As someone who has tattoos and multiple piercings, I love and am all for body modification—specifically how body modification can be a form of self-expression and what it can do for one’s self-esteem. Having been a client of Fox Labyrinth Piercing Studio in El Paso, Texas for the last four years, I was thrilled when the shop reached out to me to create some custom illustrations for them.
They had been looking to give their Instagram account a bit of a facelift and wanted some updated animated GIFs to head up their Story Highlights. These being one of the first things an audience sees on their profile, it was important that the illustrations kept the essence and aesthetic of the studio, gave a fresh new look, and communicated ideas in the simplest form—a five-second animated illustration. Five custom designs were made for each of the studio’s five main Story Highlights: Jewelry, Aftercare, COVID Protocol, New, and Shop.
Objects were chosen to represent each of the sections with basic animations against one of the studio’s signature colors, lavender. For jewelry, a simple circular barbell unscrewing itself. Aftercare is represented by a bottle of saline solution recognizable by almost anyone with more than earlobe piercings that changes into a jug of distilled water for those all important at-home soaks. With these unprecedented times, the studio is taking the utmost care and precautions to ensure the safety of their customers, so the COVID image shows a virus particle being covered up by an ear loop mask. The studio also likes to show off new pieces of beautiful jewelry they receive in stock, so some simple stars are used for New. And finally, a neon purple sign with the studio’s logo against geometric wallpaper greets clients at the door, so a digital version was created for the Shop highlight.
