while I don't often talk about it (since anything done for Brooke tends to come with a lot of gushing; she is one of the best clients I have on my roster - affords me tons of creative liberty, listens well, has great ideas, is constantly expanding her product line and she works tirelessly for her clients... so it follows that I dole out a lot of affection and respect for both her company and what she does for her company.)

Once upon a time, when the redesign was still an inkling of an idea and we were still debating where to go with the whole look, she mentioned that she liked the idea of a "Victorian Catalogue". A year later, we've come full-circle (outlink):

( Villainess Soaps: Wholesaler Scent List )

This is part of the Wholesaler PDF she's using for distribution and her resalers. How to get that layout everywhere else without breaking a sweat over the typography is what I'm going to chew on for a few weeks.

(And yes, those are the little bits of Victoriana that you can find on the wrappings Brooke uses for her bars of Soap.)

Once in a while, you get really lucky, and get a great client, with great vision, and a great product that you yourself are happy to use because it happens to kick ass on several levels, and that client just happens to dig what you do for yourself when you're expressing your methodology and your manifesto through design, and they let you do your thing so you can totally cut loose with the work.

That's an ideal situation. This was my ideal job. I got very lucky. (I'm still very lucky, as the work for Villainess is ongoing for the moment, and the opportunity to continue producing variations on the theme we've established is really exciting.)

The theme in question was dubbed about a year ago when (Brooke and I) first started discussing her concept:

"Victorian with teeth."

Well, the teeth didn't exactly work out with the aesthetic, given that a toilette rarely falls in line with dentistry... But thorns and leather sure did. (That recurring floral motif? Yeah, that's tooled leather.)

( Rebrand: The Villainess Logo )

( Rebrand: Product Labels - 01 )

( Rebrand: Product Labels - 01 )

( Rebrand: Product Labels - 01 )

( Rebrand: Product Labels - 01 )