Accompany Us to Target
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Accompany is solving a core tension and desire that influences Millennial shopping behavior: the desire for socially-conscious purchasing, at odds with the expectation that they should not have to sacrifice their sense of style or modern design aesthetics. To achieve our goals of helping human beings and alleviating poverty, we’ve scoured the globe, working with indigenous artisans, fair trade workshops and NGO’s, to find the most on-trend items and put them under one fashion-forward roof — making it easy to shop for yourself while making a meaningful impact. We aim to bring a mission-centric, high-style global bazaar to consumers at all price points, both on our e-commerce website and through collaborations with a variety of retail and corporate partners. In May 2017, we launched a story-driven shopping concept with Target — designing handcrafted goods from 14 workshops in 6 countries and bringing to life the powerful stories of artisans, culture and impact through video and photo content — which was met with huge media endorsement and cultural conversations with over 110 Million media impressions on this launch alone, from publications like Architectural Digest, Elle, and more. Additional corporate clients have included AMC Networks, Unilever, Barclays and WeWork, who come to us for narrative and experiential gifting programs for their stakeholders, as a means of showing their corporate values through do-good gifting. We have created a fashion social business that is clearly something our culture seeks. Considering the press accolades, and the fact that Target chose us as a lead collaborator through their style partnerships division, and other companies are showing up on our doorstep looking to collaborate, we are undoubtedly onto something that fills an obvious market gap through an innovative multi-channel approach that’s both direct to consumer and in collaboration with other businesses looking to tap into this movement.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
By leading with a consumer-minded strategy that combines modern style with meaningful story, we want to shift the enormous engine of the fashion and lifestyle industry, and redirect its economics to the communities of the world that need it most. For example, our handbags from Guatemala, crafted for the Accompany Us to Target collection, created 8,024 hours of fair wage labor for a group of 200 indigenous Mayan women in the Northern Highlands — resulting in Accompany receiving the Social Impact award at their annual gala last year. What’s more, by establishing a network of over 150 mission-driven partners across over 40 countries in the developing world, we’ve built a purpose-driven creative company that can serve Millennials further through experiential collaborations with other businesses. Accompany is aiming to become the go-to lifestyle brand for Millennials that want to look good, but do good too — realizing the dream of one day uniting the world through beauty inside and out.
Who worked on the project?
Jason Keehn, Founder; Elizabeth Kiester, Advisor; Greg Jaroszewski, Founding Partner; Elizabeth Love Dolan, Project Coordinator; Katie Lindsay, Project Manager; Braden Summers, Photographer; Dan Gianini, Filmmaker; Jen Pinto, PR; Sasha Haines-Stiles, Copywriter; Danielle Moore, Art Direction; Kara Gerson, VP, Special Projects
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/213672179
Adaptive Apparel For Kids With Disabilities
Company Target
Introduction Date October 22, 2017
Project Website https://www.target.com/c/kids-adaptive-clothing/-/N-1laue?lnk=KidsToddlerAdap
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The Target PDD team developed and launched adaptive apparel with features for kids with disabilities. The line includes long-sleeve tees, short-sleeve tees, bodysuits, hooded sweatshirts, puffer jackets and leggings in sizes 2T to 5T for toddlers and extra small to XXL for older kids. The features include side-entry openings, zip-off sleeves, snaps in the back of the clothing, flat seams and areas with access to the abdomen among others. We also released clothes for kids with sensory issues. The team spent hundreds of hours talking to guests and team members to learn what they truly needed for their children with various disabilities and physical challenges related to Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and more. We quickly learned the importance of the clothes not only being functional for these kids, but versatile and durable as well. The families really wanted features that would make getting dressed every day a lot easier. What stands out with these new clothing items is that the kids wearing them will do exactly the opposite: The features are virtually invisible, and most of the styles are based off of current designs in the Cat & Jack collection.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The collection has been featured in the following: https://www.fastcompany.com/40482996/target-announces-adaptive-apparel-for-kids-living-with-disabilities https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2017/11/27/cooper-hewitt-presents-accessability-featuring-more-than-70-inclusive-designs/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/arts/design/cooper-hewitt-access-ability.html
Who worked on the project?
Target Product Design & Development Team
View the project video:
Aesop.com
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Luxury E-Commerce Goes Global: How to Bridge Physical and Digital Experiences Over the past 25 years, Aesop has built a cult following. The Melbourne-based luxury beauty brand has amassed devotees around the globe who love the skincare line’s refined plant-based products, refined packaging and sensory store experiences. Having long shunned traditional marketing tactics —Aesop invests in little to no advertising— they turned to digital agency Work & Co. The ask? Help grow the brand by redesigning a global e-commerce site that stays true to the brand’s minimal, luxury aesthetic. Simultaneously, the new platform had to be a content-rich experience encouraging shoppers to browse, discover, and purchase. The Challenge During the 10-month project, Work & Co’s designers and engineers continually asked themselves how they could eschew the typical e-commerce sites --riddled with product detail pages that look more like Times Square versus a calm, enjoyable shopping experience. Our approach every single day of the project was to simplify: we were hyper-focused on paring designs down to only a few necessary components. Another focus was longevity. The best e-commerce sites perform as well a year out from launch as they do on Day 1. Designing something beautiful was a given. But we wanted to go a step further: create a site that Aesop’s internal team could iterate on and add content to easily over time. Our answer was a component-based design that enables Aesop’s internal team to make continual tweaks and updates efficiently. A New Navigation Paradigm A chief consideration in creating the new Aesop.com was bridging the physical and digital experience for shoppers. It had to feel like an extension of what customers expect from the Aesop brand in person --a team of highly consultative store associates who are skin care experts helping each shopper define a custom regimen. Unlike many e-commerce sites today, the new Aesop.com gives shoppers a high-touch and tailored experience online. You get seasonal and location-specific recommendations, and can watch videos explaining how to use cleansers and moisturizers. It was important to be able to serve Aesop’s many loyalists as well as newcomers who are continually discovering the brand. So we built a first-of-its-kind “shoppable navigation”. The underlying framework offers a simple, fluid shopping experience that lets you add to your cart right from the nav or dig deeper to discover more product information. Now users are met with a site that flexes to allow them to spend as much or as little time as they need to find and purchase the products they’re looking for. The Results We designed and delivered front-end development for the new global e-commerce platform. In May 2017, the site rolled out in the United States, followed by Australia, Europe, Canada, and Asia. Within months, the US store saw a 15% lift in conversion and a 50% incremental increase in product detail to purchase. Our relationship with Aesop has been ongoing, and we have continued to optimize the site in the months post launch.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Extending a Carefully-Architected Brand Every Aesop store is conceived and designed for its unique location. Aesop hires a local architect and sources local materials so that each store feels tailored to its environment. We channeled this incredible focus by applying that same ethos for the e-commerce experience. We knew that translating that unique feeling of shopping in a store would be key, so we were hypersensitive to keeping the essence of the brand intact in digital, and preserving the knowledge transfer that occurs in-stores when we brought the retail experience online. Research In-Store to Create the Online Store To create the online experience, we spent a lot of time studying the brand’s behavior offline. We learned that Aesop’s in-store experts are stewards of the products and teachers too. They help each customer to create your custom regimen suited for specific skin types. Similarly, we wanted Aesop.com to offer tailored experiences too, such as thoughtful product curation, seasonal and location-specific recommendations, and anticipating users’ needs for fast replenishment. We organized skincare not by the products themselves but by the regimen, in the order you’d use them. Clicking on “Cleanse,” “Exfoliate,” “Tone” and “Moisture” can also take users beyond specific products to access how-to videos. Lastly we brought the local aspect to the site by making it contextually relevant for users, with product recommendations are specific geographies, and seasonal climates. With the redesigned www.aesop.com we were able to challenge the paradigm of a normal e-commerce platform and create something which hadn’t been done, but was so visually simple. With the shoppable navigation we invented an underlying framework that offers a simple, fluid shopping experience. Using Restraint as a Design Principle Aesop is a special brand for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is their incredibly focused understanding of who they are and what’s so appealing about their products to customers. Their culture, and their team’s focus, led to our design approach being minimal and restrained. As we built the product detail pages, we questioned what features were on-brand. With checkout we pushed against the notion that any modern checkout flow should offer an option of saving products to a wishlist. Instead of implementing the expected we paired the site down to what truly belonged.
Who worked on the project?
Jon Jackson - Partner, Design Tiago Luchini - Partner, Technology Dever Thomas - Design Director Laura Pence Ambrose - Group Design Director Michael Evans - Director of Product Management Fernando Andrade - Technology Director Virginie Delannoy - Associate Design Director Andrew McBride, JP Lages - Design Lead Juliana Gaiba, Brian Nguyen, Sang Kim - Senior Designer Elizabeth Gaynor, Julie Basque - Senior Product Manager Wesley de Souza, Marko Niciforovic, Josh Rounsville, Matt Sacks, Jay Moretti - Senior Developers Glauber Sampaio, Marco Vincit - Designer Owen Herterich, Elizabeth Morrison, Gaston Figueroa - Developer Aniket Sharma, Denise Miceli - Senior QA Mila Rudnouskaya, Olesia Velychko - QA analyst
View the project video:
AETHER X SALT
Company AETHER
Introduction Date March 1, 2017
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
TBA
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
TBA
Who worked on the project?
TBA
View the project video:
Allbirds Tree
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The introduction of Allbrids’ Tree material represented the brands biggest sustainability feat to-date, and presented the footwear industry the opportunity to incorporate more renewable materials into products. The Tree collection is the first-ever Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified shoe, crafted from a fabric that Allbirds engineered using ethically sourced eucalyptus fiber, which boasts an incredibly low carbon footprint, and is manufactured in a clean, closed-loop process. By utilizing a new3D-knitting process, Allbirds was able to target the integration of structure and support where feet need it most. In combination with this cutting edge knitting technology(reliant on software engineering versus traditional knitting machines, which also helps to eliminate extraneous waste from the manufacturing process), Allbirds was able to bring eucalyptus fiber to the footwear industry for the first time, with the same incredible comfort and design customers have come to expect. Tree leaves an even lighter footprint with an eye on protecting the world’s endangered forests. Tree creates a cooling effect by wicking away moisture and, in concert with a silky-smooth mesh construction, delivers unmatched breathability and supreme comfort. And the Wool-lined insole and heel cup ensures the soft fit with which Allbirds has become synonymous. Through the release of Tree, Allbirds is challenging the footwear industry norms and strengthening its position as a leader in bio-based footwear , pushing the boundaries of sustainable material innovation.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world, closely following oil and fossil fuels [source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation], and will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2020... unless something changes. Allbirds believes in creating better things in a better way. The Tree collection was designed with this mission in mind. Compared to traditional footwear materials, Tree uses 3x less land, and has an overall carbon footprint that is 17x smaller. Additionally the closed loop process used to produce the Tree fiber saves 95% more water than traditional footwear materials, making it safer and cleaner than standard manufacturing practices.The journey to releasing Tree began over two years ago and has been an incredibly laborious process for Allbirds, who searched tirelessly to find just the right materials, technology and partners to bring the vision to life.
Who worked on the project?
Tim Brown + Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founders + Co-CEOs
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIC6OahXqmI#action=share
