Indie Brands by BIS Publishers

INSPIRE AND TELL A STORY

New brands are created every single day in every corner of the world. Yet only some succeed in finding a place in the minds and

BETTER LIFE JOHN ALTMAN SUPERMARKETSARAH.COM TONY’S CHOCOLONELY MILQUE ETAT LIBRE D’ORANGE MR. JONES ATYPYK YOURS ZARB MYKITA THREADLESS DO LONEWOLF MADE WITH JOY YELLOW BIRD PROJECT JOHNNY LOCO MATIÈRES À RÉFLEXION 479° POPCORN JOHN’S PHONE ESTELLE & THILD INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS OAT PASPARTOUT FRITZ-KOLA NU WETRANSFER PORTRAITS DE VILLES NOSTALGIA BIBICO

hearts of consumers. These brands often are authentic and innovative. And they almost always have a story to tell. IKEA, Apple, Google, Innocent, Tiger beer, Starbucks: all great brands with equally great brand stories. But what makes for a good independent brand? And what are the independent brands of tomorrow? And can an independently-funded brand ever go mainstream without selling out? Indie Brands delves into the world of independent brands. This book shows the creative people behind the brand, the visual eye candy they create, the space they work in and the inspiring items they surround themselves with. From one-man brands to collective enterprises, Indie

30 INDEPENDENT BRANDS THAT INSPIRE AND TELL A STORY

30 INDEPENDENT BRANDS THAT

Brands features 30 independent brands that inspire and have a story worth telling. By Anneloes van Gaalen indie-brands.com

BY AN N E LOE S VAN GAAL E N

BIS Publishers Het Sieraad Postjesweg 1 1057 DT Amsterdam The Netherlands T (+) 31 (0)20 515 02 30 F (+) 31 (0)20 515 02 39 bis@bispublishers.nl www.bispublishers.nl ISBN 978 90 6369 219 3 Copyright © 2011 BIS Publishers www.indie-brands.com Author: Anneloes van Gaalen (www.paperdollwriting.com) Design: Supernova (www.workbysupernova.com) Studio Kluif (www.studiokluif.nl) All rights reserved. Printed in China.

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Introduction 6

Better Life

Yours

10 - 15

62 - 67

John Altman

Zarb

16 - 21

68 - 73

SupermarketSarah.com

MYKITA

22 - 27

74 - 79

Tony’s Chocolonely

Threadless

28 - 33

80 - 85

milque

34 - 39

86 - 91

Etat Libre d’Orange

Lonewolf

40 - 45

92 - 97

Mr. Jones

Made With Joy

46 - 53

98 - 103

Atypyk

Yellow Bird Project

54 - 61

104 - 109

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Johnny Loco

fritz-kola GmbH

110 - 115

158 - 165

Matières à Réflexion

116 - 121

166 - 171

479° Popcorn

WeTransfer

122 - 127

172 - 177

John’s Phone

Portraits de Villes

128 - 133

178 - 185

Estelle&Thild

Nostalgia

134 - 139

186 - 191

Industry of All Nations

Bibico

140 - 145

192 - 197

OAT 146 - 151

Paspartout 152 - 157

Credits 199

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Brand John Altman Products cookies and wine Founders Hajo de Boer and Onno Lixenberg Established 2008 Country The Netherlands Company size 6 Website www.johnaltman.org

Leave it to the guys at Gummo to create some serious buzz. The Amsterdam-based advertising agency has made headlines with its own brand of fair trade cookies, organic wine and a self-help book. Meet the men behind John Altman. Legend has it that John Altman, the brand, was born during a trip to California. While in San Francisco, the owners of Gummo – Hajo de Boer and Onno Lixenberg – met John Altman, an ageing hippie who spends his time handing out cookies on Baker Beach. De Boer and Lixenberg were so impressed, both by the taste of the cookies and by Altman’s positive outlook on life, that they decided then and there to take John Altman’s recipe back home and spread the love, one cookie at a time. Great story; according to the Gummo owners, it actually has a whole lot of truth to it. “There are people who think we made this whole thing up,” says De Boer, “but we actually did go to San Francisco. And we did in fact meet a man there who was handing out cookies, which we loved so much that we ended up asking the recipe.” And although the man’s real name wasn’t John Altman, his recipe and outlook on life would form the very real inspiration for the brand. Lixenberg: “Most people spend their lives chasing money or trying to achieve some sort of status. What struck us both about ‘John’ is that he had zero interest in any of that. And then it dawned on us that his philosophy on life, this idea of spreading the love, could be applied to all sorts of things and could even form the basis of a brand.” Back in the Netherlands, Gummo was contacted by a private label cookie manufacturer to design a new house style. Faced with a limited budget and still inspired by Altman’s philosophy of generosity, the agency asked to be ‘paid in cookies.’ “Part of our fee was invested in the John Altman project,” Lixenberg explains. “Initially, we thought the cookies would make a nice gift for clients and would be a good way to show people what we’re capable of. It quickly became more than that.” With the first cookies finding their way to actual consumers, Gummo decided to take their brand to the next level and write a book based on John Altman’s philosophy. The self-help book / cookbook, titled What Would John Do? Flour Power – Baking Your Way to Happiness, features 7 easy steps to make all your dreams come true, as well as a recipe for how to bake the perfect cookie. “A brand doesn’t usually get to make a book until they have had years of success; we did it the other way round,” says Lixenberg, who points out that the book has only helped to create more buzz. “We had no marketing budget for our brand, but we’ve had massive amounts of publicity.”

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Following the cookie venture, the Gummo guys decided to branch out and start selling John Altman wine. The choice may seem random, but De Boer says there’s actually an underlying theme connecting the different products that are sold under the John Altman umbrella. “We’re interested in products that are marketed in traditional ways. If you go to the cookie aisle in your local supermarket, most of the packages look pretty similar. The same goes for wine. It’s the same bottles over and over again, with only slight variations in color or logo. There’s nothing there with a unique story behind it or really good packaging. But if you walk over to the chocolate section, you see that Tony Chocolonely (see page 28) really did fill that gap with a design that seriously stands out and a product that truly has an interesting story attached to it.”

“All of a sudden, you are your own client and you experience first-hand that not everything you want is feasible” By their own account, De Boer and Lixenberg have become better ad men since starting their own brand. “All of a sudden, you are your own client and you experience first-hand that not everything you want is feasible,” Lixenberg says, “You can’t make everything happen overnight. It takes time.” For instance, the first cookies were sold in plastic bags and tubs, which weren’t the most environmentally friendly packaging materials. Today, the cookies are sold in a more eco-friendly paper bag. But it’s not just the packaging that has changed. In 2010, John Altman said goodbye to the original cookie manufacturer and began a new partnership with an independent bakery, which they felt was more in tune with the brand values. The new and improved cookies are now fair trade, made with 100% natural ingredients and free range eggs.

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“Since consumers didn’t always know what it was, they wouldn’t buy it.” “When we started out, we didn’t want to do market research. All we wanted was to create something we felt passionate about,” De Boer explains. “However, that also means that you learn by trial and error. The first packaging for our cookies looked great, but we hadn’t actually placed a picture of a cookie on the package itself. Since consumers didn’t always know what it was, they wouldn’t buy it.” The new packages now feature a picture of a cookie. Great news, but the owners say there is always room for improvement, which is why they insist all Altman products carry the slogan: ‘100% Good, not Perfect.’

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Brand SupermarketSarah.com PRODUCTS apparel and lifestyle Founder Sarah Bagner Established 2009 Country UK Company size 1 Website www.supermarketsarah.com

What started out as a small web shop has developed into a fully-fledged brand with a loyal following, a small product range and a shop in London’s Selfridges. At SupermarketSarah.com, owner and founder Sarah Bagner sells a range of handpicked vintage and new designer pieces, which are displayed on walls so shoppers can simply click and buy. The walls started in Bagner’s living room, but have since spread to public spaces. “I’ve never been much of an online shopper. Most web shops look too dry and clinical for my liking,” says Bagner, who worked in advertising prior to running her own web shop. “In my old job, I was always surprised to see that big brands wanted to befriend their customers, which is sheer impossible. No one wants to join the Colgate Facebook page. It’s as simple as that.” According to Bagner, people are moving away from big brands and looking for personal stories, which partly explains the success of her own enterprise. “In my web shop, I offer people my personal take on clothes, accessories and other items. The walls are a reflection of my preferences and taste; the same goes for the descriptions I write.” Besides keeping it personal, Bagner also wanted her shop to be inspirational. “I always thought shopping should be an inspirational luxury. So that’s what I wanted for my web shop: it needed to be an inspirational feast.” Having studied graphic design at Brighton University, Bagner made sure her shop didn’t look “too designy”. “I wanted to move away from the beautiful but slick 90s design that magazines have pushed down our throats for years and that no one really enjoyed. SupermarketSarah.com is for anyone to enjoy, whether you’re 8 or 80, whether you buy something or not. It’s cutting-edge, but not elitist.”

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“People often think that making products is all about the craft, but the concept needs to come first.” One way of ensuring that her shop would be anything but elitist was including the word supermarket in the name: “SupermarketSarah.com is a spin on consumerism. I love the fact that products in a supermarket are displayed quite democratically next to each other and I wanted to display my stuff, both vintage and new, in an equally democratic way.” While the products on offer in most supermarkets are relatively mainstream, Bagner aims for a more unique range of options. “I handpick vintage stuff, as well as up-and-coming and established designers. But I also develop my own products.” They’re fun and quirky items, like rosettes and a USB stick in the shape of sushi, which Bagner happily mixes with vintage and new designer items. “I particularly love making products,” says Bagner. “Take the sushi USB, for instance; I love the supermarket chic quality of it. But what I love even more than the product itself is coming up with the initial idea. People often think that making products is all about the craft, but the concept needs to come first. I love that process; I guess that’s my advertising background. I like being the art director, coming up with the concept and then letting somebody else actually make the product.”

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“Everything I sell and everything I do needs to be genuine, simply because the brand bears my name.” While Bagner’s brand had humble beginnings and a personal approach, her ‘walls’ have since spread to galleries, shop fronts and even the ground floor of Selfridges London – “I did a wall in there once and was asked back to do a proper retail store.” Bagner has also created walls in close collaboration with designers like Fred Butler, Patternity, Tatty Devine and Tom Dixon, to name but a few. Of course there is an inherent tension between presenting yourself as a highly personal brand and collaborating with big corporations and high-end department stores. Bagner: “Everything I sell and everything I do needs to be genuine, simply because the brand bears my name. I love every single product I put on my walls, so in that sense I stay true to myself and my ideals. Of course dealing with big brands that have their own system in place means that you run into interesting situations. They’re often like: ‘Can your people come in and arrange this?’ And I’ll be like: ‘Um, okay, I’ll send my boyfriend over in a little bit.’ Or they’ll ask to speak to the head of PR. And I then have to break the news to them that I’m it. At the same time, I feel I get more done than all those other people. While they’re still having meetings, I’ve already organized the party, made the invitation and got the new walls in place.”

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Brand Tony’s Chocolonely PRODUCT chocolate Founder Maurice Dekkers Established 2005 Country The Netherlands Company size 3 Website www.chocolonely.nl

The Dutch have a longstanding love affair with chocolate. Not only was Amsterdam once the world’s largest cocoa port, but chocolate as we know it today exists in part thanks to the invention of the cocoa press by Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten, which led to the discovery of cocoa powder. It was also a Dutch company that decided to produce the world’s first slave-free chocolate bar. Presenting: Tony’s Chocolonely. The story behind Tony’s Chocolonely reads like a novel. In 2002, Dutch TV journalist Teun van der Keuken, a real chocolate lover, read a newspaper article about abuses in the chocolate industry. As host of the Keuringsdienst van Waarde (Consumer Intelligence Agency), a popular TV show that investigates the true story behind consumer products, Van der Keuken decided to do some research. He was shocked to find out that children are actually forced to work on cocoa plantations in countries like the Ivory Coast, where most of the cocoa for Van der Keuken’s beloved chocolate came from. Arguing that slavery is a crime punishable by law, Van der Keuken turned himself in to the Dutch police and even tried to prosecute himself. With the cameras filming his every move, Van der Keuken also tried to convince chocolate manufacturers to opt for responsible cocoa. But when his requests fell on deaf ears, he took matters into his own hands and produced the world’s first slave-free chocolate bar. To the outside world, granted access to Van der Keuken’s journey in different television specials, the journalist-turned-chocolate maker is the driving force behind the brand, but he didn’t actually found the business. The real owner of Tony Chocolonely is Dahl TV, the production company that produces the TV show Keuringsdienst van Waarde that Teun van der Keuken hosts. Maurice Dekkers, owner and founder of Dahl TV, started Tony’s Factory Inc. and runs the business with director Eveline Raijmans.

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“I can understand the confusion. Teun is a very visible spokesperson, but at the end of the day he is a journalist, not a businessman, so he doesn’t actually run the company,” says Raijmans, who is also quick to point out that the company was born out of purely pragmatic reasons. “We made a number of TV shows about forced labor in the cocoa industry, but found that as a journalist you can only do so much. We would sit at the table with the big cocoa companies but couldn’t really get to the bottom of what was going on. So instead of simply interviewing the players, we decided to become one the players. By going into chocolate, we could sit at the table with all parties and investigate even further. The first 5000 bars of chocolates we made sold out in no time at all and there was a huge demand for more bars. We also felt that we weren’t done reporting on child slavery, so that’s when the decision was made to set up an actual company.”

“While milk chocolate is normally sold in blue wrappers and dark chocolate in red ones, in the world of Tony’s Chocolonely the exact opposite is true.” Raijmans, who has a background in media, admits that to some extent she’s been running the company by trial and error. “When I started out, I had little to no knowledge about the industry or even about running a business like this. But I’ve relied on common sense and have just gone out and learned along the way.” At times, the learning curve has been a bit steep. For instance, anyone who has ever bought a Tony’s bar knows that the packaging can be quite deceiving. While milk chocolate is normally sold in blue wrappers and dark chocolate in red ones, in the world of Tony’s Chocolonely the exact opposite is true. “We tend to make our own rules,” says Raijmans. “Our first bars were made of milk chocolate and for the wrapper we chose a real signature color, opting for red. When we then started making dark chocolate bars as well, we didn’t really feel the need to change the colors around.”

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“I’ve relied on common sense and have just gone out and learned along the way.” Raijmans doesn’t know what the future holds. However, in view of the brand’s popularity and the continuing abuses in the cocoa industry, Tony’s job isn’t done just yet. “When we launched our first chocolate bar in 2005, we called it the world’s first slave-free chocolate bar. Since then, we have found out that we can’t guarantee that every batch of cocoa we use is in fact 100% slave free, simply because the cocoa comes from so many different plantations and countries. We changed our packaging accordingly; it now reads ‘on our way to 100% slave-free chocolate.’ The goal is to make sure that we will be able to change the packaging again at some point so it will read: ‘the world’s first slave-free chocolate bar’.” Here’s hoping.

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Brand MYKITA Product eyewear FounderS Moritz Krueger, Philipp Haffmans, Daniel Haffmans and Harald Gottschling Established 2003 Country Germany Company size 193 people worldwide Website www.mykita.com

Berlin-based MYKITA has been making waves with its high-tech and innovative eyewear since 2003. Headed by a creative team of four, the brand has a celebrity following, a trophy case full of design awards and an inspiring work ethic: “We do what we like, and like what we do.” MYKITA is run by Philipp Haffmans, Harald Gottschling, Daniel Haffmans and Moritz Krueger. The foursome met while working at another German eyewear brand, only to venture out on their own. Their first eyewear concept featured stainless-steel frames, which were folded into form by hand and had no screws or other soldered joints. It was an interesting design on paper, but it quickly became clear that turning their paper vision into a reality would require them to take matters into their own hands. Haffmans: “No classic eyewear producer would have been able to make our frame, simply because nothing like that was ever made before. And so we started to design our own manufacturing tools. That really was the birth of MYKITA.” With the idea for a brand born, the new baby still needed to be named. According to Krueger they didn’t need to look far for inspiration: “The name comes from ‘Kita,’ which is short for Kindertagesstätte: a reference to our first office, which was situated in a former kindergarten. Later we found out that MYKITA means ‘those who came from the north’ in Japanese, which is funny, because all four of us originally come from Oldenburg, which is situated in the north of Germany.” Northerners by birth, the four eventually set up shop in the heart of Berlin. The MYKITA headquarters, also known as the MYKITA HAUS, accommodates not just the offices, but also the work space where the frames are still assembled by hand. It is here that further research is carried out in search of new material and design. “For the past two years, we have been doing research on a new material,” Haffmans explains. “Last year in October, we launched the first products made out of this revolutionary material, a polyamide powder that can be formed into any shape you like. We named it MYLON. It is extremely durable, lightweight, as well as thermally adaptable: in short, ideal for eyewear. Plus, it allows nearly unlimited possibilities in terms of design.”

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The MYLON frames have won the iF material award 2011, which goes nicely with the other design awards that the company has received, including the international IDEA award, several red dot design awards in the field of product design, and a nomination for the German Design Award.

“We do what we like, and like what we do. This spices up our daily work and is immediately reflected in the products we make.” While the accolades and awards are nice, the MYKITA team has no desire to please anyone but themselves. “We follow our own path,” says Krueger, “and that path is off the beaten track, away from the mainstream. We do what we like, and like what we do. This spices up our daily work and is immediately reflected in the products we make.” By collaborating on collections with fashion designers like Bernhard Willhelm, Romain Kremer and Marios Schwab, MYKITA has not only spiced things up, it has also positioned itself as a major player on the fashion scene. As a result, the frames are available at fashion stores worldwide, as well as from high-end opticians and department stores. Although the brand operates on a global scale, all frames are still assembled by hand in the Berlin studio. Haffmans: “We believe in our excellent team of employees. In the MYKITA HAUS, you find a concentration of multiple skills and talents. This energy is a key to our success.”

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“There are egos and there are Superegos and the Superego is the captain.” With a foursome running a company, MYKITA could be in danger of having a bit too much creative energy, leading to four captains steering the ship in different directions. According to Krueger, however, that is not the case. No time or energy is wasted on trying to get all four partners seeing eye to eye. “There are egos and there are Superegos and the Superego is the captain.” As for any creative differences, they only end up making for a better product. “Our creative team is a bunch of individuals with very different aesthetic perspectives,” says Krueger. “Each season, everybody brings his favorites to the table. Then we start to discuss, modify and revisit the suggestions, until we finally select the best of the best. It’s an evolutionary process, which always contains an element of surprise and leads to new ideas. At the same time it is routine, but it is also passion, comparable to making a good wine.” Haffmans wholeheartedly agrees. “We have been driven by the urge to create our own universe. None of us could have imagined leading an independent life in a 9-to-5 job.”

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Brand Do Products anything from furniture to books Founder KesselsKramer Established 1997 Country The Netherlands Company size Varies, but there are always a couple of people working on it Website www.dosurf.com

KesselsKramer, the famed Amsterdam-based advertising agency, was one of the first creative agencies to set up their own brand. However, Do – as the label is known – isn’t your run-of-the-mill brand. Do is about ideas, not products. And while it’s a brand, it’s also an experiment, a platform and a call for consumers to end passive consumption. The KesselsKramer headquarters, which also houses Do, doesn’t look like your average office: it’s housed in a former church and features white picket fences, plastic gnomes and a humongous tree house. This isn’t your typical workspace, just like Do isn’t your typical brand. “Do was created as a reaction to the increasingly passive relationship between consumers and products,” explains Erik Kessels, who heads both KesselsKramer and Do. “These days, you buy a chair, you sit on it for 5 years, and the minute it breaks, you simply throw it away.” Frustrated by the complete lack of interaction that exists between the modern consumer and the products they buy, Kessels decided to set up his own brand. “From day one, Do was conceived as an ever-changing brand that depends on what you do. The product is completely useless and meaningless unless someone does something with it.” Take, for instance, the ‘Do Add’ chair, designed by Jurgen Bey, which has one leg that is shorter than the other. In order to make the chair function properly, you need to add a pile of books under one of the legs. Or the infamous steel cube ‘Do Hit,’ courtesy of Marijn van der Poll, which comes with a hammer: the owner has to work up a sweat and pound the cube into something resembling a chair. But while Do has produced some noteworthy products, many of which have been included in museum collections, Kessels argues that the brand is more about selling ideas, than pushing products. In fact, in the early days of Do, the emphasis lay on defining the brand, the products would come later. “We didn’t start making products right away. We first started with a series of pockets with future predictions of brands. We wanted to explore what Do really was and give it some sort of theoretical backbone. And so we’d also host events like a 24-hour online television marathon back in 2000 about the future of television.”

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Do’s big break came in 1999 when the brand joined forces with Droog Design. Kessels: “We briefed 15 designers on what Do is and told them to design a product. We took the products to Milan and made a bold statement there with both the products and the accompanying campaign. In this slick, squeaky clean word of design, we put up a poster for ‘Do Hit,’ which showed a man with pit stains under his arms. The implication was that he had worked up a sweat while hitting the steel cube into shape. This was unheard of at the time.”

“Working on the brand we get to explore fields and areas we don’t know that well. That’s exciting and that’s when we get inspired.” The products and events that Do has initiated have received much critical acclaim, but the brand has yet to produce a bestseller. Although commercial success is of secondary importance to Kessels, it is something he has considered. “Sure, we could have been bigger. There are at least 2 or 3 Do products that have had the potential to become big commercial hits, but I’m not really interested in that. To me, Do is interesting precisely because it’s an experiment and a platform. It’s not that we don’t want commercial success; if one of the Do products became a commercial hit, I’d be more than okay with that, but it would only happen on our terms. No concessions would have been made in creating the product.” Do continues to be an experimental brand, but the philosophy behind the brand remains the same. Kessels: “We still believe people need to interact with products. Of course, this idea has become much more commonplace. Enter a design shop and I can point you to at least 5 products that are based on a similar philosophy. But that’s okay. We’ll continue with Do because working on the brand we get to explore fields and areas we don’t know that well. That’s exciting and that’s when we get inspired.”

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“The product is completely useless and meaningless unless someone does something with it.”

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Author Anneloes van Gaalen www.paperdollwriting.com

Design Supernova www.workbysupernova.com

Paspartout by: Mick van Meelen

Studio Kluif

SupermarketSarah.com by: Mick van Meelen

www.studiokluif.nl

Photography Lianne van de Laar

MYKITA by: Maud Göttgens

www.winkandshoot.com

Contributing photographers

milque by: Julia Grudda www.juliagrudda.de

Better Life by: Jen Halski

fritz-kola GmbH by: Julia Grudda

www.halskistudio.com

www.juliagrudda.de

Threadless by: Sean Dorgan, Craig Shimala and Dustin Henderlong

Estelle&Thild by:

Industry of All Nations by: Brendan Holmes

Bart-Jan Steerenberg www.deviator.nl

Nostalgia by: Heather Nowell Photography

Magnus Fond

Videography Website www.indie-brands.com

479° Popcorn by: Brandon Loper www.brandonloper.com

Special thanks to

Cok and Dia van Gaalen Linda and Silvo van Gaalen-van Halderen Mikey

Bibico by: Thomas Martin www.thomas-martin.co.uk Made With Joy by: Mick van Meelen

Thanks to Cat Reynolds Tara Dougans Nieke Mulder Annemarel Sips Myrthe Slootjes Willa Stoutenbeek Chris Helt Susie Breuer and all the brands involved

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INSPIRE AND TELL A STORY

New brands are created every single day in every corner of the world. Yet only some succeed in finding a place in the minds and

30 INDEPENDENT BRANDS THAT INSPIRE AND TELL A STORY

30 INDEPENDENT BRANDS THAT

Brands features 30 independent brands that inspire and have a story worth telling. By Anneloes van Gaalen indie-brands.com

BY AN N E LOE S VAN GAAL E N