Eco-High-Fashion Rebrand WIP

There’s always a lot to consider when doing a rebrand. This project was no different.

Long story short — best not to air the dirty laundry — the previous iteration of this brand got a bit too militant and off track for the founders, so when I started work on it I suggested a name change, rebrand and repositioning. A full do-over.

Fitted around other projects, the name took me a month to think up. When it did finally pop into my head, it felt like a revelation, but surely a word that must already be a thing — a movement, a hashtag — at least a San Francisco boutique.

But no.

Ethist was all-new. (Except for the .com- and @-squatters, those people think of every combo of everything.)

Moving on to the brand mark, the owner took a long journey to Vogue and back again, but pretty well ended up where I first suggested: a simple, mid-weight sans. Classic, modern, quietly confident, gender-neutral.

Ethist’s endeavour is to fight fast fashion with ethically made high(er) fashion. Proper pieces for refined, curated, ethical wardrobes. Think Parisian organic boutique rather than TopShop. I proposed a logo representing that break with a literal break that itself breaks a norm — a hyphen, on the wrong line. With this execution, Ethist could brand other words and concepts:

ECO
-LOGICAL
AESTH
-ETIC
ELE
-GANT

Anyway. When Ethist’s final creative development was still a work in progress, its parent company discovered some serious Covid-related budget challenges which meant I could sadly no longer work for them.

They’ll be back.

[ For Antibrand—Ethist ]

The final WIP sheet in Illustrator. The scribble-circled logos are where my mind was settling. Next stage would’ve been various placement and use mockups.


+ Below x 3: The first-round-mark-2 quick options.





The cover of the internal presentation of the Vogue-inspired effort initially deemed favourable by the owner. The rest of the pages follow.




















The previously approved logo before it was (quite rightly) unapproved.