Duchess Venice Beach
Project Scope
Skateboarding has been traditionally dominated by men. When you hear the word skater, you automatically think of a man. The world is constantly changing, and it will keep on changing. Everything that a man can accomplish; women can too. Publicskateparkguide.org estimates that 77.1% of skaters are men and 22.9% are women. Most skaters are generally young people, typically under 18. In other words, 6 million of the 73 million young people in the US skate. That is roughly 8.6%. Skateboarding is for everyone and anybody, regardless of age, and it should be known that one’s gender nor sexual orientation determines who can or cannot skate.
Demographic
The target demographic for Duchess Venice Beach is the LQBTQ+ community, women, and people aged 10–35. In an article by Nikki Natividad, they said “The evolution of skateboarding is shaped by the successes of young athletes. As more girls, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community participate in and excel at the sport, the more it grows.”
Natividad, Nikki. “These Young Athletes Are Changing Skateboard Culture.” Queer Skateboarding: Young Athletes Are Making Waves, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/gen-z-skateboarding.
Deliverables
Three fully designed skateboard decks
One primary logo
Nine designed Instagram tiles
One magazine ad
One fully functioning website
Objectives
To independently research, design, and produce a logo, three skateboard decks, a fully functioning website, an Instagram page, and a magazine ad for Duchess Venice Beach.
To thoroughly research Southern California’s lifestyle and French Rococo aesthetics, and the LGBTQ+ community.
To recognize and apply feedback from instructors and peers as needed.
To actively self-criticize while working to improve the caliber of my output.
To consider every design element an effective, unified design across all deliverables.
To time-manage carefully to create a successful project.
Present the final product and process in a professional manner to the department.
The Process
Research
For the first half of my life, I despised anything that would make me stand out as a girly girl. I fell into the tomboy and rebellious category. During this time, skateboarding was one of my many interests. As I got older, my style began to change, and I was able to mix the two together. With this knowledge, I was able to start the research for the brand that I wanted to create. Duchess Venice Beach is a combination of two opposing aesthetics and time periods: French Rococo Regency (the 1720s–30s) and urban street style.
Mood Board
For the first half of my life, I despised anything that would make me stand out as a girly girl. I fell into the tomboy and rebellious category. During this time, skateboarding was one of my many interests. As I got older, my style began to change, and I was able to mix the two together. With this knowledge, I was able to start the research for the brand that I wanted to create. Duchess Venice Beach is a combination of two opposing aesthetics and time periods: French Rococo Regency (the 1720s–30s) and urban street style.
Skateboard Decks
The decks were the second item that I tackled when designing this project. I wanted to do something different from what I normally did, and photo collage and Photoshop work is the thing that I don’t do often. For the decks, I wanted the main feature to be a Rococo-style painting that I mixed with graffiti to make it look like street art. Street art is a very common occurrence in Venice Beach, and since Duchess is based in Venice Beach, it was fitting.
Each of the decks had their own theme. The far left was the putti that were a staple in French Rococo paintings, the middle was the golden embellishments that decorated wealthy class homes, and the far right was statues that would adorn the wealthy regency homes. Adding onto the paintings was a little difficult, I had to make sure that the colors I chose to go with the original paintings matched well and it didn't cover up the girls so much to the point that they would be unrecognizable.
Color
As far as colors, my brand has many. I didn’t want to limit myself to three or five. My main colors however are blues, pinks, greens, tans, and black.
Typography
Ivypresto Text Bold and Ivypresto Headline are the typefaces I used for all of my headers, buttons, and subheadings. Compared to other typefaces from the Regency era, these fonts are easier to read. I wanted it to be highly legible, but I also wanted it to look nice. The serif typeface Ivypresto has an air of elegance. I used Sequel Sans as the typeface for my body text. It is a fairly contemporary typeface with a condensed x-height that contrasts nicely with the bolder Ivypresto.
Logo Process
Creating the logo was the second thing that I did during this project. First was the name. I wanted to pick a name that I could change the meaning of. “Duchess” is a just title given to women who married a man of power. In picking this title, I made the woman have all the power over the man. This isn’t just because of a marriage, being a Duchess is the higher ranking.
The next step after picking out a name was figuring out what the logo should look like. I chose a typographic logo. The type itself is a distant reminder of the intricate lettering they would do to write things on papers or books. The surrounding elements on each letterform are a callback to the gold and blues that were quite popular during that time.
Magainze Ad
For the magazine ad, I kept it a little tamer compared to the other maximalist elements. I created a message to give the inspiration my brand gives. Of course, because it is an ad for the store itself and not the skateboards, I wanted to show a female skateboarder doing what she loved. Through trial and error, I discovered that if the magazine ad was maximalist like everything else of mine, it would be difficult to read, and there would be too much unity for the project.
Website
For the website, I knew that I wanted it to be very maximalist. It might seem like it’s a little much, but for the brand, it makes sense. Not having a set color palette came in handy. I added a lot of elements to activate the white space. I also played more with type and sizing.
https://xd.adobe.com/view/6a6e40aa-10c1-48a9-9000-206c716b8da0-3f3d/?fullscreen
Instagram Tiles
For the Instagram tiles, I wanted to make a puzzle piece post which is basically posting one picture after the other to make a large photo. For the design, I wanted to keep to the same look that I did for the skateboard decks; a collage of pictures and stickers. Something that I used to do was paste pictures of things that I liked together to give it the ‘girl next door diary’ look.
