Lagoon apparel
brand identity - personal project (ongoing)
In the first pages of my notebook, I have a page marked "personal projects". In that page I write down projects that I want to do (not projects for real clients). These projects include things that I find fun to do, things that I would like to do but I don't have the specific client, or projects that I have done, but I would do differently if I had complete creative freedom.
Among these projects, there has been one scribbled down as "Kyma" (wave in Greek). It's supposed to be a surf apparel brand - the surf aesthetic being something I would like to work on for quite some time. There haven't been any other information regarding that project for some time. After a few years I started thinking about starting a side business and I returned to this project. The initial research revealed that there is a surf magazine in Greece called Kyma, so I decided to change the name of the brand to "Keema", the phonetic version of the word. I was not really happy about it though.
Getting Real
There is a long way to go from an initial vague idea for a project to an actual product that can sell. I decided quite early that such a product, should "represent" my native island of Corfu, Greece. That of course created a problem. Who is going to buy a surf tshirt from Greece?
The solution presented itself in two ways.
1. Corfu has an active kite surfing community, located mainly in a specific beach on the south of the island. Even though kite surfing doesn't have the "coolness" of surfing, it does have a similar aesthetic, also smaller competition and at the same time, it presented a local target audience for the brand! And you can always produce for surfing audience later on.
2. The surfing brands are closely connected with places like Hawaii, California, Australia and their specific beaches and bays and they often appear on the clothes. Producing clothes with strange names, wouldn't have that connection and at the same time, they would sound stupid to locals (the starting client audience) that have related these locations with tourism. By moving away from surfing to kite surfing, helps with the names of the location. At the same time I decided to loosely translate local names in order to sound more "exotic" and "surfy" (is that a word?) and to appeal both to locals and maybe an international audience. At the same time, that translation was not too far away from the original name.
This way, Kyma, became Keema, and then it took its final name "Lagoon". The most popular beach for kitesurfers, in Corfu, is Halikounas beach, a thin strip of sand, between the sea and Halikounas lagoon.
Designing
Having settled on the name, it was time to design the logo. During that time, I started getting interested in calligraphy, and I thought that it would be a good idea to practice and have a finished sample of this new skill at the same time. I tried a few styles, and used different pens, like a pilot parallel pen. I was just trying different things. Slowly I found the style I wanted and started focusing on it and refining it.
The final sketch was then scanned and vectorised
The final logo was created in two versions - Kite surfing and surf (to be used later).
Products
The plan for the first product, is to create three different designs for tshirts and start from there. The aim was to create what essentially is a "handmade" product, and print them using large stamps and screen printing inks. Even though this plan was not rejected, it was postponed for various reasons (cost - space). Instead the next best solution was selected - DTG printing. Digital printing on the tshirt, provided the wanted quality and gave the option to print as many pieces were required (the preferred screen printing method requires quite a few pieces produced).
Currently there are two designs and a third one is being prepared. Initial mockups where created and a few samples were printed to test suppliers and get prices.
Currently there are two designs and a third one is being prepared. Initial mockups where created and a few samples were printed to test suppliers and get prices.
Promotion
Even though the "brand" is not officially launched a facebook page has been created and a few "general style" images have been uploaded for promotion, taking advantage of available stock photograpy. Full promotion will begin once the brand is launched.
