Case Study

Folk and Bones is a hand-poured soy candle brand my wife and I built with an extended line of incense cones and perfume oils. We started our business as 2016, rebranded to Johnny and June in 2022, and recently rebranded to Folk and Bones in 2026 as we closed our retail store and wanted to grow our candle brand independently from a brick-and-mortar base. I design every visual element the brand has ever needed: the logos, all packaging across every product line, the Shopify website (we’ve had 3 over the lifetime of the brand), and all marketing materials.

The design challenge with a candle brand in a saturated market is differentiation. Every decision, from the green glass apothecary jars with cork lids in the Ritual Collection to the product naming ("Witching Hour," "Death Before Decaf," "Persephone," "Sacrifice"), has to communicate a specific aesthetic point of view that would cut through the noise and attract exactly the right customer.

The logo and packaging work across two very different collection personalities: the Everyday Collection, which is warm and accessible, and the Ritual Collection, which is dark, apothecary-forward, and intentional. Designing packaging that holds both of those identities under one brand roof without either feeling compromised was the central creative challenge, and the result is a brand family that feels cohesive without being generic.

The Shopify store was built in a direct expression of the brand identity, with moody product photography, clean architecture, dual collection navigation, and Faire wholesale integration for the brand's wholesale program.