The Clothing Exchange: Rebrand

REBRAND / STRATEGY / BRAND IDENTITY

This was a student capstone project that involved the rebranding of an event and its social media page. The purpose and aim of the project were to elevate the existing social media pages established for The Clothing Exchange, an Australian clothes-swapping event created by Dr Kate Luckins.

With an existing social media page, an audit was conducted to better understand the engagement and current audience of The Clothing Exchange. As a charitable event-based brand designed to encourage sustainable habits, it had a small to medium scale following (less than 10k), low engagement metrics (few likes and comments), and outdated visual graphics (mismatched imagery and typographic use handling quotes). What led to this hypothetic rebrand was Dr Kate's passionate commitment wherein Instagram posts (helpful insights and statistics) were shared consistently, as well as the hundreds of positive comments seen from loyal followers of the event. This project sought to redesign the brand's current logo, marketing collateral and social media page to better encourage a target audience and achieve a greater impact (on both the environment and on people's lives).

This imagined rebrand considered expanding merchandise to include tote bags, pins, stickers as well as volunteer shirts, and staff lanyards. Promotional material was designed for print and digital formats, such as an informational A4 flyer, bus-stop poster, and banner. A social media marketing campaign was developed to encourage younger adults aged 18-25 to participate in clothes swapping as it was found through research that most attendees of the event were women aged over 30. The brand strategy made strict use of defined brand colours, responsive logo variations, as well as newly incorporated vector graphics and relevant use of keywords and tags.

Regarding the redesign of the logo, the envisioned logo aimed to be more relevant, playful, and memorable to the audience. It uses the brand initials, C & E, in a playful fashion, where upon closer inspection, showcases an infinity loop and/or a budding plant to symbolise sustainable environmental practices.