BarBees

Jess and Willow, the founders of BarBees Bartending, asked me to do a logo for them back in 2018. I can confirm that this project was probably the beginning of my professional design career (the Microsoft Paint project files from when I was 11 are on my hard drive somewhere). No brand for this project, just a logo. I’ve learned a lot since then.

The logo is a bee that I hand drew, and ultimately traced in Illustrator. Probably my favorite part is the two ‘B’s that are subtly incorporated into the stinger of the bee. Not only do they represent the initials of the company, but the negative space in between forms two little crowns that represent the two Queens of the company, Jess and Willow.

This was one of my first logo/brand designs. Everyone gets their start somewhere. Knowing what I know now, I would have conducted more research, spent more time on nailing down the tone and voice of BarBees, and gathered more inspiration from around the industry. But instead I just jumped right into the logo! I was just a humble little 20 year old who was still figuring out what design even was (still figuring that out, I’m just older now). But again, not a bad start, and it is not a design I am ashamed of in any way.