I always have and always will be a Batman fan. I remember the days when I was a kid I would rush home everyday after school to catch my favorite show: Batman The Animated Series. That show had it all! The excellent storytelling, the beautiful artwork and in my opinion the most compelling characters.
Though Batman is hands down my favorite superhero, I oftentimes was fascinated by the villains he encountered and was always interested in why they chose that lifestyle. Some of them had clear motivations like Mr. Freeze (Fries), who wanted to help his wife who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Then there is the Joker, who was just a chaotic force that constantly found himself an Arkham Asylum regular.
A loooooong time ago, after rewatching The Animated Series I thought of a silly idea, I wondered what would the villains of Gotham would be doing if they did not choose a life of crime. I made a list of names of my favorite villains and next to it jotted down what their best job would be! I eventually laughed it off as a funny "What If" scenario and made that the title of the document. Then I completely forgot about it!
Then one day I was going through some files on my computer and came across my "What Ifs" document. I laughed remembering exactly what this was and opened the document to read my notes:
After reading this again, I was inspired to make some business cards for our bad villains turned good civilians. As always this starts with sketches:
With the basic ideas sketched out, I took to Adobe Illustrator and got to work!
CATWOMAN - Selina Jewelers
Selina Kyle better known as Catwoman would be successful as a jeweler. In her Catwoman days she was an expert burglar. She found the most valuable riches in Gotham City... and kept them for herself. Now she is selling them!!
My thought process for this company was it needed to be elegant, simple and of course involve a cat.
THE JOKER - Jokers!
I thought the Joker would find it challenging to adapt to a job with a set schedule. Also the chaos that it brings aside, he is an excellent clown. With all his goofy props and contagious laugh, you will definitely want to hire this clown at your next corporate function or even birthday party!
This company needs to show that they are silly and ready to bring on the smiles! I thought lots of bright colors, handwritten fonts and of course a clown was absolutely necessary. Just look at that infectious smile!
THE MAD HATTER - The Mad Hatter Cafe
No Alice's allowed! Just kidding! All are welcome to enjoy the Hatters delicious coffee and tea creations. If you are feeling hungry there are also an assortment of biscuits, scones and muffins to choose from. I felt the Mad Hatter would make an excellent barista and would have an extremely successful cafe franchise. He does have a thing for blondes and will sometimes give them discounts.
I had a lot of ideas with this company and I am thinking about expanding on this one even further. I stuck with this design though because I thought it was simple yet effective. This is the only one that I made two versions I think version B is better.
Version A:
Version B:
THE PENGUIN - Cobblepots
Say what you will about Oswald Cobblepot, but the man always looks sharp! Thats why he would definitely be the Gotham go-to guy for fashionable tuxedo purchases/rentals.
First impressions are everything, so because Mr. Cobblepot is always wearing his signature top hat and monocle he commands every room he walks into. I thought it was important to have his face on the card to have the same effect even when he isn't there!
Final Thoughts: I had a lot of fun doing this! it was great to read over the notes and finally bring them to life. As I mentioned previously I may expand on this a bit more and make a few others in the future. But with some upcoming projects, and my excitement with finishing up and sharing what I have thus far I decided to go ahead and publish what I have.
As always I used a lot different fonts and I like to leave the name of the font, the site I found it, and who made the font. I like to provide this information in case anyone would like to use these fonts and of course, more importantly give people credit for their contributions:
CATWOMAN
1. Copperplate by Adobe Fonts
2. Westwood Studio (Script Font) by Octotype (dafont.com)
THE JOKER
1. Myriad Pro (Jokers! font) by Adobe Fonts
2. Baby Doll by Denne (dafont.com)
MAD HATTER
1. Blantick Script by Damarletter (dafont.com)
2. Aberforth Tiles by Brittney Murphy Design (dafont.com)
PENGUIN
1. Fifty-Four (Cobblepots font) by Daylight Fonts (dafont.com)
2. Futura PT by Adobe Fonts
