A fresh take on fashion branding

During 3rd semester of studying Informationdesign at FH Joanneum we had to develop a brand based on a competing brand in the same market. In our case it was the fashion label American Apparel. To set our brand apart we had to find a USP and build a business model around that.

Vertical Integration

Our brand, named Based, is a fashion label working with raw material from all around Europe. Basically the whole production process (design, sewing, marketing etc.) is done in Europe in a centralized factory. That way we can keep our carbon footprint low, pay decent wages to the workers and for the most important part roll out collections way quicker than other big players on the market.

You might think, that’s not much different from American Apparel, right now. Well, the difference is right in the name, as opposed to American we focus on the European Market. The style of our clothes, the materials, the advertising and the remarkable expertise and know-how from Fashion Designers are all gathered from around Europe. By that, we can focus on a distinct market segment and create some leverage versus our competition.

The Corporate Identity

The next big part of the project was to develop a Corporate Identity for the brand. With Based we, that is Lukas Kollmann, Marie-Christin Url and myself, wanted to create a fashion label that’s clean, simple and unobtrusive. Combined with a little bit of humor, we figured out this was the way to go.

It was of big importance to us to remain black and white with the design. Based sells basic fashion and accessories with style. No need for big bold and flashing colors. Same rule goes for the typography.

The design in use

Here’s how our Corporate Design could look if you applied it in a real environment.

As you can see, we aimed to create a kind of atmospheric feeling. Strong images combined with minimal typography helped us achieve that.

In the end we were able to develop a unique fashion brand around a very efficient business model. To communicate the values of our brand we utilized a very minimal corporate design. Throughout the process we learned a lot about how to effectively build a brand and combine the business strategy with a design language and how important it is to have a clear Corporate Identity.