Mood Kandi is a multimedia company dedicated to spreading Peace, Love, Unity & Respect, by making "kandi" accessible to everyone.

Mood Kandi aims to make their content as accessible as possible. They prioritize helping new people get into the art of making their own Kandi by putting out tutorials for making Kandi on Youtube and TikTok and providing links to many other resources. 

Bee is an authentic and fun human being and in a very short time, they have become a key thought leader, if not something of an icon among the now hundreds of thousands who follow them. 

Sharing Kandi might be their core activity, but beyond the beads and string, Mood Kandi is about loving yourself and sharing that love with others in the community. 

In January of 2020, when Bee first approached me for a design, they only had a few crafting videos on TikTok and had been approached for a few commissions. It was starting to look like it might go somewhere, but they truly had no idea where it was going to go and what it could become. So they decided to a little light branding, as you do. 

"Kandi" refers to bracelets, and other rave accessories, made from pony beads, sometimes decorated with charms or Perler beads. 

"Kandi Kids" are a unique subculture of the edm community that sits comfortably in the intersections of crafting, rave fashion, and all things weird, artsy, and wholesome. 

What is so unique about Kandi is that it is more than just a piece of rave fashion or another crafting hobby. Kandi is a practice that has become representative of the spirit of the rave community. 

The act of selling Kandi is controversial and viewed by some as bad etiquette or even unethical. Certain ravers believe that Kandi should only be created and traded between ravers and should not be capitalized on. However, it is the view of many ravers, Bee included, that allowing Kandi to be bought and sold provides access to people who don't have the time, resources, or ability to make Kandi themselves. 

In our first conversation, all that Bee wanted was a super simple logo for their profile on the e-commerce marketplace Depop and I was happy to help them.

They showed me a few logos they really liked. When I asked for colors Bee said they wanted the nonbinary flag which is black, purple, white, and yellow. Normally, I would try to find a color palette more unique to them, but A) the brand was still very much in a discovery phase and B) the more authentic to them and their audience the better. I figured that when they had a little more momentum it would become a priority to establish their unique brand colors. 

I drew up some early sketches. 

Of all of the sketches I drew for them, this one was the most comfortable. 

The goal of Mood Kandi's branding from the beginning has been to be inviting, but never forceful. The single bead in the center was simple and had the potential to be something iconic, should their brand grow and change. 
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I decided to build a quick 3D model of a bead in Cinema 4D. Often do this for logos, because I can quickly create a versatile 2D/3D object by putting a cell shader texture on it and using Sketch & Toon to create outlines. 

Below is the first version of the logo. Bee really liked it for it's sweet simplicity and they felt good about how it would be perceived on social media. While I found it to be a bit awkward, I agreed that an overly produced logo would come off as dubious and corporate.

Like most good designs had to go through some awkward teenage years which is what these next few images amount to. 

What happened is that Bee asked if we could incorporate the bisexual flag into their logo as well. I came up with this background which turned out very nice. I like that it communicates the bisexual flag colors of blue purple and pink without being too obvious about it. 

Then, instead of putting it behind a flattened monochrome version of the original logo, I kept the nonbinary flag as well... which was a bad idea.

There are too many colors and it looks clumsy and bad and I hate it, so stop talking about it!

ehem, moving on...

For the final version of the logo, I finally removed the nonbinary flag colors, because in coordination with the color palette I had been using in the text graphics in Mood Kandi's Youtube videos, the deep indigo and fuschia were becoming recognizable as Mood Kandi's official brand colors. 
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The fuschia, which I named "Precious Fuschia", communicates a deep love and acceptance that radiates warmth and passion. 
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The indigo, named "Ultra violet", evokes a magical weirdness that feels familiar to any passionate, artsy nerd. 
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In illustrator, I added the visual of a bead on either side with string running through it, as if the logo is itself a Kandi bracelet. 
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I am so happy with how it came out.