Hey all, Dani Dazey here! I'm always sharing how I create Dazey's designs on the insta story and now I'm brining them to the Zine in fun & new ways. I decided to create a time lapse of me illustrating a design for Dazey. A lot of time and love goes into each design and I am so excited to share how they are made. My goal is for everyone to feel so involved in the design process it's almost like they are apart of it too!
I have added an audio tutorial along with the video to give you an idea of my thoughts and design process so be sure your sound is on too. For those who are curious I work in adobe Illustrator and photoshop. I also draw using a Waccom Intous medium sized drawing tablet to give me designs that true hand drawn feel.
The "Local Female Powerhouse" tee should be released in the next few months along with the rest of the "March On" collection inspired by the incredible Women's March that took place January 21st. I used to always get in trouble posting designs before release when I worked at corporate companies, even to the extreme of getting fired for it. But when you run your own business you can do whatever you want! I love being overly transparent with Dazey. It's all about sharing and helping fellow female here :)
A few weeks ago we had our big Dazey Lady contest! It was amazing and over 100 inspiring girls entered by telling us how they are following their dreams. I was particularly inspired by Juliete of @julzjunkiejewelry because she chose to quit a steady job and school to follow her dreams. What started as a fun project became her passion, and she's damn good at it too.
Check out the lovely video and shoot we did below as well as her entry :) shop her JULZ on www.julzjunkie.com! Also check out the hastag #dazeyladycontest and see the other entries, so uplifting and inspiring!
Hi loves! I'm Juliet, the little 27 year old boss lady behind Julz Junkie. The name starts with my nickname "Julz" and my very first customers would always return over and over wanting more so that's where "Junkie" came in. I figured this was the perfect time to tell you a little about myself for the #dazeyladycontest and how I ended up here.
I worked in Real Estate, Property Mgt and Escrow for around 7 years. I did go to college and wanted to be a Dental Hygienist. That's until one summer I was bored and sick of all my cheap jewelry always tarnishing on me. I've been creative all my life so I went to the local craft store and picked up my first set of jewelry pliers and some chain. I analyzed all the jewelry I had and taught myself everything I know. To be honest it was just a hobby until friends started admiring my pieces. After doing it for a while I noticed how happy I was doing it and started selling pieces on an online marketplace. Every day I would have lots of designs running thru my head and would run home and make them.
At my job at the time I was doodling jewelry designs and losing focus (oops 🙈) and that's when it clicked that I had to go with a different career. Of course my family was a little worried that I wasn't going to start the dental hygiene program and that I was quitting my job, not to mention I had rent to pay. Everyone always said "omg Juliet the fashion world is such a cutthroat business". I figured if I was gonna give it a shot this was my chance and well as you can tell it was totally worth it! Now, my life consist of jewelry 24/7. I also work part-time for a well known Jewelry designer in LA and have learned a lot to apply to my own business. I get home and put all my focus to my brand. I do everything myself and I am very proud of it. Hashtag #girlboss lol Obviously if my lil brand blows up I'll need some help but at the moment I've got it under control 😜 Never be afraid to try something new and go after your dreams no matter what anyone tells you. Don't lose hope because nothing happens overnight, just stay motivated and you will get there. Thank you so much for the endless support, it never goes unnoticed. ❤️Julz
Hey Dazey Ladies! So as many of you know I do mini design tutorials on the @dazey_la Instagram story all the time. I've been getting a lot of people asking to save them or put them on the blog since they disappear after 24 hours. When I started one yesterday I took some screen shots and decided to save and re-upload it. I know the video is super choppy and portrait style, so I decided to go more in depth below. I hope you find this helpful and never hesitate to ask questions. Previous knowledge of adobe illustrator is helpful.
This will be for my "march on" collection based on signage I saw at the women's march. I'll be working on designs all week and should be released in the next month or so!
Xx-Dani Dazey
1) Open a fresh adobe illustrator file. I always find 3-4 images that inspire me. Weather it's the colors, fonts, or design elements. I keep them on the side of the frame to reference. The goal is not to copy any of them, but take bits and pieces you like to create something new!
Start with a base font, something you like that has a similar vibe to the end goal. This will however be totally changed so don't fuss too much :)
2) Separate the font as a new text box on each line. Then select the first and apply the "warp" effect like shown below. There is a lot of fun options to re-shape the text! Some of my favorites are arc and flag. Here I have applied a different warp to each line as you can see. I like to adjust the fonts to blend in with each other.
3) From here you select the font, go to "object" and click expand. This will make the font editable. Once it is outlined you can use the pen tool to re-trace these lines. Make sure you have the letters selected when editing.
4) Here I am about halfway through. Just take it nice and slow one letter at a time. Keep the edit stokes close to the original or it will create a new line instead of re-shaping the current one. Here you can see I'm going for a more funky text and almost melting the letters into one another!
5) Now that I'm finished with the letters I am going to add a text shadow. Not your average "drop shadow", this trick works better :) Duplicate the font and add a thick "stroke" to the bottom one, I have it at 10 points here. Then I took the top layer and made the "fill" white and added a 2 point stroke. Then you just place the top font on the bottom one.
6) As you can see Below I decided to take the bottom shadow and expand it, merged using pathfinder, and then added a black stroke with yellow fill. Then I took the pen tool (better at making straight lines then the pencil tool) and I used to to create the background "beams" by just clicking at each point. All I needed to do was 1/4th of the background and then duplicate it. Then I grouped the background and used the warp tool again to add the "twist"!
7) I then selected the whole design and change the stroke to have a "rough" line by using the "brush definition" tool (you can see it next to where it says "uniform"). This particular stroke option is very thick so I have changed the stoke to 0.25. I have also changed the colors, which I will do 10 more time before print I'm sure haha.
8) To add a distress I bring my files into photoshop by copy and pasting to a new design file. Then I paste a downloaded "distress" layer on top. This layer is literally just a speckled transparent .tiff file that matches the background. You can download them off of the internet! I usually go in using the pattern stamp tool to define and add even more distress.
9) To get a preview on a tee all you do is find a semi large photo of a blank tee and place the graphic on top. On the right side above layers you can select where it says "normal" and change it to "multiply" on a light tee, or "screen" on a darker tee. This takes away the white box and makes it look like it's printed on the tee.
And here you have it! The finished product :) Hope you enjoyed my first little tutorial post. I do them a lot on the Insta story but this is the first time I've done a big blog tutorial! I plan on doing more along with more legit videos and not the quick phone story ones haha.
After much anticipation our big Dazey LA video is finally here!! Dazey is so much more than just a company. Supporting and encouraging fellow females is the real mission behind the brand! We explore the journey Dani took starting Dazey and some amazing people involved along the way. Starting a business can be scary, but luckily I've had the best Dazey Ladies by my side who you get to meet in the video too! Huge thanks to my babes involved @officiallyquigley, @thewestsidecollective, @nikkiijoiner, and @aldenstimle.
Last but certainly not least big shout out to the badass female director Melissa and her husband, owners of @longhaulfilms! They did and amazing job and made this process so easy and incredible.
Below are some stills and behind the scenes photos the day of the shoot!! We filmed much of it in my incredible WeWork space. The video release came right in time after being a speech winner at the WeWork Global Summit Los Angeles Demo Days event. The winnings included 25k towards Dazey, I was blown away! Such an amazing organization and community I am proud to be apart of. Post coming soon covering the big contest! A special thanks to my boyfriend Phillip for taking these and always helping out so much :)
Our first Dazey Lady video interview! Everyone meet heather, this gorgeous creature manages to maintain 2 business while being a very involved single mom.
She's always been an entrepreneur and has rich wealth of experience to show for it. With all this knowledge she found herself consulting friends and family an realized she could do this for a living! West side consulting was born. On top of her consulting business she owns an adorable mobile boutique "The west side collective truck" that carries ethically made american goods, including Dazey! She was actually the first boutique to carry Dazey :) She found me on Instagram at the very beginning. When she came to pick up the stock we chatted and clicked instantly. There's a calmness and warm aura about Heather thats hard to explain. She's a beautiful person inside and out and has been so helpful to me in my small business adventures. I'm so happy to call heather a friend and an official Dazey Lady!
Hear from Heather youself, below is our video. There's also some epic photos of her in one of our most popular and now sold out "the best vibes" tee.
Dani (@danidazey) and Rachel of Process/Progress (@processprogress) continue to talk about the journey of starting an running their small businesses. This episode we talk about building your dream job. We go over establishing your company, logistics, and costs. Physical actions you need to take to get started! Details include deciding your name, designing a logo, website, and how you will finance it. Girl boss life is within your reach :) Subscribe to see more and follow @dazey_la on instagram!
We're back at it! Again bear with us as we figure out what on earth we are doing haha, still filming on an iphone and realize theres a weird background noise lol :)
Episode 2 is all about how to design your dream job. We go over things like how you can combine ALL your passions to create a SUPER JOB! We go over what skills and expertise you might have to lend your business. And finally how you can delegate and trade the not so favorite parts! Theres are all things to consider when creating your dream job checklist. Positive or gentle constructive feedback welcome. Hope you enjoy!
When I started Dazey LA all I really wanted was to FINALLY have full creative freedom on a project I could call my own. I was not expecting it to create a community of like-minded creative ladies who share this same passions! Weather it's fellow girl bosses I've met along the way or aspiring ones who have been following my adventures. Connecting with, supporting, and inspiring people has been the cherry on top of this creative journey. I had no idea I would have such a passion for it :)
I wanted to go a little more in-depth than the 10-second Instagram stories so I decided to start a Dazey LA youtube channel! I teamed up with my friend Rachel of process/progress to do a little series on the inner thoughts and workings of starting a small business. We literally just filmed on my iphone in my living room with no planning and all in one take, so bear with us. I asked you guys what you wanted to see on the new Dazey channel and "how did you take the leap?" was the top runner by far. Hope you enjoy and don't forget to subscribe. I will also be doing design & photography tutorials, fashion videos, interviews, and more!
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