Crash! Alternative Fashion
An anti-brand brand design
Branding, but Make it Edgy
In the spring of my junior year of the Johnson & Wales Graphic Design program, I was able to accumulate a ton of knowledge about how brand identities come together and how to expand upon them. Just a semester before, I created my own menstrual health brand and did a few designs for my classmate’s wine brand based on the guidelines she created. When I entered my advanced editorial class, we were tasked with doing this again.. Sort of. My professor tasked us with creating or expanding on a brand we had already made, but instead of creating a brand guide, we created a multimedia ad campaign. This was a very exciting concept to me, as there was a brand I had conceptualized in the Fall but never expanded on. That brand was “Crash!”, an alternative/punk fashion brand that took the “brand” out of brand design.
Making A Non-Corporate Brand: For Dummies
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t being punk all about avoiding consumerism because of how unethical it can be?” You’re completely correct! But what if we made a brand that allows people to enter the punk scene in a way that avoids all of the unethical corporate practices? That’s where Crash’s brand values come in. In a world where this brand is real, the clothing products would be completely ethically and organically produced in ways that produce the least waste possible. With that, a portion of all proceeds would go to charities that benefit marginalized groups, such as POC and LGBTQIA+ organizations. I also wanted to create a tagline that’s flexible but still communicates the same ideas. That’s where “Crash Expectations” came along. This tagline encourages individuality, being unapologetic, and even breaking down the expectation that a brand like this could be harmful to the very culture it’s inspired by and hopes to benefit. This also birthed the ad campaign I was tasked with creating. I wanted the overarching theme to be “Crash _______,” so that I could create ads that explain the brand’s values in just one word each. Some examples of phrases I ended up using are “Crash the Patriarchy” to promote feminism and “Crash Intolerance” to promote compassion for everyone, no matter who they are.
Reframing a Logo (in the best way ever)
While all of my ideas felt great, I really needed to shift my focus to the actual designs as well. The initial logo I made for a “ten logos” challenge the semester before was a hand-written, intentionally messy, but kind of clunky (in a bad way) logo. I wanted to update it so that it still had its same customized edge, but was more streamlined and less overbearing. That’s where I created a “typeface” with the shapebuilder in Illustrator and had it in an off-black shade, but faded into a fun lightning bolt to maintain its aforementioned edge. My classmate, Carm, was a huge help in this process, as there were certain ideas I wanted to adapt but didn’t quite know how to approach productively. That’s how I came to the logo(s) I ended up with, including the lighter variation for the packaging. While I loved my original logo, this was definitely a much more professional interpretation of my brand vision.
Cut & Paste
Next, it was time to create my ads! I had to create a myriad of different formats, such as multiple billboards, a poster, and a few different magazine ads. I wanted to create a “cut and paste” scrapbook feeling in my ads that communicated the organized chaos that this brand represents. Since I had a lot on my plate at the time and not many punk-fashioned friends, I decided to find some images of myself and some friends in the edgiest clothing I could get. A lot of this, admittedly, came from my multiple trips to Rocky Horror Picture Show performances, where my fellow theatre nerds and I would dress up to fit the show’s vibe. After using some Illustrator filters and creating a drawn-on border to make it look like ripped paper with red accents, I was able to adapt a lot of my images to the ads. Even though it was an unconventional way of doing things, it worked out!
Packaging, Minus the Printing
As part of the project, and in an effort to create more dimension in my ads, I created a few pieces of packaging material for the brand. A clothing brand and packaging may seem like it doesn’t mix, until you consider shopping bags, shoeboxes, and jewelry boxes. I kept it consistent with the branding by having it in off-black boxes with the titular explanation point on the sides in red and white. It followed the branding, but in a different enough way to create some variety and differentiate it from the promotional materials. Thankfully, I didn’t have the wrestle with the printer and was able to put it on some amazing mockups. This helped me have enough time to really focus on the advertising and have it be the forefront of the project.
Crash-ion Project
At the end of the day, this project really created a brand I wish existed in the real world. I’d love to be able to break more into the alternative scene, but have previously had a hard time due to the stigma around it in some spaces and sometimes, the corporate alternative places that price-gouge, even though that’s entirely against what being punk stands for. Hopefully, someday I can see that this comes to fruition in some shape or form. But for now, I’m happy to just put the idea out into the world and let everyone Crash Expectations.
