Lump Shop Overview
/ 2018—2020
Lump Shop was a small artisan candle sculpting operation that I co-founded with my friend, Lauren Lubell. Working as designers by day and chandlers (candle-makers) by night, Lump Shop was both a small business and a small world. Driven by our mutual interest in learning new crafts and processes, we sculpted, molded, and poured each candle by hand.
Photography by Naomi McColloch
The Original Lump Family
Branding
Although the actual candlemaking process itself was more collaborative, I handled most of the design and branding visuals, including but not limited to the logo, web design, and printed marketing materials.
logo sketches
business cards and wholesale order sheets
Research & Development
As an industrial designer, Lauren had an established skillset with ceramic mold making and casting, which proved invaluable to the art of candle making. After extensive online research and controlled experiments, we developed our own custom wax mixture of paraffin, soy, additives, and colorant—this special mix ensured each candle looked vibrant and resistant to environmental changes.
After finalizing the composition of the wax mixture, we did more tests to finalize our pouring procedures and optimal temperatures. After a few months, the basic structure of our process could be broken down into four basic steps: sculpt, mold, pour wax, remove finished candle.
The candles were sculpted out of plasticine clay before being moldedWe used ice cube trays to do quick color dye tests for the waxA 2 part rubber mold for the worm candle, held together with rubberbandsRemoving the worm from its moldThe twins candle burning just as intended...A secret ritual 🤫
Lump Shop at Events
/ 2018—2020
As a small business we participated in many events, fairs, markets, and other pop ups. Here’s a selection of some memorable times:
West Coast Craft
West Coast Craft is a bi-annual juried exhibition of artist and designer craftspeople that takes place at Fort Mason in San Francisco. In the winter of 2017, we were accepted into the WCC Intro Scholarship program and given a free booth to exhibit our first collection of candles.
Although restricted by a tight budget and strict trade show fire code, we stood out from the crowd with a unique hand-painted table design and by playing up bright colors and textures. The different candle designs were displayed on individual islands while the majority of the actual product inventory was already prepackaged in individual boxes, ready for easy purchasing. This worked out well to speed up the checkout process, an important part of working a holiday fair of 25,000+ attendees.
SF Art Book Fair
Eggy Press asked us to create a product for the 2019 SF Art Book Fair. We decided to use this opportunity to design a new candle that built upon everything we learned with the original line. This sausage link candle was ultra functional: it used beeswax for a long clean burn, although packaged as one link it technically contained 8 candles, and it included a metal condiment candle holder with a custom 3d printed pronged bottom. Packaged in a thermal hotdog sleeve, the candle package also included an informational card design with instructions on How to Burn Your Wiener.