Finished work: Days of Gold - Day Care in the Woods - Logo Design

Rainbows & Sprinkles has been one of our long term clients. We created hundreds of prints for Lucy’s sportswear brand. Last year we created a logo for her basic line of sports pieces before she decided to change course and sell her business. While creating designs we discussed our mutual love for animals and her biggest dream was to be surrounded by animals all day. In the summer of 2023 she found a large plot of land with stables, horses, right up the hills and surrounded with woods. She decided to change everything and start a Day Care. A place to grow up and play surrounded by nature and animals. 

We were so sad to see her leave Rainbows and Sprinkles, but she’s such an inspiration. She turned her life around and has worked on opening up her day care for months. For her new business we created a brand new logo design reflecting the surroundings of her new Nature day care: Days of Gold. We created some really crisp clean cut designs, freehand logo’s and some designs with badges reminding us of the scouts. Did you join them when you were a kid?

As a kid I grew up in the country side with lots of space to play. Take care of animals, build bridges over streams and little huts. So this logo was a fun piece to create. Something I could personally relate to. Here we’ll explain the logo designing process, so you can have a little insight on how we work. In case you need something for your branding swell.

Step 1: The Business Before we start we want to know everything about the business. Is it already ‘out there’ as an established brand? What are the core values. Some insight about the philosophy is key to create something that really connects. A logo should reflect your brand in a flash. What makes you different than others in your branch. We ask all the questions before even making a quote. For Days of Gold it was a smooth process since we know Lucy personally. This step was quickly taken. But most people we create logo’s for need some time figuring this out first. And we are happy to guide and assist when you still need to find out your business identity. It’s all part of the branding.

Step 2: Who’s your customer For Days of Gold we knew it would not be attracting the usual parent. Playing outside in the mud all day is a little different than your usual day care. Knowing your customer is really important. You have to understand what it is they’re looking for and what connects them to your brand.

Step 3: The Quote We have several packages for logo design and branding. Some of our customers just look for a catchy visual that sticks. Some want the whole shebang with a website and all the graphic elements attached to branding. This particular job was reduced to a logo design only to start with.

Step 4: The Design process When we have a clear agreement and laid down the basics above we start the design process. Usually this starts with a brainstorm and a free sketch routine in which shapes, notes and illustrations are put down on paper. For some designs we create everything by hand on paper. So did we for the first drafts. From there we translate those sketched onto the computed and create new vector sketches in Adorable Illustrator. For every logo design process we create a minimum of 3 design options, and branding directions, to choose from.

Step 5: The first presentation In our first presentation we put all sketches we made and create a story on how the design was developed. And how it involved during the process. Resulting into three proposals that are ready to use. We create some mock-ups and color versions for each proposal and explain why we made certain design decisions. Because it’s not all drawing. A logo design has an entire philosophy attached that will lift up your business. And normally you can’t see that in a blink. So we create a little guidance so a design makes sense for everyone.

Step 6: An hour of tweaks In our pricing we include an hour of changes after the first presentation. Usually it only takes some small tweaks. For Lucy, it was almost an immediate go on the first draft. She chose the circular logo. Easy to use as a badge on clothing and versatile. the premises also has a glamping on it, so with this shape we could also expand to logo versions per business. For this project we didn’t even need that extra hours but for some projects we need some more time to tweak and adjust.

Step 7: Payment In case you haven’t worked with us before. We never send out any finished artwork before we get paid. After we receive our payment in full we wrap things up.

Step 8: Finishing Up The last step is creating files that are workable for our clients. We have clients that need different types of files and versions. We all include those. Logo files for web. Logo files in high resolution for print. And Pantone colors. If you work on an entire branding project with us this is the moment we can go further and talk website & graphic items.

Need a logo for your new start-up or project? Or does your business need a re-vamp? We would love to take on your branding. Check our website for more info & rates. You can contact us there directly by filling out the contact form.

Made with Little Smilemakers Studio Fabric // Top 3 March 2018

We love sharing your creations on our blog and social media feeds. Every month we make a selection of finished creations made by our Spoonflower customers. Our hearts make a little jump for joy every time our studio gets tagged in your posts too.

Most of the creations we see pop up are made by small home based businesses selling their projects via places like Etsy and they share and tag us via Instagram. So we see some amazing things pop up in our feed every month. We love how Little Smilemakers creations are the foundation for other creatives all around the world to work with. So here is our monthly blog post that features some creative results from the United States, New Zealand and from the beautiful Paris. For this months March post we selected three shops run by moms. A little extra attentions for these three ladies!

1 // Ty Mom Studio
Charlene is based in Paris and has a great eye for thinking in collections. Her fabric choices have a steady ‘feel.’ She has a fun collection of on trend gender neutral fabrics and she is working on a big collection for her webshop launch. Even though her webshop is not quite open yet, we wanted to share some of her cute pineapple and cacti leggings and those gender neutral rompers with you. For now you will have to try and have a little more patience until she opens up her shop you can follow her on Instagram. I already have my eye on these cool cacti leggings. Click here is you want to follow this brand new small business.



2 // Bean Sprout Store
We love everything Hiedee creates. Her style is quirky and clean and she makes fun kids accessories such as book bags, hair ties and what do you think about these mustard cloud hats? She works together with Krystle Photography and together this New Zealand team of power ladies take it up a notch when it comes to small business marketing. Her photographs are amazing and make Hiedees creations pop! Take a look at her shop and see all new gender neutral creations made with our new spring fabric. Click here to take a look in her shop.

3 // Woodbean
Lisa is mom of 5 so you can imagine she has a lot on her plate with those tiny humans running around. Even so she makes time to build her business. Her style is comfy and cool. We love how she mixes prints and uni colors, these combinations make all her products one of a kind. Lisa has used some of our abstract designs in the past and for this months post we wanted to share her cool purple baby shirt where she mixes two of our most recent abstract designs. Her shop is currently closed for a bit while she is moving house. But stay in the loop and follow her Instagram account to see what she’s up to. So you can order one of her fashionable pieces as soon as she opens up her shop again mid-April. Follor her on Instagram here.

Most of our Spoonflower fabric gets purchased by mom’s who love to make something cute for their little one. But some of them take things to a whole other level and open up their own handmade shop with the most wonderful creations. So inspiring! We would love to give all of you hard working mommies a little shout out but we cannot share all your wonderful creations, unfortunately. If you would like to be featured in one of our Monthly ‘Made With’ posts. Just reach out and send us your fabric creations!

Sources of inspiration // A playful mind in business

As you know Little Smilemakers Studio targets their designs on the children’s market mainly. Most of our designs are triggering those little ones fantasy and we love to see the joy on our tiny customers faces when they get to wear on of our designs or see our prints in their home and on daily products.

It is not a coincidence our prints are attracting those mini humans. Play is one of our biggest inspirational triggers. Whenever you are playing with your son or daughter or playing a board game with friends or dancing around the living room butt naked singing along with some terrible cheesy song; being playful is the fuel for creation. It opens up other possibilities, views and perspectives.

Choose a crazy color of lipstick instead of sticking with your regular tone. Commute on a skateboard instead of taking the bike. Try hanging upside down next to your kid on the playground. Try new things, new places, new food, and open up your senses to explore to the fullest.

Unfortunately most playful things are targeted on kids, but keeping an element of play present throughout your busy day will keep you energized and focused. At least that is what it does for me. It opens up new possibilities because my mind get’s distracted from my stressful studio life. Playing keeps you happy & healthy.

Play is getting more important. It is a way to reduce stress but also a way to engage. Customers choose to spend money on new experiences and making memories instead of spending their cash on stuff. It is another opportunity to reach customers and think out of the usual box. We see shops turn into concept stores with room for surprise and incorporating spaces to experience, grab a coffee and meet up, an mix of commerce and hospitality. The boundaries fade and the story behind a brand gets more important, it is not about quantity any longer. So we try to tell stories with our designs, trigger these creative souls in a playful manner. Curious to know more about how we can incorporate play into your brand? Just reach out and send us a message. We are also very curious to hear what you have to say about play. So let’s chat!

Freshtastic Little Smilemakers Fabric: Winter weather // November selection

Every month we upload new work to our Spoonflower shop and over the past 5 years our portfolio has grown from zero to over 3000 designs to choose from. Behind the scenes we can search within our portfolio but we noticed customers have a hard time finding what they want sometimes. With our monthly Freshtastic Fabric post we feature new fabric that was added to our shop. We include some direct links to these new designs and color versions. Hopefully we can filter on trend designs and make the process of selecting prints a little easier.

For our November post we selected some Winter Weather themes we wanted to give a little extra attention. We have made some fun abstract designs for our Inky Texture collection, and some more whimsical prints for fun winter home decoration or cute little kids fashion items.

Clouds
Sky themed designs have been trending for over three years now. We have made som fun monochrome versions, some abstracts and now we added some winter color schemes of this Inky Texture Cloud fabric to our shop. We created the Inky texture series a year ago, we made some exclusive designs for Hemmers/Itex. But these clouds did not make the cut. Hope you like these new blue, nude and mint colors.

Mittens
I personally love knitted clothes. I would probably not survive Dutch winter without those. My feet are stuck in woolen winter slippers as we speak. I like how I can make my winter mummy outfit a little more joyful by just adding some fun mittens or a colorful hat or scarf. We added these illustrated designs to our shop so you can turn them into something cosy. Check out these icy, wood, lilac and blue colors in our shop.

Raindrops
With the color season comes rain. Those rainy days make me all melancholic, and as usual I turn something I really don't like into something pretty: an abstract memphis inspired raindrop print. That is how I deal with these things. Just create something. These designs are ready for you to create something cute too. We already had some colorful summer schemes up in the shop, now you can also find some neutrals and more natural colors: wood, blue and lilac.

Snowmen
This print has been trending in our shop already. This snowmen design was part of our exclusive design series last year but it wasn't licensed up until now so we decided to add this design to our Spoonflower fabric shop. We just uploaded this winter print and it is already selling like mad. If you want to order here are the links to these featured colors: pink, blue and our favorite: teal.

Legal Matters // License information Little Smilemakers Studio fabric & designs

We are honored that so many companies would like to have Little Smilemakers designs in there shop. We have licensed our designs all over the world. However, there are lots of companies not having the proper license to sell our work and it is starting to be a full time task to investigate and monitoring these matters.

Licensing art for your business
We have been licensing our designs both exclusive and non-exclusively. If you are selling fabric and would like to add our designs to the shop contact us directly. We opt out the enhanced license through Shutterstock since there is too much mis-use. If you would like to start selling our prints just contact our studio directly and we will be happy to guide you through the licensing process.

Legal steps
For all of you selling without a license you can still reach out to us and purchase a license up till May 1th. As of next month we will be taking legal steps toward companies who are selling our designs illegally. If you stumble upon our designs and if you are unsure the fabric is legit just contact us and we can help you further.

License & Spoonflower
And if you are selling our designs with Spoonflower fabric: no worries! Royalties are included in the price so you don't need an extra license to sell your products with our prints on them. Spoonflower has a great royalty structure, you might pay a little more but artist benefit from each and every purchase directly. We love to see all those finished products and would like to thank our Spoonflower customers for their support. You make our work pretty damn awesome!

If you want to make sure to buy original designs check if your reseller is registered on our client list on the Little Smilemakers Studio website. If you purchase through one of our customers you are allowed to use the fabrics for small businesses and other commercial use.