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Welcome to the Process & look book
TABLE OF CONTENTS THE QUESTION
THE MAN
THE LEGEND
BRANDEN WHITFIELD I’m a hip-hop loving, dancing, panda enthusiast, and digital designer. I’m influenced by hip-hop cultures power to bring out the creative side of people, and it’s a part of my everyday life. Through dancing i’ve met a lot of amazing people that have had a big influence on my life, i’ve also helped a lot of people by dancing. I think dance is applicable to design because they both are trying to communicate meaning. And in both you can make connections with people and I think that is truly powerful.
THE QUESTION “What are the specific tangible and intangible design practices that must be applied when developing a premium clothing brand for creatives?�
SPECIAL THANKS TO THESE PEOPLE
Mom - Biggest fan Abby Whitfield - <3 Grandma - Did this all for you :) 7-25-11 Stephen Pinon - 3 more years Jason Bowers - Google hangout nights Ray Sams - Keeping me sane Michelle Carpenter - Being honest Uncle Scooty - Rock creek social club Samantha “Lil Fresh Sam” Aragon - Infatue Wayne Pacheco - Widowmaker Apparel Travis Vermilye - For listening Brian Leister - Asking the hard questions
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS I started getting interested in street wear design back in 2011 before I got into the design program at University of Denver. This interest manifested my first idea ATO (AH-TOE) style apparel, Ato was Japanese for something clothing related. Showâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how memorable it was right? FIRST ITERATIONS I needed something stylized as well as a memorable name to set my brand apart. So I started brainstorming and googling existing names of brands. And finally came to the name Origin8 Co. (Originate), it embodied my vision of a creative clothing line and my love of pandas. And it was stylized to fit the urban space I wanted to get into.
THIRD TIMES THE CHARM I started getting better as a designer and thought the last version still didn’t fit in with what I thought the brand was. So I came up with a more urban looking logo that was still professional but had graffiti influences. This lasted half a year but it started feeling dated to me and again my vision for the clothing line changed. I wanted to still focus on urban street wear but wanted a “cleaner” more iconic logo. LONG STORY SHORT I played around with more logo variations after getting more focus and taking more courses in my design program. I came to the final logo I used for the past year which I decided on because it was easy to use across a lot of items and I received good feedback from customers. But I had one problem still even through all this re-vamping of the logo.
WHAT IS THE
BRAND ABOUT?!!!!!
RESEARCH All of that trial and error led me to my thesis question which is â&#x20AC;&#x153;What are the specific tangible and intangible design practices that must be applied when developing a premium clothing brand for creatives?â&#x20AC;? So in order to explore this topic I decided to re-create my brand by looking at branding principles as well as exploring current marketing trends and social media. I needed a solid understanding of what branding was, as well as what makes a good successful brand and how to gauge that success. To do this I first selected 3 brands to look at and see what made them successful and what market I could target through my brand. The three brands had to meet a couple of requirements which were, they had to be unique in their branding, long standing, and personal relationship with costumers. These values were something I wanted in my brand; so I picked Supreme, Johnny Cupcakes, and LRG (Lifted Research Group).
JAMES JEBBIA SUPREME CLOTHING CREATOR
SUPREME CLOTHING These brands all had unique branding and each of them approach marketing different, but the first of these is Supreme. Supreme was selected because James Jebbia is good at building hype and having a strong following that all started from a lone store in Manhattan in 1994. Supreme was started by James Jebbia in 1994 he used $12,000 to open the first store and they built a following by having some unique elements like guerilla marketing, limited quantities and building hype around their releases.
Due to his success Supreme is one of the main, if not the main brand leading the HYPEBEAST ERA of street wear fashion. A HYPEBEAST is a person that buys things that are limited just for hype no other reason beyond that, this is a relatively new trend that is a culmination of limited releases from brands. Supreme is the leader in this movement, evident by their online releases that sell out in two minutes and their clothing items that resell for 2 times their initial value. Word spreads about their releases, and people want the shirts just to be able to say they got the release. This pattern builds hype around their products and makes their brands releases coveted. From doing research on James and Supreme I realized that hype is powerful, and would be one of the driving forces of my brands releases.
JOHNNY EARLE JOHNNY CUPCAKES CREATOR
JOHNNY CUPCAKES Johnny Cupcakes is the next brand I explored Johnny Earle started Johnny Cupcakes in 2000 all based off of a running joke among friends. They would call him Johnny Cupcakes as a joke so he took the idea and made a cupcake with crossbones design as a t-shirt. He sold the tees on tour with the band he was with at the time and also out of his beat up Honda, the unique design along with the people he met on tour led to a following.
From that he turned his brand into a unique experience over time with the following he developed, and opened his first store that was modeled after a bakery. His stores now all have a bakery theme and even smell like cupcakes when you walk in, this is part of the experience it makes people walk into the store looking for baked goods. After finding out itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a bakery they normally but a shirt or tell a friend about the store, Johnny Earle believes that experience is important. And that vision come to life in his packaging as well, when you order shirts they come in specially branded packaging sometimes even cake boxes, and cereal boxes. His brand has moved into bakery and art themed vinyl toys, stickers, and jewelry to turn it into a true out of the ordinary bakery.
But Johnny has also borrowed a page from Supreme in creating hype; most of Johnnyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s releases have been know to sell out fast. He creates hype by limiting numbers of shirts available and doing special collaborations with well know brands that fit in with the cartoon style of the brand. From looking at his brand I learned mainly that the experience a brand gives their customers in all areas web, physical, and on delivery can set you apart from the competition. So brand experience was the next goal, which would be to create a unique and cohesive brand experience.
JONAS BEVACQUA LRG CO-FOUNDER
LIFTED RESEARCH GROUP The last brand I explored helped give me some perspective on how to pick a target audience and brand that people trust. Jonas Bevacqua started LRG (Lifted Research Group) in 1999 with the help of Robert Wright who was an MC and had previously worked for various clothing companies over the span of 8 years like Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill, and Quicksilver. Jonas wanted to create clothes that he would wear, so he used his art skills and Robertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s connections from the clothing market to make their first run of products that successfully sold out at Action Sports Retailer Expo In San Diego.
The brand is art inspired but focuses on underground culture like skateboarding, and hip-hop and this is what made them successful. LRG supports the culture heavily and this helped make them more legitimate, they support a lot of up and coming skaters and have merchandise in all of the skate shops in Orange County. That support helped build trust in hip-hop community as well they support local hip-hop artist and underground artist, which helped get them into the hip-hop world. The slogan â&#x20AC;&#x153;underground inventive, overground effectiveâ&#x20AC;? is a perfect summation of their brand, they became profitable in only 3 years reaching their first million dollars in sales in 2002 and as of 2007 earning over $150 million dollars, proving to be overground effective. Jonas from the start knew what market he was after and by staying true to the demographics they chose they cemented themselves in the clothing market. I think knowing who youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going after is an important part of starting a brand, because you build trust by being true to your audience. So the last thing I had to do was pick an audience and earn their trust with a specific message and quality products.
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BUILDING A BRAND
ORIGINATE CLOTHING So I knew I had to incorporate all of these things into my new brand so I got to work figuring out what else I needed to know to before getting started. I read Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler and saw that a lot of the brand values I learned from researching existing brands were mentioned in her book. Some of the core ideals she mentioned stood out differentiation, value, and vision these were some additional things I started to think about. I determined I needed a specific audience, needed unique packaging, and needed to add value to my brand.
To start I realized that I already had a small following from my previous attempts at building a clothing line so I changed the name from Origin8 to Originate clothing. This was due to possible confusion down the road, people currently thought the brand was Origin Eight or something different and only got the real name after a drawn out explanation. Also Alina says to think about making something memorable when branding so Originate is easier to remember and spell. Next was developing an iconic logotype, the current logotype was instantly recognizable and I wanted something stronger and not easily recognized. Through some deep google-ing I found a typeface on losttype.com that was exactly what I was looking for and Lost Type is a newer font foundry so the typeface wasn’t easily recognizable. Fairview was my typeface so I got to work changing it up by adding some crossbars to the O’s to reference a number 8 and adding angles to the bars of the E and G. Fairview is a strong looking san-serif typeface and won’t feel dated in a couple years so it was perfect for what I needed. After developing this first logo version I got in contact with my two SME’s (subject matter experts), Lil Fresh Sam a local fashion designer and Uncle Scooty a brand identity expert from Washington.
UNCLE SCOOTY Uncle Scooty runs Shop-Premium clothing, a premium clothing site that utilizes unique fabrics and t-shirt styles to set itself apart. He also is a brand identity expert in Rock Creek Social Club a business based in Washington DC that helps companies and artist brand themselves or new products, ex: Reebok, Kettle One Vodka. Talking with Scooty gave me insight on how first impressions were everything with your brand, as well as telling what a lot of people were to use my panda head design as logo mark. He also gave me direction in creating a brand manifesto which is important because it tells people what your brand is about and why they should care. ROCKCREEKSOCIALCLUB.COM
LIL FRESH SAM I met with my first SME Samantha Aragon (Lil Fresh Sam) a local fashion designer and business owner she is the creative genius behind Infatue, a high-end fashion clothing line. She gave me guidance on creating a custom made t-shirt style, which I realized would be outside the scope of my project. As well as telling me that picking an audience was crucial because it helps guide your design decisions, and can create a culture for your brand. INFATUECLOTHING.COM
THE LOGO
This was the first iteration I mentioned earlier using the typeface Fairview. It was ok but after talking to Uncle Scooty, Lil Sam, and other faculty members I realized I needed to use a previously created panda head as a logo mark.
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Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always loved pandas and have been drawn to process colors so I brought the two together to create the logo mark the brand uses. The process colors represent different elements coming together to create, and the patterns reference street art. This lock up the first iteration and the new logomark looks good but I ran into a problem placing it on t-shirt mock ups and other assets. So one more try?. BINGO! This was the one I made a square lock up that still looks iconic and has the panda logo mark. It works for placements on t-shirts and other assets as well.
TARGET AUDIENCE Intially I wanted to stay true to the culture that started my interest in doing a clothing brand, which was the dance community. But I realized even though it was specific it was a hard demographic to brand for, so I thought just keeping it broad and focusing on hip-hop culture would work. But after talking to my professor Bryan Leister I realized that their are a TON, of hip-hop clothing brands so I needed to be more specific. He inspired me to focus on creatives in general that way I could touch on different creative outlets and demographics. By branding it as Clothing for Creatives it makes it different than other brands and stays away from being just another hip-hop clothing brand.
IT ALL FITS! More importantly the new target audience allowed me to incorporate the brand elements I picked up from existing brands. Hype, unique experience, and building brand trust athe next problem was how to reach out and let them know about the brand especially in a short amount of time...
GUERILLA MARKETING Guerilla marketing was a tactic I learned about from researching Supremes success with product launches and how they built their initial buzz. So I started by printing semi cryptic stickers branded with the panda head as a silhouette with the brands Instagram page. I gave the stickers out and also placed them around campus and downtown. This got us some new followers, and I proceeded to use the panda head to reveal info about the brand slowly over two weeks time. But it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t getting enough interest fast enough.
SOCIAL MEDIA I wound up moving on from the Guerilla marketing tactics, and just utilized Instagram I posted past clothing items and featured past customers to show that we had some past history. This was to start building trust and a following, but to push this further I started showing the culture I was after. I posted pictures of dancers and rappers that were unique wearing my t-shirts and came up with the tagline Do What Defines you. I asked followers what defined them to get some interaction, all these efforts brought in new followers.
BUILDING HYPE Since we started getting more followers I needed to start building hype and figuring out what would make the brand unique I created a tagline and had my audience. Now I needed to keep them interested, so I thought of limited collaborations. The limited aspect would build hype and interest, and collaborating with a local artist would speak to Coloradoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sense of community support. So I contacted my friend Hector Palacios and asked him if he would do a version of my logo in his graffiti style and the rest is history.
FIRST FRIDAY After receiving the shirt design from him I vectorized it and built hype around the release by posting teaser shots of the design and once I got the shirts printed did a promo video. I was going to release the shirts during the thesis gallery show, but Hector invited me to first friday on Santa fe to sell the shirts. I took it as an opportunity to test my product, outside of my circle of friends, so I got to work with the next step which was custom packaging and the manifesto. In the time leading up to the show I found unique packaging, and branded it with the logo and manifesto, I continued to promote and then came the first friday show.
SUCCESS!!!
The show was the true test of the brand and the design, I had advertised that only 24 shirts were printed 12 would be for sale down at the show and 12 would be for sale online. The day of the show I sold four shirts online as soon as they posted, and down at the show I sold 10 shirts out of the 12 I brought with me. The main reason they sold downtown was due to the packaging, manifesto, and the limited quantity. FEEDBACK: -People loved the manifesto and thought it was positive. -They thought the packaging was unique and cool. -When they found out the shirts were limited and done with a local artist they bought them. -They thought for future shirts I should have the boxes or shirts numbered to show the limited quantities better
BEHIND THE SCENES
The art walk got the instagram page over 50 new followers and helped give the brand more momentum. Some things I forgot to mention I did prior to the show were. BRAND DEVELOPMENT: -Picked CANVAS brand for the style of tees. due to it being a 50/50 blend shirt (good for dancers). -Created clothing sew on tags to put on shirts to add to value. -Created promo shirts/sent existing shirts out, to start making the brand seem more prominent. -Created brand manifesto and found unique packaging to add to value and brand experience. Labels are universal so I can use on shipping envelopes so things are cohesive. -Created new shirt designs, stickers and banner for thesis gallery show.
LAST STEPS Since the art walk the brand has gone from 354 followers to 450 followers, I have sparked brand interest and trust. This has been shown through purchases as well, since i’ve posted stickers, and new shirts we’ve received more orders than I ever had with my previous attempts. And people have reached out to do future shirt collaborations and even model for the line. For RedLine I have two special runs of products along with a couple of surprises to get people down to the show and will start advertising the reception beginning April 27th. My gallery set up will be similar to the set I would have vending at events.
MANIFESTO ORIGINATE IS YOU. WE ARE INSPIRED BY THE SPIRIT OF THE ARTIST, THE CREATOR, THE ORIGINATOR IN YOU. ON THE DAILY YOU SHAPE YOURSELF BY WHAT YOU DO, AND THAT’S ALL WE ASK IS THAT YOU DO WHAT DEFINES YOU.
ORIGINATE LAUNCH LOOK BOOK SPRING/SUMMER 2015
JUST DANCE & KILL EM WITH KINDNESS PREMIUM TEES SUMMER 2015
ORIGINATE X HECTOR PALACIOS PREMIUM TEE LIMITED SIZES AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY
DO WHAT DEFINES YOU PREMIUM TEE AVAILABLE NOW ONLINE
FINAL THOUGHTS Originate is something iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to continue after graduation I plan to keep building the brand. This semester has taught em a lot and has also shown me I still have a lot to learn and explore. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the most exciting part about this project to me is that their is more to learn, and more ways to apply design principles to my brand. I learned that design can influence marketing and branding by allowing you to create unique experiences and interactions with your audience. Design can be implemented to build hype, unique brand experiences, and also help target your audience. If you have any questions please contact me through my info below.
CONTACT BRANDENWHITFIELD.COM B.ORIGIN8@GMAIL.COM ORIGIN8CLOTHING.COM
This book is dedicated to my Grandma who always believed in me, and was my biggest supporter. And my Mom who is a symbol of strength, endurance, and love. Love you guys.