The Client
Sedüssa Studios, in Oakland, CA, is the project of emerging clothing designer Sabine Balden. Born in the U.S. and raised in Germany, she brings precision pattern-making to life. Her training in Northern California informs her work: she has designed and created pieces for the West Coast Renaissance Fair and San Francisco’s Edwardian Ball. Her specialties include custom corsetry, as well as fetish and nightclub wear in leather and latex.
The Challenge
Sabine draws her inspiration from the mythological Medusa. She needed a logo that would reflect the figure’s great female power and mystery, in a clean, contemporary style.
The Solution
I created a stylized logo in black and a snake-like green. The logo scales easily (so to speak) and adapts to production forms such as business cards, hang tags and—in a simplified version—woven clothing labels. The snake on the business card reflects the “S”s in “Sabine” and “Sedüssa Studios.”
For the website, we chose the Squarespace platform so Sabine could update images and text herself. She had richly colored photos taken of her creations—corsets, waist cinchers, capes, and vests with tails—and wrote short blurbs describing the various kinds of garments, as well as each individual garment. I created a minimalist setting for these jewels, using letter-spaced, all-caps, sans serif type to give a feeling of elegance and opulence. A gallery of other work, including custom costuming, rounds out the online presence.
