B’05Streetwear

Melanin CLO

A streetwear label with a loud position and a mark that has to carry it — on a chest print, on a neck label, on a shop window and on a phone screen.

Client: Melanin CLO
Sector: Streetwear
Departments: Branding, Graphic design, Photography
Delivered: Brand board, lockups, palette, type, watermark rule

The delivered brand board — lockups, watermark rule, palette and type specimen. Click to open it full size.

How it started

The board we delivered records Melanin CLO’s position in the brand’s own words: a bold, unapologetic, culturally-rooted Black-owned streetwear brand, launched on Juneteenth, making timeless essentials for the culture.

That is a strong position and a demanding one to draw for. A line like “Love the Skin You’re In” has to be worn rather than explained — which means the identity has to hold at the scale of a chest print and at the size of a woven label, in one colour, on dark cotton, without losing the confidence in it.

The arch is what does that work. A varsity arc is a collegiate signal people already read, and it belongs on a hoodie before it belongs on a letterhead. With a small hard-edged tag set under it, the mark has a wide shape for a chest and a compact one for a label — which is most of what a clothing brand asks of a logo.

What it had to do

An identity a clothing label can actually run on: one mark, two lockups, a palette with its codes written down, a type pairing, and a rule for signing photographs — so the brand stays recognisable whether it is printed, embroidered or posted.

A wordmark that survives one colour and dark cotton
A reversed lockup for espresso garments and black backgrounds
A four-colour palette with codes, not adjectives
A display and body pairing that covers a drop post and a size chart
A watermark rule so campaign photography signs itself

The identity

Everything below is read off the board above: the two lockups, the four colours with their codes, and the type pairing.

PrimaryThe mark on Warm Sand

ReversedThe mark reversed on Espresso Black

Espresso Black#1E120B

Warm Sand#F7E8D8

Persimmon#E85D2C

Crest Pink#D6266F

FrauncesDisplay

Love the Skin You’re In

Carries the headline and the short lines that have to land first.

Work SansBody

Everything read at length: detail, captions and the small print.

Set for the unglamorous copy a brand writes every week.

Sketch sheets

Concept sheets drawn as art direction for this page — they show how the mark and its placements were worked out, and are not scans of the original client drawings.

Working the archThe wordmark is an arch before it is letters. These studies fix the curve first — the radius, the baseline and the spacing — and block the letters in as mass, so the shape can be judged without the type getting a vote.Concept visual

Concept sketch sheet: technical flats of a hoodie front and back and a t-shirt, with seam, cuff, hem and pocket annotations and measurements — **Where the mark has to sit**Garment flats with the seams called out. An identity for a clothing label has to survive a cuff, a chest print and a neck label — so the placements get drawn at the same time as the mark, not after it.Concept visual

Concept sketch sheet: hang tag shapes with string holes, a folded box dieline, a mailer bag and sticker studies — **Tags, boxes, mailers**The last thing a customer touches is packaging. Tag shapes, a box dieline and a mailer are sketched as part of the identity so the brand keeps going after the garment is sold.Concept visual

Making the garments

Process visuals — art direction by Dalc, not photographs of client production. A streetwear identity is judged on cotton, so we art-directed the run the way we specified it: cut, stitch, print, fold, pack. The one real photograph in this section is marked as such.

Concept visual: hands cutting deep brown jersey fabric with tailoring shears along a chalked line on a cutting table — CuttingConcept visual

Concept visual: an industrial sewing machine stitching the hem of sand-coloured jersey, hands guiding the fabric — StitchingConcept visual

Concept visual: a squeegee pulling burnt-orange ink across a screen over a brown t-shirt on a manual press — PrintingConcept visual

Concept visual: hands folding a finished brown t-shirt beside a stack of folded sand and brown garments — FoldingConcept visual

Concept visual: hands placing a tissue-wrapped garment into a plain kraft mailer box on a packing bench — PackingConcept visual

Concept visual: a rail of hooded sweatshirts and t-shirts in espresso, sand and burnt orange in a workshop studio — The runConcept visual

Real photographThe woven neck label going on — photographed on the machine

Finished work

Photographed by our own team once the garments existed — studio, storefront and street, shot for where the pictures were going to be used.

Model from behind in a navy Melanin CLO hoodie with green crown sleeve print, studio — Crown sleeve print

Model in a sage Melanin CLO floral hoodie against a brick wall — Floral hoodie, on location

Model in a blush Melanin CLO hoodie seated on a counter in a dark studio — Blush hoodie, studio

Full-length portrait of a model in a sage Melanin CLO tracksuit by a brick wall — Tracksuit, full length

Two models in blush Melanin CLO hoodies on storefront steps — Storefront steps

Model seated in a black Melanin Clothing graphic hoodie, studio portrait — Graphic hoodie, studio

Smiling model in a navy Melanin Clothing graphic hoodie, studio portrait — Graphic hoodie, studio

Model in a peach Melanin-ish tee on a city street — Melanin-ish tee, street

Flat lay of a navy Melanin hoodie with green script print and sneakers — Flat lay, styled

Detail of the green Melanin script print on a navy hoodie sleeve — Sleeve print detail

Close-up of the yellow Melanin-ish chest print on a black tee — Chest print detail

Love the Skin You’re In
Melanin CLO’s own line, set in the type specimen on the brand board

In conclusion

The identity ships as a system rather than a logo file: two lockups, four colours with their codes, a display and body pairing, and a watermark rule — enough for the label to brief a print run or a post without coming back to us for permission.

The campaign on this page was shot by our own photographers, which is why it exists at all: the studio that drew the mark also took the pictures, so the label finished with an identity and the photography to launch it without going outside for either.

Lockups: 2 — primary and reversed
Palette: 4 colours, codes on the board
Type: Fraunces + Work Sans
Watermark: Rule supplied, shown on fabric
Campaign photography: 11 finished frames on this page
Departments involved: Branding, Graphic design, Photography
Concept visuals: 9, made by Dalc for this case study