Last month, we launched our New Dribbble Shop and now we’re so excited to highlight some of the amazing designers behind the products for sale. This week, get to know Amy and Jennifer Hood—designers, twins, and founders of Hoodzpah Inc. Check out the awesome swag they created especially for you Dribbblers and get the inside scoop on the idea behind the design.
Can’t get enough of this dynamic duo? Don’t miss the Hood sisters at Dribbble’s Hang Time NYC where they’ll be sharing more of their valuable insights on the main stage!
Tell us about yourselves and how you got started on Dribbble.
Hey! We’re Amy and Jennifer Hood, co-founders of Hoodzpah, Inc., a boutique brand identity studio based out of Orange County, California. Our agency turned eight years old on April 11 actually! It’s hard to believe it’s been that long and yet I can’t remember having a job besides this. We do logos, lettering, and illustration for rad brands. It’s honestly the most fun job.
Behind the design: Elaborate on your inspiration and the design process behind the items you made for the Dribbble shop.
I’ve always wanted to do a more interactive campaign for Hoodzpah—so when Dribbble reached out about doing a design for the new shop it seemed like the perfect opportunity to team up with another awesome brand with more bandwidth to do an interactive project. I wanted to do something that would appeal to all designers whether they be in brand, web, illustration, whatever. I love all things retro and was thinking back on two things: The “How’s my driving?” bumper stickers you’d see on semis on the freeway, and the “3 installments of $29.99” style infomercials with the big yellow starbursts.
I thought it would be really cool to have an anonymous hotline where people could call and leave nice messages or share some hilarious design blunder they saw without directly calling anyone out. It’s like therapy for designers. So when people are wearing the sweatshirt and working on something cool, people can call and leave a nice review. Instead of keeping this idea for Hoodzpah to use, we thought we’d pitch it to Dribbble who has a reach of millions and make it a big thing! Bringing people in on something is so much more fun than trying to do it all on your own.
How has the Dribbble community helped you grow as designers?
Dribbble played a huge roll in the growth of our company and getting our name in front of Art Directors and design-minded entrepreneurs and business owners. Up to that point we were really limited to friends and family which was great, but you soon reach your maximum on how many logos your friends and family need. Being able to be found by bigger agencies looking to subcontract allowed us to work on bigger projects and see how agencies and bigger projects were run. It also helped us connect with other designers in the industry which we now call friends.
Tell us something about yourself we, and the community, may not already know.
We are both designers because we failed at other things in Community College. I (Amy) was studying to be a painter, and Jen considered everything from Math (she made it all the way to Calculus 2 before tapping out) to Illustration and Journalism. Also, when we were young, our mom was really set on us becoming musicians. We played all kinds of instruments but mainly Jen played cello, I played violin, and we both rocked the piano. When we moved from New York to Kentucky, we’d drive 1.5 hours from Bowling Green to Owensboro to take part in the closest orchestra our mom could find. We were also in a bluegrass band that played Wednesday night potluck at the baptist church. But, despite how much fun it all was, we were only mediocre at music despite much practice and we were constantly begging our mom to let us do art instead. Eventually we won the battle. Our mom’s dream of us being the next Dixie Chicks was shattered, but our dream of being artists soon morphed into a lovely career in design.
What hashtag should designers use to share photos of them rocking your sweatshirt?
We want to see you wearing the sweatshirt! Tag us at #DesignHotlineConfessions and look for anonymous postings of messages left via that hashtag. We’ve already gotten some really fun messages in.
Snag the Hood sister’s custom designed gear in the Dribbble Shop and keep up with them on Dribbble, Instagram, and at Hoodzpahdesign.com.
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