DFSA: Impact Vintage
2021
During the spring ‘21 semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Dress for Success Austin as one of two multimedia interns. During my time there, I helped develop Impact Vintage’s branding.
Impact Vintage is an online collection of sustainable fashion for sale. The site features recycled vintage and designer clothing with 100% of profits supporting women’s empowerment through Dress for Success Austin.
Responsibilities
My leading roles included researcher, ideator, and junior designer. I also dipped my toes into the world of project manager, creative director, copywriter, and model.
Goal
Creating Impact Vintage’s brand identity through a logo, color palette, typography, and branded items for their upcoming website launch.
Challenge
Developing a trend-focused brand that is flexible, cohesive, compatible with DFSA’s brand standards, and appeals to a large target audience.
Target Audience
Diversity and inclusivity are integral to IV, so their audience includes adults of all ages focusing on female and non-binary people. All are passionate about sustainable fashion, companies with a cause, and supporting local businesses.
Moodboard & Sketching
Ashley (the other multimedia intern) and I compiled visual inspiration that reflected retro and modern. We hoped to incorporate both aesthetics in the branding to represent the product: recycled designer and vintage clothing.
Going Digital
After I took inspiration from my sketched ideas and went digital, I experimented with bold and stylized typefaces. I was also intrigued by the thought of including a circle shape to symbolize the circular cycle of sustainable fashion.
Collaboration
At this point in the project, Jessica Allendes, a new board member, professional graphic designer, and marketing guru, hopped on board to create a final brand concept based on my research and ideation. After the branding was complete, I experimented with a couple of logo variations that Jessica tweaked and implemented in the business card design.
Typography & Color Palette
Jeanne Moderno offers a bold style with modern relevance for the logo and display type. Roboto pairs beautifully as a sleek and open counterpart. On the other hand, the brand colors are a celebration of fashion with their brightness. Their boldness matches that of the logotype.
Final Solution
The finalized branding stands out with a positive vibrance and stylized appeal that aligns perfectly with Impact Vintage’s mission and offerings. In addition, it built a strong foundation on which I could expand to create social media graphics.
Concept Work
My internship at Dress for Success Austin flew by quickly. As a team, we achieved a lot, but there was more I wanted to explore. After my time there, I developed some additional concept work to further the brand’s assets.
Reflection
Being an intern at DFSA was an incredible learning experience. I gained knowledge through my experience and as a researcher and designer, a copywriter for the social media pages, a co-creative director during photoshoots through the curation of shot lists and shoot set up, a model for the product, and project manager. In addition, I learned to create projects for myself by finding needs and fulfilling them. The Dress for Success Austin team is small but mighty, and I’m proud to have been a small part of it for a semester.