Burlesque Museum Branding

Hannah Smith

8 min readApr 14, 2021

Bringing it all together.

Project 1 Logo

Website: https://www.burlesquehall.com

Address: 1027 South Main Street, Suite #110, Las Vegas, NV 89101

Phone: (888) 661–6465

Letterhead Examples

I chose two different style of letterheads during my research. Either letterheads that were more classy or letterheads that had more decorative or feminine elements to them. For the decorative elements I would replace them with either feathers, beads, etc. that are more related to my subject. For the logo that I created, I feel as though either direction could work for this project.

Business Card Examples

The origin of my logo design comes from the burlesque feather dance. Because of this I would like to play with the concept of “revealing”. I think the business card would be a great opportunity to play with this concept. The examples I included are either here because of their method of “revealing” or because I thought their aesthetics matched my brand.

Questions:

Would you rather see a sleek, classic, minimalistic design to pair with the logo or one that plays more with the theater of burlesque?
Does it make more sense to have a type of sleeve/cover for the business card to emphasize the reveal concept, or would it be equally effective to use the business card style of having one side of the card act similar to a pinup poster?
Does this branding seem more relevant to a poster, publication, or digital portfolio? I’m having a hard time deciding, but I feel like a poster or spreads would be the most appropriate for the subject matter.

4/19/21 Business Card and Letterhead Update

Brainstorming

Business Cards

The card will be held on the outside by a flesh colored pink sleeve that has a cut out showing the woman illustration on the back of the business card. The sleeve also has two censor bars covering the figure. When the card is taken out of the sleeve it emphasizes the “reveal” concept and gives a taste of theater with the surprise outfit.

Letterhead

Questions:

Glitter can be very tacky, but for a topic like this about showmanship and loud theater, does it seem appropriate? If not, what is another why I could add drama to the designs? Or if I decide to keep the glitter texture, should I find a way to incorporate it throughout the collateral items?
Is the negative space in the letterhead too much? If so, what is something I could add/or rearrange to fill the space without decorating?
What about the illustration style of the model? Is that working for the concept? Or the pose? Should I go even farther with the illustration and use pasties instead of a bra since that seems pretty synonymous with burlesque?

4/21/21 Style Guide Start

I chose to do a poster for my style guide. I felt like my theme of “burlesque” lent itself to be more visual approach and very appropriate for a poster format. I want to continue my theme of “reveal” with censorship bars and I have been working to try and figure out what the best layout for the bars is for the images that I found. The idea being that I can put the style guide information in the censorship bars. The photos will be black and white, (better done then the current appearance of a quick turn to greyscale). I am also looking for feedback today before I purchase which photo to use. I am currently behind arranging the style guide and will catch up ASAP.

Questions

Does the censorship bar concept still work in this form?
Vertical vs. horizontal/square layouts?
Do any of these photos stand out to anyone as the most successful for the poster?

4/26/21 Business Card, Letterhead, Style Guide Update

Business Card Update

Logo was rotated, feather was filled in

Outer Sleeve

Inner Card

Letterhead Update

Second bar added to connect to the. business card sleeve with two bars
0.5 indents were added to each side
Type size change
Spacing adjusted body copy
Sincerely & signature inverted
Icons switched to left side

Style Guide

Poster Style Guide

24 x 36

This poster was made in a larger size because of the content to fit the theme, as well as giving more space for the style rules, since space is taken up by the burlesque dancer imagery.

This photo was chosen because this burlesque dancer is a fan feather dancer, which was the original inspiration for the main logo.

Close Up Sections

Questions:

Doest the style guide information work in this format? Is there anything that looks like it needs to be arranged/changed/fixed?
Do all of the materials, business card, style guide, and letterhead seem related?
I added an inch of spacing around the outside of the design elements of the style guide. Is that making the spacing in the columns seem off centered?