On January 1st 2007, I accepted a challenge: Take a self-portrait picture every day for an entire year. Rain or shine, good days and bad, the goal was to compile photo diary. By July, I had bought my very first button machine and started casually making pins for my friends who were also participating in the ‘Photo 365’ project on Flickr. Little by little, my button-making expanded. I adopted the name ‘Buttonhead’ and began to develop a shop on Etsy. On day 316 of 365, I took the photo that would become synonymous with my business for the next 3 years… and it was completely unrelated to buttons! Inspired by Elvis Costello singing, ‘Tear off your own head. It’s a Doll Revolution!’, the picture was supposed to look like a life-like doll. At the time, I didn’t think it quite accomplished what I intended, so I quickly disregarded it. A few months later, I made a deal with talented illustrator and fellow Flickr friend, Ben Rollman. I traded a few of my buttons for a custom-drawn robot portrait of me based on a photo of his choosing. Guess what? He chose the Doll Revolution photo! The robot portrait was so unique that it made me begin looking at the original photo in a whole new way. So, with branding on my mind, I turned to poptoon dreamer genius, Jelene Morris, to help me create a set of graphics and banners based around the photo. Within days, the Buttonhead girl was born!

Today, Buttonhead has sold and shipped over 50,000 button-based items worldwide. In 3 years, I’ve grown from offering just 1” pinback buttons to making 3 sizes of buttons, magnets, mirrors, and more! Now, as my studio has grown, so have my graphic design skills. I’m able to accomplish so much more with digital and web media than the girl who just wanted to dress up as a doll and take photos. For 2011, I decided to create an illustration of the Buttonhead logo and give all of my graphics a much-needed facelift. Enter Buttonhead version 2.0! I think the new artwork is fun, fresh, colorful, and most importantly, it’s representative of who I am… and how I started.

See the new Buttonhead artwork in action:
The Etsy shop
Buttonhead.org
All New Packaging

Have feedback about the Buttonhead makeover? Leave a comment!