Narrative is a speculative response to Vancouver's lack of cycling-specific, fashion-forward brands. Audience and market research showed that despite a rapidly growing cycling culture in the city, a need for fashionable, non-fitness oriented cycling clothing was going unaddressed.

 

The need for a brand to market stylish clothing with a decidedly non-cycling related aesthetic was identified. The name "Narrative" serves two functions: one, to provide a consciously irrelevant name in the case of a wider market adoption (as is common in the technical apparel industry); and two, to create the notion of a brand story playing with ideas such as "narrative threads" and imagery of authors as craftsmen of stories.

 

An aesthetic mandate of "technical yet beautiful" was followed, creating a look that at once conveys modernity and classic construction through a customized typeface. A dynamic, diagonal orange line motif reinforces this mandate, stretching to bleed from media or being neatly confined, creating a great deal of white space.

 

Brand tones of high visibility orange and ultra-reflective silver pay homage to proven functional features commonly found on cycling goods, while providing a point of differentiation for the brand and eye-catching details for an otherwise clean and minimal identity.