Branding and Brandbook

My brand name is Namula, which is my first and last name jumbled together and shortened. Namula's USP is providing elegance and quality within each look with the use of drape. There has not been a brand that produces multiple types of garments that all incorporate drape. As drape is the main element in the brand's garments it makes the products hard to be scalable which prevents the opportunity for fast fashion. The brand will be made to order which will allow us to only provide what is needed for our customers, this will help us evolve in quality and sizing for our customers.

Our mission is to provide quality, elegance and inspiration to millions. We aim to help people reflect luxury in comfort and confidence through innovating our designs to capture our audience’s essence.

Our collection statement: Beyonce's definition of a diva has inspired this collection. Beyonce who is arguably the Queen of Pop and known to be named Queen B had released the music video to the song 'Diva' in 2008. In this song, she describes directly and visually what a diva is, because of her influence, I wanted this collection to reflect the diva persona that brings out the side you ultimately aspire to be.

A diva has characteristics of wanting to embody glamour, playfulness, power, boldness and becoming a sexy Queen. This collection aims to awaken the diva alter ego we all have simply by wearing these garments. The high-quality satins, chiffons, crepe cotton and linings all reflect the quality fabrics a Queen would wear. The beaded additional elements on some of the outfits showcase the bold and glamorous side. The chained pieces mirror power, the silhouettes reflect sexiness and the colour palette echo playfulness.

Visual ideal of the customer

Logo Development

To begin the process of logo development I looked at multiple logos to see the different logo styles I would want for my brand. Since Namula is a womenswear brand, I needed to create a logo that matched the gentle, luxury aesthetic of my brand. Building my customer profile helped me look at 'who' the brand is. I also kept in mind the high-end price point the garments would be marked at for the brand. I knew that I wanted a logo that has a handwriting font, simple and black. I then searched luxury fashion brand logos to see which ones I would like the best.

The brands with the type of logo style that I would want my brand to have is Cartier, Chopard and Yves Saint Laurent.

Next, I decided to see how the brand name would look if I handwrote the text shown below.

I realised that my handwriting would not be best suited for the logo as the only one that I preferred is the one in bold but I knew it would look better if I created the font digitally using a handwritten font. The image below shows my brand name in different fonts that I like the best.

Out of the fonts above, my favourite is the last two as they reflect elegance. My favourite out of the two is the last font because of how bold and appealing I find the font which reflects the garments which are made to stand out in the brand. The curved lines in the logo reflect the great quality of the products the brand will be offering because to me the lines showcase softness.

The slogan for the brand is "the essence of elegance" which reflects how we prioritise showcasing elegance in the products. I decided to pair different fonts with a similar style (as the one of my logo) with the slogan to see how it would look beside the font of the logo which is shown below.

I proceeded to conduct a process of elimination shown below. My favourite font is the one directly before the brand name as the typography style is similar to the brand name's font just slightly thinner and I believe it reflects elegance.

I wanted to see how the font would look onto clothing labels so I decided to get a sample of this and I am impressed with the gloss finish and simplicity of the label. It helps the brand to look sophisticated and clean, the images below show the front and back of the clothing labels.

After figuring out my logo, I decided to compile everything regarding my brand into a brand book so that all the mission and values, the logo variations, imagery, typefaces etc., are all onto one book. Before creating the book, I decided to roughly plan out the content in the book which helped me a lot as it ensured that I covered everything I need to.

Brand book

The link to the brand book:

https://issuu.com/stepanienalumansi/docs/brandbook_lower_size

The brand book turned out to be very successful, it contains all the elements that are essential for a brand book along with the aesthetic that matches my concept and brand at the same time. The variation of print, samples, text and imagery all work well as a cohesive with detailed annotation. The different elements within the brand book have been obtained through imagery from the concept research and the development processes in this project, this helps the book to constantly tie in with relevant imagery regarding the collection and concept. The style of the book has the same style as my portfolio only with a more professional finish which helps to tie in the different bodies of work together.