Reborn Blues _ Company Branding _ Yi Zhu

“ Waste isn’t waste until we waste it.”

CONTENTS

01: Topic Development 08 Topic Investigation 10 Brainstorming 14 Ideas for the Topic

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GR 620 Visual Thinking / Yi Zhu

02: Brand Research 18 20 22 25 26

Framework Introduction Personas Stakeholders Brand Competitors

03: Brand Development 30 32 34 36 38 42 44 46

Brand Naming Moodboards Messages and Deliverables Visual Identity Logo Development Final Logo + Identity Initial Posters Final Posters

04: Brand Deliverables 58 Brand Website 62 Product Packaging 66 Mobile App

05: Conclusion 76 78

Final Thoughts Citation

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TOPIC DEVELOPMENT

08 Topic Investigation 10 Brainstorming 14 Ideas for the Topic

TOPIC INVESTIGATION Out of the many social issues in the world, I selected 5 problems discussed a lot these days. I finally pick the topic of “Recycling Old Clothes” and continued the further exploration.

01: Girls’ Education

02: Recycling Old Clothes

Fact Educating a girl can break cycles of poverty in just one generation.

Fact More than 15 million tons of used textile waste is generated each year in the US. And nearly 100 percent of textiles and clothing are recyclable.

Problem Girls who get an education marry later, earn higher wages, and support healthier and more prosperous families. But data from 42 countries shows that rural girls are twice as likely as urban girls to be out of primary school.

What you want to achieve I will investigate and popularize the importance of education for girls especially in rural area.

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Problem Old clothes caused the high-volume waste in the cities and it’s not recycled enough.

What you want to achieve I want to attract people’s attention and call on people to start recycling their old clothes to protect the environment.

03: Marine Debris

04: Decline of Spanish Use

05: Loss of Biodiversity

Fact Plastics are the most common man-made objects sighted at sea.

Fact Spanish could become the latest and largest tombstone in the language graveyard that is America.

Fact Humans and human activities are the greatest threat to biodiversity.

Problem Marine debris entangles and harms marine organisms. For air-breathing organisms, such as the green sea turtle, entanglement in debris can prevent animals from being able to swim to the surface, causing them to drown.

What you want to achieve I want to investigate how to raise people’s environmental awareness on marine debris by founding a charity organization and gathering people together.

Problem California is losing the ability to speak Spanish. The population of Spanish speaker is declining quickly.

What you want to achieve I want to investigate how to raise interest in Spanish learning for Hispanic teenagers especially in California.

Problem Plant and animal species throughout the world are threatened by humans and human activities.

What you want to achieve I want to investigate how to raise people’s interest in different plants and animals in order to heighten people’s environmental awareness and help save the situation.

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BRAINSTORMING PROCESS Beautiful+ Long-term

Beautiful+ Immediate Confidence New Trend Style Fashion Show Endorsement Discount Exhibition Satisfaction Consuming Desire Social Media Celebrity Marketing Strategy Art Event For Collection Growth of Children Advertisement Trade Need More Space Save Money Necessary Demand Appearance Fast Fashion Coupon

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Ugly+ Immediate Overconsumption Obsession Disposable Consumerism Brainwashing Comparison Waste Disposal Animal Killing Waste of Textile Stupid Tax Packaging Capitalization Want Compliments Wrong Size/Color Show Off Blind Worship Follow

Fabric Fashion Design Expression Vintage Material Resources Cooperate Social Responsibility Handmade Charity Organization Globalization Lease Biodegrade Life Span Urbanization Garbage Classification Make Extra Money Sanitation Deodorize Wearable Duration Attraction of Beauty

GR 620 Visual Thinking / Yi Zhu

I separated Recycling Old Clothes into three words and started brainstorming. After narrowing them down into four parts with two pairs of opposing words—beautiful/ ugly, immediate/long-term—I understood more deeply about the topic and continued the further research.

Ugly+ Long-term Chemical Fiber Dye Pollution Illness Skinny Stereotype Landfill Installment Exploit Workforce Child Labor Factory Narrow Space Lack of Education Poverty Discrimination Low Income

Confidence

Coupon

Save Money

Necessary Demand

New Trend

Style

Fashion Show

Endorsement

Discount

Exhibition

Satisfaction

Consuming Desire

Social Media

Celebrity

Marketing Strategy

Art Event

For Collection

Growth of Children

Advertisement

Trade

Need Space

Appearance

Fast Fashion

Immediate

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Comparison

Consumerism

Obsession

Overconsumption

Wrong Size/Color

Animal Killing

Waste Disposal

Disposable

Want Compliments

Packaging

Waste of Textile

Brainwashing

Blind Worship

Show Off

Capitalization

Stupid Tax

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Beautiful

OLD CLOTHES RECYCLE Ugly

Globalization

Garbage Classification

Make Extra Money

Lease

Sanitation

Deodorize

Wearable Duration

Attraction of Beauty

Life Span

Biodegrade

Handmade

Urbanization

Expression

Vintage

Material

Resources

Fabric

Fashion Design

Cooperate Social Responsibility

Charity Organization

Long-term

Chemical Fiber

Pollution

Illness

Skinny

Dye

Exploit Workforce

Stereotype

Landfill

Installment

Child Labor

Factory

Narrow Space

Lack of Education

Poverty

Discrimination

Low Income

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THREE IDEAS FROM ONE TOPIC

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01: Leasing Clothes Question: What can I do to help reduce clothing waste if I need a new pair of jeans?

Summary: People would feel like they are participating if they can get new clothes recycled from their old ones. I want to carry out a program where people can lease jeans if they send their old ones.

02: Mend Your Old Clothes Question: How to mend garments that have been abandoned for a long time?

Summary: Many people buy new clothes just because of the cheap price or trying to be fashionable. By learning how to simply design and sew clothes can bring old clothes a new life to something you like.

I want to teach people how to mend garments. themselves.

03: Behind Fast Fashion Question: How to raise people’s awareness of stop supporting fast fashion?

Summary: Fast fashion is a major contributor to the world’s clothing waste problem. By holding an event showing the comparison of the beautiful side of the fast fashion and the ugly side of textile waste may help to solve it.

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BRAND RESEARCH

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Framework Introduction Personas Stakeholders Brand Competitors

BRAND FRAMEWORK

Name: Reborn Blues Category: Commercial, Ideological Location: Website Purpose: Raise people’s awareness about recycling unwanted clothes. Help to save money for those who love fast fashion.

Scope: International Competition & Inspiration: Rent the Runway, Gwynnie Bee, New York & Company Closet, Tulerie, Rainey’s Closet, Mudjeans General Information: Reborn Blues is a sustainable and fair trade brand that satisfies the principles of the circular economy. It provides the options of rental and purchase. People can swap the current jeans for another pair or keep the jeans.

The environment-friendly mode can help solve the clothing waste problem and also benefit fashion lovers.

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BRAND INTRODUCTION Background As consumers buy more clothes, the growing market for cheap items and new styles is taking a toll on the environment.

We are looking for a balance between fast fashion and textile waste problem. The main benefit of textile recycling activities is the opportunity to reuse clothing. Through the reuse of clothes and textiles, we can avoid pollution and energy-intensive production of new clothing.

Overall I am a fashion lover but eventually, I found that the hunger for newness, the overconsumption caused big problems to the environment. Therefore, I decided to start my clothes leasing business.

Reborn Blues satisfies the principles of the circular economy. The main concept of our company is to lease its apparel to consumers. After the contract ends, consumers can choose to swap them for another pair and continue leasing, return them for recycling or upcycling purposes, or keep them. The contract includes free unlimited repair services.

Anyone can return any brand of jeans for recycling. To stimulate and encourage this, We offer the consumer who does this a discount on their next purchase.

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Good Condition

Old Jeans

Reuse

Vintage Program

Recycle

Factory

Quality Check Bad Condition

New Jeans

20% Recycled denim + more virgin denim (Highest level of recycling with current technology)

SWOTs Strengths: Recycling textiles help in solving the waste disposal problem. People can have their new jeans with a low price for a monthly fee. It can save a lot of money.

Weakness: Jeans are durable, so the renewal cycle can be longer than other types of clothes.

People are used to leasing more expensive products like cars and they’re not familiar with this new mode.

Opportunities: People care about the environment more than before, and they’re willing to participate in reducing textile waste.

Threats: Fast fashion makes it cheap to buy new clothes or jeans. It’s difficult to change people’s shopping habits from purchasing to leasing.

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PERSONAS

Based on the features of Reborn Blues and it’s possible impact on people’s shopping mode and life, I created three personas to serve as my target audience.

Maggie

She has more than 130,000 followers on Instagram and she also follows many fast fashion clothes brands.

Gender: Female

She often pays close attention to redesign work of old clothes.

Age: 33 years old Occupation: Fashion Blogger Income: $85,000 per year Marital Status: Engaged Location: San Francisco Hobbies: Watching movies, Fitness, Reading, Traveling

Different styles of clothes and accessories are necessary to match her daily outfits.

She always finds her closet too small for huge number of clothes, so she has to put them away at least once a month.

With her own shooting team, she records and produces videos of her daily life and traveling experience.

She graduated with a degree in architecture and lived in Berlin for 4 years which has a great impact on her style.

Spending at least 1.5 hours a day in the gym helps Maggie to keep a good figure and stay energetic.

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Ryan

He loves a cozy clothing style as it helps him being relaxed and focused on work.

Gender: Male

As a finance student, he is always looking for methods to save the cost of living, so he often shops in second-hand online stores.

Age: 24 years old Occupation: Graduate Student of Finance at Stanford University Income: Less than $30,000 per year Marital Status: Single Location: Originally from Michigan but has lived in Bay Area for 6 Years Hobbies: Hiking, Biking, Football, Reading, Computer Games

A recent school research program aroused his interest in environmental issues. He realized waste disposal is a serious problem all over the world.

He wants to buy a new pair of recycled jeans with a lower price.

He actively participates in charity programs.

He volunteered in Sri Lanka as an English teacher last Summer.

He is a fan of Real Madrid football team and he enjoys watching football games with his friends during weekends.

Recently Ryan rented a new place and he is getting ready to move in.

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Samantha Gender: Female Age: 48 years old Occupation: Stay-at-home Mother Income: N/A Marital Status: Married Location: San Jose Hobbies: Baking, Cooking, Gardening, Watching Television

Samantha is a stay-at-home mother of three children, aged from 12-18 years old.

The cost for children’s clothes always exceeds the budget as kids grow very fast, so she often browses second-hand online stores in free time.

Samantha is used to donating most of her children’s unwanted clothes.

Samantha also wants some new clothes for herself to match different occasions, but she doesn’t have too much extra money.

She is a gardening lover which often dirties or tears her clothes. Sometimes she has to throw them away because they are not easy to clean or mend.

She reads many fashion magazines to keep up with the latest fashion trends.

She enjoys watching television to relax.

She found that fast fashion is the biggest contributor to clothing waste.

Her and her husband always take the kids out for family picnics on weekends.

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GR 620 Visual Thinking / Yi Zhu

STAKEHOLDERS

Vintage Shop Owner

Recycling Plant Manager

Jean Manufacturer

Jane is a vintage shop owner. She inquires basic information, assesses the conditions of returned apparel, and performs appraisal for their residual values. It’s crucial to ensure the quality of the acquired vintage pieces and build a lasting relationship with Reborn Blues.

Melissa is a recycling plant manager.

She is responsible for collecting recycled apparel and converting them to new ones. She makes efforts to minimize waste and maximize the efficient use of resources and productivity. It’s essential to be aware of corporate social responsibility and ensure its compliance with the partnership with Reborn Blues.

Mike is a jean manufacturer. He works closely with Reborn Blues to ensure raw materials are well-sourced and purchasing orders are timely fulfilled. He also helps to manage the supply chain to ensure the on-time shipment and delivery. It’s very important to understand customers’ needs for its production.

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COMPETITORS

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Differences: Gwynnie Bee is a service that offers unlimited styles for women. They don’t include recycling old clothes.

Rainey’s Closet is the fashion rental company for special events. The target audience are kids. Reborn Blues has a bigger scope of age and reasons.

Tulerie is a company that provides a platform both for borrowing, lending, and purchasing clothes. We produce our own products instead.

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BRAND DEVELOPMENT

30 32 34 36 38 42 44

Brand Naming Moodboards Messages and Deliverables Visual Identity Logo Development Final Logo + Identity Initial Posters Final Posters

BRAND NAMING

Founder

Acronym

Yi Studio Zhuzhu workshop Yi Jeans YiZhu Studio Yiz Jeans

RCL (Recycled Clothes Leasing) PPRC (Persevered Pleasure Recycled Clothes) UNL (Understanding of new life) REUSE (Recycle ultimate section) VRL (Vital recycle life)

Fabricated Greenland Pluma Airme Reco

Descriptive

Metaphor

Jean Lease Easylease Circular Clothing Lease Life

Bluejeans Bluelist Light Life Go&Back Eternal Everlasting Everclothing Merger Reborn Blues Revalue

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Magic Spell

Combinations

Release (Re+lease) Sweave (We+save+weave) Rembrace (Recycle+embrace)

Circlo Circuthes (Circular+clothes) Donbanc (Do not banned to clothing) Joyfe (Enjoy life) Noth (Noble Clothing) Mircle (Miraculous Recycle)

MOODBOARDS

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Keywords:

Alternative Moodboard:

Balance: People like fast fashion but it’s the biggest problem of clothing waste. Recycling textiles can help find the balance between them and ease conflict.

Creativity: Clothes leasing is a new idea that needs intelligence and creativity to attract people’s attention and achieve success.

Economization: Reusing and remaking old clothes can save resources. Meanwhile, leasing clothes can reduce people’s clothing costs.

Tone: The tone of Reborn Blues is active, creative, and eco-friendly. The palette combines the harmonious blue color presenting jeans with bright colors symbolizing fashion and creativity. We want to attract people’s attention and get them involved in this.

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MESSAGES AND DELIVERABLES

Main Messages:

Sub Messages:

Clothes leasing helps reduce textile waste.

It’s a sustainable business mode.

Fast fashion has a huge impact on textile waste and the global environment.

People can find it economical and convenient when they change from purchasing clothes to leasing them.

Appealing packaging can attract more people, especially fashion lovers, to our recycling community.

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Deliverables: Website: Our website guides people to join our family and start their recycling tour. It’s clear and easy to find all the useful information for leasing or checking the package status.

Product: The package is the connection between Reborn Blues and our customers. The first impression of the product is crucial to build our brand identity.

Mobile App: An app can be very handy to make orders or find the drop box nearby as most people have phones nowadays. Order changes can be made anytime.

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VISUAL IDENTITY

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M

Y

K

100

85

10

20

35

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10

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10

10

7

0

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85

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Process Book

Deliverables:

Headline: Sabon ABCDEFGHJKLMNO PQRSTUVWXYZ0124 567898&%$#@!?abc defghijklmnopqrstuv wxyz

Le Monde ABCDEFGHJKLMNOP QRSTUVWXYZ0124567 898&%$#@!?abcdefgh ijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Body Copy: Meta Pro ABCDEFGHJKLMNOPQRST UVWXYZ0124567898&%$ #@!?abcdefghijklmnopqr stuvwxyz

Le Monde Sans ABCDEFGHJKLMNOP QRSTUVWXYZ0124567 898&%$#@!?abcdefgh ijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Footer: Adelle ABCDEFGHJKLMNO PQRSTUVWXYZ0124 567898&%$#@!?abcd efghijklmnopqrstuv wxyz

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LOGO DEVELOPMENT

Reborn

Blues

Reborn

Blues

Reborn

Blues

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Reborn blues

RebornBlues

Reborn blues

Reborn blues

Reborn blues

Reborn

Reborn blues

GR 620 Visual Thinking / Yi Zhu

Blues

Reborn

Blues

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FINAL LOGO

RECYCLE AND REUSE

REBORN BLUES

Concept: The final logo of my brand is the combination of iconology and typography. The icon consists of two parts—the recycle circle and the letter R that symbolizes my brand Reborn Blues.

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INITIAL POSTERS I drew a lot of sketches and developed them to several initial poster directions. From those initial ones, I refined the final posters with details of jeans to get my messages directly conveyed.

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FINAL POSTERS

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Poster 01: The main idea of this set of posters is to emphasize that leasing jeans can affect people’s life in a good way.

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Poster 02: This poster mainly conveys that leasing jeans can save the living cost. The bright spot color reflects a young feeling.

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Poster 03: Textile waste has become a very serious environmental issue worldwide. This poster indicates that people can live better in a clean world.

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BRAND DELIVERABLES

58 Brand Website 62 Product Packaging 66 Mobile App

WEBSITE The brand website consists of four parts: product display, jeans leasing service, general background, and our concept introduction.

The shopping category contains the detail page when the customer wants to choose the right size and color that fits.

Our website also shows some facts of numbers, people can strongly feel the severity of clothing waste. By understanding why we exist and how our business works, users will be more than glad to join us.

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WEBSITE Product Display and Detail Page

Homepage

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Background Information

Appeal to Action

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PACKAGING Since my business is based on online orders, the mailing boxes play a crucial role in the commercial chain. Delicate packaging can get people to further understand my brand concept.

A spot color sticker with my logo on it.

Inside the box, I created a mosaicstyle packaging paper to strengthen my brand identity.

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I designed a sealing ticker besides the wrap to make sure it won’t easily break during the delivery.

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By using different scales of type and icon, I tried to create a visually interesting packaging.

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I designed a welcome card which can also serve as a postcard.

APP DESIGN The main feature of this app is to find the drop box nearby which leads you to finish the whole process of dropping off your jeans. Besides this, users can also check the latest collection and track the packages. The interface is designed to be clean and easy to understand. The simple app icon uses the logo of Reborn Blues in blue and white.

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New users can sign up by Google, Facebook or email account.

The quick sign up saves users’ time.

They can fill in more details on the account page. Returning users can log in with their password.

Users can enter the app as a guest. They can always log in or sign up later.

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The navigation menu is a simple hamburger icon. It contains different features including searching, favorites, and shopping cart.

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The arrow icon can return the user to the previous page.

After selecting the location, users can tap on this navigation button to start the gps feature.

The app will automatically show your current location and the drop boxes nearby.

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After arriving at the drop box spot, the finish page will pop up and the whole process is completed.

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Users can check the order tracking according to the order number.

Users can see the status of delivery and the estimated delivery time with their order number.

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The right page is the interface of the faq feature. Customers can also contact us via online chat, phone calls, or emails.

There’s another entrance for users to sign up and subscribe to our brand.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

In conclusion, with my three deliverables, Reborn Blues will be of great help to get people more aware of the textile waste problems. We have created a new shopping method based on leasing, which strives to find a balance between fashion and environmental protection. The creative concept of Reborn Blues offers a more economic and eco-friendly way of shopping.

It’s time for us to rethink what we really need and how we consume. Everything comes at a price. A circular and sustainable fashion might be a good solution.

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CITATION

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https://www.thebalancesmb.com https://www.zara.com https://ecowarriorprincess.net https://www.roadrunnerwm.com https://www.harpersbazaar.com https://wtvox.com https://mudjeans.eu https://www.pinterest.com Front cover quotation—Will.I.Am

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Academy of Art University Class GR620 Visual Thinking Designer Yi Zhu Instructor David Hake