itherden

kelly hughes

Brand Design

Kelly Hughes is a Fashion and Textile MA participant at the University of Portsmouth. They required a visual identity to create consistency across their printed materials as they presented their work for final submission. Kelly’s work is a blend of craft, sustainability and feminist narratives and pushes back against fast fashion by embracing imperfection and inviting community collaboration.

I worked with Kelly to create a personal brand that told the story of Kelly’s MA journey which centred around sustainability, gendered stereotypes and constant creative experimentation.

The Brief

Kelly’s MA encompassed a huge body of work, research, creative methods and the development of a unique style. Sustainability and reusing materials had become a core pillar in the project's story as preloved garments and waste material were used as symbols of opportunities for resistance, innovation and self-expression.

Kelly required a logo and business card for an upcoming show but wanted something that reflected her commitment to sustainability and the theme of making something new from something discarded. It also had to differentiate her from the other students she was exhibiting with and be memorable enough for potential collaborators to be intrigued by.

Client

Kelly Hughes

Role

Logo Design, Print

Client

She Says London

Role

Senior Designer

Deliverables

Brand Design

Brand Direction

Video Assets

Print Assets

Website Design

Deliverables

Creative Direction

Logo + Brand Design

Business Cards

Brand Look Book

Process

We began to build the visual identity for Kelly by looking at the tools used with fashion design, including swatch collections and rings. We also discussed creating fabric cards with either embossed or screen-printed details but quickly established the scale would cause legibility issues and too many variations to control during production.

We also took stock of the types of waste materials Kelly often worked with or was left with after a project, and discovered scraps of denim that are trimmed during assembly are one of the biggest by-products left from the creative process.

Process

Early prototype

Paper and fabric stocks

Development and production

Rollout and development

The brand design from Night School was rooted in the idea of modern methods combining with lived experience to create a new system of wisdom. I decided to use a combination of contrasting and opposing design elements to create a sense of old meets new, tech meets human, past meets future.

Night school is a collaborative effort which looks to celebrate wisdom that isn’t always traditionally valued, so it made sense to lean into two main areas when creating the visual direction:

1) Alternative wisdom represented with a spooky, dark aesthetic that draws on the themes of the esoteric, astrology and clairvoyance.

2) Modern methods represented by sharp lines, structured grids inspired by matrix style lines and geometric shapes to represent themes of the future and learning on a digital landscapes.

Results

Each card is unique and is an embodiment of the values of Kelly’s work. The visual identity of the business card has since been extended into the final portfolio materials for the MA resolution, an upcoming website and other collateral designed to support and celebrate Kelly’s work.

Post MA, the visual identity we’ve started to create here can be expanded and developed into a personal brand that supports Kelly’s career post MA and helps her establish herself as a voice within the industry.

Rollout and development

Night school is a collaborative effort which looks to celebrate wisdom that isn’t always traditionally valued, so it made sense to lean into two main areas when creating the visual direction:

1) Alternative wisdom represented with a spooky, dark aesthetic that draws on the themes of the esoteric, astrology and clairvoyance.

2) Modern methods represented by sharp lines, structured grids inspired by matrix style lines and geometric shapes to represent themes of the future and learning on a digital landscapes.

Results

Rollout and development

Night school is a collaborative effort which looks to celebrate wisdom that isn’t always traditionally valued, so it made sense to lean into two main areas when creating the visual direction:

1) Alternative wisdom represented with a spooky, dark aesthetic that draws on the themes of the esoteric, astrology and clairvoyance.

2) Modern methods represented by sharp lines, structured grids inspired by matrix style lines and geometric shapes to represent themes of the future and learning on a digital landscapes.

Results

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