Lumi & Lantern Lane

Branding, merchandise, and a website for Bluebell Hollow Studio's storybook lamb

Role

Brand and Character Designer

Client

Bluebell Hollow Studio

Services

Branding, Character Design, Visual Development, Art Direction, Merchandise, Print, Web Design

Overview

Lumi & Lantern Lane is a story world for Bluebell Hollow Studio, built around Lumi, a small woolly lamb with wide eyes and pink-lined ears. The setting is a cobblestone lane at dusk, with a blue clapboard cottage, picket fences, lanterns on posts and along the path, and beds of purple and blue flowers. The branding carries the character and the lane onto a website, a book cover, a plush toy, a tote bag, and an enamel mug.

Challenge

The whole brand rests on one small character and one street. Lumi's appeal sits in the soft wool, round eyes, and pink ears, and that detail had to hold up small on a mug as well as on a full book cover and as a plush toy. The night palette was the other problem. Deep navy works on a cover, but the website, the tote, and the mug all sit on cream or white, so the artwork also had to work on a light ground.

Approach

Lumi started in my sketchbook. I worked out his shape, proportions, and expressions in pencil, from rough construction drawings to cleaner character sketches, and drew early thumbnails of the lane to find the mood of the world. I cleaned up the drawings digitally and used them to direct the final scenes, refining the results until Lumi matched my designs

The title uses a serif with curled L's, stacked as "Lumi &" over "Lantern Lane." It sits in cream on the navy book cover and in navy everywhere else. The palette runs from moonlit navy through lavender to lantern pink, peach, and cream.

On the light pieces, the scene is cut down to its parts. The website fades the lane into a cream ground behind the headline. The tote frames Lumi in a navy circle of lavender vines, with a hanging lantern and fireflies, and the mug keeps only the title, one lantern, and two lavender sprigs.

Night Sky / Moonlit Navy

Lumi and the Lantern

The night sky behind Lumi, the lantern, and the fireflies.

Cottage / Twilight Blue

Clapboard Cottage

Blue siding and a purple door under a pink evening sky.

Porch / Warm Peach

Front Porch

Lantern light on the rocking chair, shelves, and porch.

Window / Lantern Pink

Cottage Window

Glowing pink curtains, with potted flowers on the sill.

Outcome

The finished set covers a website homepage, a hardcover book, a plush toy, a canvas tote, and an enamel mug. The website, book, tote, and mug share the same title and the same navy, lavender, and cream.