Project brief
This is a redesign project of West Elm's brand identity. West Elm was born in Brooklyn in 2002. A branch of Williams–Sonoma, Inc. They sell all about home furniture—from sofas and tables to bedding. Their goal is to help our customers express their personal style at home. West Elm contributes handcrafted, fair trade, organic, sustainability-sourced products as well as supporting local communities by collaborating with their brand.
Approach
West Elm expands not only the home furniture but also office furniture, luxury furniture, and hotel business. By expanding their business, West Elm's brand identity is becoming diluted. Also, originally they started the brand without a unique brand story, each business and service are delivered to customers without consistency. This would be a huge problem because they could lose their personality and competitiveness among the other home furniture companies.
Concept
So, this is the strategy. By highlighting local communities, West Elm can work with independent small makers' studios in each local area. Also, by creating the new brand story, West Elm can have a strong personality of the brand. Based on the new story, the logos referred some historical union marks of America. The concept as a using various union marks would make sense that union marks represent each labor union's personality and support themselves by letting people know their direction and goal. This makes a connection with West Elm not only highlights independent local makers and communities but also would support the makers to be grown up in the future.
Color Concept
West Elm's new main colors are black and white only based on logos usage. However, West Elm also uses secondary colors which reflect each locals' atmosphere. For example in Los Angeles, they have use 6 colors based on LA’s mood, and in New York, they use 5 colors inspired by NY’s graffiti arts. So, with local makers' products, West Elm uses secondary colors with their logos and this lets West Elm express their own brand identity and independent makers' unique personalities.
Working period: Sep. 2016 - Dec. 2016
Class: Grad Graphic Studio 01
Instructor: Sean Adams, Chris Hacker
Recognition: Featured in the ArtCenter Main Gallery
