Mari
Mari Eyewear makes luxury sunglasses for people who split summers between yachts and coastal towns. The mark I started from was basic and uninspired. With a mark like that growth stalls. The wrong buyers show up, and a price nobody can justify stops being fundable.
This piece is spec work. I invented the brand, gave myself 45 days, and set the brief. No client, no contract, no sign-off.
The reasoning is the product, so I built the brand like a paying one.
Timeline
45 days
(September 21 - November 05)
Deliverables
Identity
Logo, visual identity, social media templates
Strategy
Discovery, positioning, creative direction
Conceptual brand identity
The original logo
After doing research on what this brand could be, I needed to solidify the visual direction. I created stylescapes like these to capture the feeling of the brand before designing it. It the brand doesn't work at this point, it never will.
I found myself bingeing blue whale documentaries on YouTube. The largest animal alive moves slowly, stays unbothered, and never mentions its own size. That is what timeless looks like. The three words I found described the brand best were timeless, freedom, and craftsmanship. I needed a drawing that carried them without saying them.
I rejected my favourite idea.
Strategic Process
I first drew a location pin with a whale tail, and I loved it. The next morning it read as silly clip art. Drawing the whole animal, not just the tail, decided everything downstream. The coast had to be undeniable, and the whale settles that. Competitors can draw a whale. Only Mari ties that animal to coastal travel, and the link reaches the labels, the templates, and the tone. I checked it three ways: stylescapes, one night's sleep, then the mark at favicon size on a real mockup.
The crest carries the heritage, so it can't be decorative. I chose Copperplate for the wordmark; its small serifs read as engraved rather than typed. Seashells adorn the crest, chosen over flourishes.
The tail purposefully leaves the crest. Enclose the whale and you have a stamp. Let it break through and you have a unique feature worth remembering.
Visual Identity
With the visual identity of the brand solidified, it's time to conceptualize what a show, podcast, or documentary for this brand would look like...
Tell me what you're building
I work with brands leveraging media to grow their business. If you have a show, podcast, or documentary in mind, reach out. My background is production, so I design for the worst case: a thumbnail on a phone at arm's length.
