Rare Book
Table of Contents Research 1.0
Introduction 1.1 Abstract 1.2 Target Demographic 1.3
Creative Development 2.0
Strength 2.1 Brand 2.2 Research 2.3 Mood Board 2.4 Development 2.5
Style Guide 3.0
Logo 3.1 Typography 3.2 Colors 3.3 Imagery 3.4
Final Designs 4.0
Website 4.1 Social Media 4.2
Research 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Abstract 1.2 Target Demographic 1.3
Introduction 1.1
Rare Design is a unique surfer style clothing company that focuses on nature. Rare Design’s main competitors are companies such as Ron Jon Surf Shop, Cocoa Beach Surf Company, and Roxy. Although these competitors also crate surfer style clothing, what differentiates Rare Design is the high level of artistic design that goes into the clothing, its intimacy being a smaller company, and how they truly care about the environment by the way that they care about the preservation of beaches, and helping marine wildlife by the use of 100% organic materials and dyes, and by donating a portion of sales to the Save the Sea Turtles Organization.
History
Rare Design was inspired by Mary Lee on one of her trips to Cocoa Beach, Florida. Driving on the high way that lead to the beach she noticed billboard after billboard for Ron Jon Surf Shop. They where placed at least one mile apart from each other for miles, and miles. There must have been hundreds of billboards marking how many miles away Ron Jon Surf Shop was.
Disapointed Mary left the Ron Jon and as she stepped out she noticed an even bigger store nest to the Ron Jon called Cocoa Beach Surf Company. She quickly became excited and went in expecting to find somenthing to remember her trop to Cocoa Beach. When she walked in it was depressing. Cocoa Beach Surf Company was worse than Ron Jon.
After driving for almost two hours, and seeing so many billboards from Ron Jon, she had to see what all the fuss was about. The Ron Jon Surf Shop building was very impressive. It was three stories high, and it had sand sculptures of surfers and waves in actual size decorating the front, and Art Deco architecture reminiscent of that of Miami Beach, Florida with the use of bold rounded boarders, and heavy moldings.
All they had was cheesy tourist sovuniers such as beach towels with aligators on them, and Mickey Mouse t-shirsts. On the way home Mary was inspired to put her artistic skills to good use by creating Rare Design. Qualilty is better than quantity, and Rare Design was going to be an intimate store with people who cared about not only helpoing customers, but about preserving beaches for future generations. Clothing made by local artist, and that helped generate money for the Save the Sea Turtles Orgainiaations was the main focus.
Once inside she was expecting to see merchandise that was just as fun and creative as the billboards, and the architecture of the store, but was soon let down when all she saw was boring clothing and swim suits that were ugly and overpriced. She felt that she could get better merchandise at her neighborhood mall, and to top it off the customer service was just as terrible. The employees at the Ron Jon where more concerned with what time theri shieft was over, then with helping her. There where many employees working that day, but not one seemed to care.
Rare Design was going to be everything that people expected from competitors, but that the competitodrs where not able to deliever.
Abstract 1.2 Rare Design is a Surfer Style Clothing Company, created in 2008. What sets Rare Design apart from its competitors is that it they use artists to creates one of a kind clothing to help preserve beaches and wild life. Rare Design was a good idea that would benefit many people, but unfortunately they had to close their doors because of problems with the economy. Rare Design needs a revitalization. The revitalization can start by concentrating on creating a new and improved website where people all over the world can look through merchandise and make purchases from their computer, or smart phone. Next Rare Design will create a video showing the positive Rare Design has on the environment, and teaching people how they too can help.
Finally Rare Design needs new marketing campaign through the use of guerrilla marketing, social media, and eventually billboards. By following these steps,Rare Design will come alive again with a second shot, and bring awareness for the future.
Objective Rare Design was a good idea, that was going to benefit not only people, but the world, but unfortunately because of problems within the economy Rare Design had to close their doors, and shut down. My proposal is to bring back Rare Design, and instead on depending on brick and mortar type of business that in todays economy is very risky, and to create a new and improved website where people can look through merchandise and make purchases over their computer, or smart phone. Rare Design will also benefit from new advertisements such as guerrilla marketing, and the use of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Target Demographics 1.3 Rare Design is aimed at 20 to 35 year old women, who are artistic, and love the beach. These women are educated, and are either working toward a career, or have careers. These women have a variety of body shapes, some because they have had children. Women who buy Rare Design also are the type to recycle, and want to make a difference in the world.
User Persona: Hi, I’m Lori
Age: 29 Education: Bachlars Profession: Graphic Designer Income: $30,000 Hi, Im Lori. I was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. I am the mother of a 5 year old boy named Joey. Now that I am turning 30 I really want to wear clothing that is tasteful, yet fun. I am a vegitarian, and I drive an electric car because I want to do my part so my son can enjoy the world. On my spare time I like to pack up the car, and go to Cocoa Beach to swim, and do some surfing.
SWOT Strengths:
Opportunities:
Weakness:
Threats:
Affordable Artistic Environmental Friendly
Low Budget Cannot be mass produced Low Availability of Materials
Help Improve Beaches. Working Together Improve Economy. Support Local Artists
Competition Copying. Running out of Financial Support. Low Local Support.
Creative Development 2.0
Mood Board 2.1 Logo Development 2.2 Print Development 2.3
Mood Boards 2.1 There were many ideas being played with when creating the Mood Board for Rare Design. The first Mood Board was inspired by 70’s vintage, and looked like the page of an old scrapbook made on a summer vacation to the shore. Current trends show an interest in vintage fashion, and “where vitage shopping started as a necessity because of economic reasons, in the 1990’s there has been an aesthetic shift that helped rid thrift stores and flea markets of their stigma, thus becoming an acceptable source of fashion” (Delong, Heinemann, & Reiley, 2005). To reinforce the natural theme real flowers, feathers, and bugs were scanned on a flatbed scanner. The hand in the center represents how by helping people can fix damages done to the environment, and can live in harmony with nature.
The second Mood Board was made with the fun, and bright Harajuku style of clothing in mind. These bright colors associated easily with summer, and going to the beach to surf. Harajuku is Japanese for “rebel” and is a style where women dress like bright goths, dolls, or imitations of their favorite band. The rebellious nature of this style translates with surfer style, and is a unique approach for surfer style.
The final Mood Board focused on nature. Pictures were taken of different natural textures such as wood, stone, flowers, and sand. There are no straight lines in nature, and imperfection is what makes it beautiful, so instead of compiling the images by cutting them out with scissors, using a ripping technique was more suitable, and gave the mood board a raw look that complemented the raw elements.
The font used in the mood board is by graphic designer Stella Björg called Holt, and it is named after a place called Uglyholt. Like other elements on the mood board the font is inspired by nature, and “in the letters you can find the animals and plants that live at Ugluholt. Representing the letter A isauðnutittlingur (common redpull), býflugur and bláber (bees and blueberries) decorate the B, Corvus Corax (common raven) is in the C, and so on throughout the alphabet (Björg, 2011).
Style Guide 3.0
Logo Usage 3.1
There are many aspects that where taken into account for the creation of the Rare Design logo. One of the major aspects was the popularity of the logos of competing companies such as Ron Jon Surf Shop and Cocoa Beach Surf Company. These logos are easily recognizable, and are popularly created into stickers
that are used to on cars, walls, stop signs, and other surfaces to. This type of vandalism could be useful to promote the brand, and to show how Rare Design is a different type of clothing company, one that is rebellious. Because of this is was very important in the designing process for the logo to be easily transferable into a sticker format.
The next major important aspect in the design of the logo was for it to represent the company. Rare Design is a surfer style clothing company, and because of this it is important to represent elements of the beach. After many designs, the one that stood out the most was the one where the Rare Design “R” was being crashed over by a wave.
After further development, the wave was able to be converted into the “D” for Design. In the ideal logo version with full color the wave is colored blue, and the “R” is colored sand to almost represent a Yin-Yang of the sand meeting the water.
The last consideration taken into account was for the logo to be easily resizable. Weather the logo was going to be silk screened on to the back of an XXL T-shirt, or embroider the size of a dime to a shirt similar to Ralf Lauren’s Polo logo, the Rare Design logo had to be easily visible to these sizes.
Final Design 4.0
Web Site 4.1
Just like in ancient times, where all roads lead to Rome, all the Social Media created for Rare Design has to lead to some type of Electronic Media. In the case for Rare Design the most important Electronic Media is the company website where customers can browse thorough all the clothing, and make purchases. “ Image and perception help drive value; without an image there is no perception”, and in order to achieve success it is important for the Rare Design’s website to reflect their company tenants which are caring, artistic, and unique (Wheeler, 2009). With careful attention to design, and artistic elements Rare Design can have the website it needs to promote its clothing. “Today, every phone has a mobile app store that allows total beginners to download, install, and remove apps”, and this is why it is important for Rare Design to have a functional mobil app for people to use (www.geek.com). Not only would the website be important to have available as an application, but a game, or a real time view of the beach would also be beneficial to enticing potential customers.
Guerilla Marketing 4.2 Rare Design’s competitor Ron Jon Surf Shop chooses expensive marketing tactics to promote their brand. In an example of this can be seen in the major highways leading to Cocoa Beach, FL where there are Ron Jon billboards at every mile. Such repetitive marketing makes the view want to go to Ron Jon just to see what all the fuss is about. “We are so overwhelmed with advertising everywhere that it becomes hard for creative agencies to make ads that stand out. Guerrilla advertising is a great way to make unusual, surrealistic visuals and situations that passers by will remember�, and it does not necessarily have to be expensive (Designers Daily, 2011).
A type of guerrilla marketing for Rare Design is in their promotional flip flops. The treads of these flip flops are carved in a way, that they leave little reliefs of sea turtles in the sand. People walking along the beach seeing these prints in the sand will want to know where they came from, and they can follow the trail to Rare Design. This also helps promote Rare Designs cause to help the Save the Sea Turtles Organization.
Video 4.3
Taking a lesson from Caine’s Arcade, Rare Design needs a video that people can watch to help them understand what makes Rare Design unique and important. Rare Design does not enjoy the beach like competing companies Ron Jon Surf Shop, Coca Beach Surf Company, and Roxy. Rare Design cares for the beach, and does what it can to not give up, and do what it can to make s difference. “Rare Design focuses on Environmentalism which is “an organized movement of citizens, businesses, and government agencies to protect and improve our living environment. As a social movement, environmentalism is expressed in a variety of ways, from consumer boycotts of environmentally unfriendly products to formal government legislation” (Levens). By making a video that focuses on Environmentalism, showing how Rare Design has had a positive impact on the environment by bringing awareness, and through contributions to the Save the Sea Turtles Organization. Rare Design can also show how their company makes their clothing, how they choose their fabrics, how they are sewn together, and how they make sure that everything they do coincides with their values. Music for Rare Design should be just as caring as the company itself. “As competition creates infinite choices, companies look for ways to connect emotionally with customers, become irreplaceable, and create lifelong relationships. A strong brand stands out in a densely crowded marketplace. People fall in love with brands, trust them, and believe in their superiority. How a brand is perceived affects its success, regardless of whether it’s a start-up, a nonprofit, or a product” and the music should reflect these values also (Wheeler, 2009). An Example of music that reflect these values is the caustic version of May December by Mos Def. The link of this song can be found in this link http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=cyKvD3pqawQ. This song is spiritual, and is about Mother Nature, and the natural phases of the changing seasons. Its laid back melodic approach reflects the mood for Rare Design.