Following business development and research, we moved into establishing the brand’s purpose as a supporting leader of women in the workforce. The brand needed to welcome professional women of all types, no matter their age, position, or industry. We wanted to position the brand as an inclusive community, inviting any power female to join in.

The brand will offer classic, timeless pieces that can last through any of the latest design trends, having customers’ backs through the small and big moments in their careers. This lasting quality is what led us to the idea of creating a fictitious persona around the name Olive.    

The name “Olive” was chosen as an unfamiliar, yet familiar entity. We wanted Olive’s persona to act as a life-long friend to all women, someone they can find comfort in and relate to as they journey through their careers. She represents strength, courage, and perseverance and plays this “old soul” role to help communicate the brand’s vision.

Olive hopes to inspire a new wave of strength and beauty in the world. We want to see women reach well beyond their dreams and do so confidently. Because real beauty is defined by our actions; not by our looks.

We spent a lot of time asking ourselves what really creates confidence and realized that it is action. We weren't looking to inspire a false sense of confidence through Olive clothing. But instead, we were looking to create a movement around action, which is what truly develops confidence in a person. That’s when we landed on the tagline: Modern Confidence.

The brand’s voice and messaging is something that comes naturally to the founder. She knows what she wants to say and has meaning behind everything she expresses. Olivia is looking to instill this motivating, encouraging, and passionate voice in Olive to create a movement of confident action. Modern confidence for the modern woman.

When designing the identity system for Olive, we knew how flexible it needed to be in terms of scalability. Eventually, as the brand makes its way into the world, Olive will utilize its brand identity across many user touchpoints, ranging from gift cards to packaging to billboards. With this in mind, we created a responsive logo system consisting of a custom logotype and icon, as well as various submarks.

As we moved forward with a female figure as the logograph, we spent a lot of time planning and sketching before putting any designs into digital format. We knew we needed to be minimal in detail so that the face could relate to a broad audience of women. We were also careful not to portray any distinguishable features in which women might start to categorize or stereotype.

Because Olive plans to be an innovator in the industry, we also wanted the female face to be futuristic and cutting-edge. We used varying stroke weight in the lines to achieve this edgy, yet still approachable look. The end result is a confident facial expression of a woman that is intriguing and curious.

As a retail fashion brand, an eCommerce website is a must-have. Since all sales will be conducted online, we wanted a custom website that was scalable and displayed the brand authentically all the way through checkout. We designed a unique online experience that matches the classic and timeless nature of the Olive brand.