PROJECT NAME: Citywide Thread Co. Logo, Visual Brand Design, and Product Photography
BACK STORY: Citywide Thread Co. is a Philadelphia-focused premium apparel company provides a high quality product that is uniquely designed and responsibly made. Their primary style is a mix between vintage, timeless, and iconic with a certain amount of Philadelphian grit and passion.
OBJECTIVE: Citywide needed a visual identity that was immediately recognizable as something Philadelphia based and versatile enough to work on digital and print mediums. They also required high quality photos to match the high quality of their products.
VISUAL AREA OF FOCUS: Branding and Logo Design and Photography
DATE: 2024-2025
Brand Development
Tasked first with designing the logo, I spent a long time researching iconography unique to Philadelphia. What could be a good icon for a brand that wants to encapsulate an entire city without being too niche that it alienates a large majority of potential customers? Documents, flags, city seals, none of them seemed appropriate for the tone of the brand. After a good amount of testing and different designs, I found the perfect icon for Citywide, a shape unique to Philadelphia.
The brand colors were chosen for a few specific reasons. The brand highlight color, Broad & Market, was obviously because the street signs are green but also plays on the main color for the Philadelphia Eagles football team which are a staple in Philly. The neutral bases, Tailgate Noir and Rebel Parchment, are a slightly lifted black and yellowed off-white respectively that emphasize the sports culture of the city and nod to the city’s place in American history.
As a side note, I’m preferential to making neutral brand colors that are slightly different than just black and white to give some uniqueness to a brand even in these often overlooked areas.
While designing the main logo, I added a curve to the lower half of the pole to act as a shadow under the sign which gives the flat image some depth and dimensionality. In doing so though, I noticed on light backgrounds, the shadow doesn’t make sense as the sign is now darker than the background. I navigated this by creating a, maybe unconventional, second main logo but without the “shadow”. Both dark and light backgrounds have a unique logo that preserves the main icon while looking their best.
It was also important to set the visual tone of the brand and what kind of images they should be using for ads and social to match the vintage inspiration behind the brand.
For their first product launch, I created social media posts and mockups for the t-shirt. This helped to spread awareness and build trust with the brand right out of the gate.
