Akedo Rebrand
As soon I arrived at THG I was immediately put in charge of the design for Akedo. Akedo means ‘arcade’ in Japanese and I felt that playful nature and the nostalgia it conjures needed to be at the forefront of the brand. From that moment, I could see, there wasn’t really a cohesive vision to push forward with, but this needed to be achieved whilst still maintaining output of product for the brand. All elements needed to be pulled together as there wasn’t that core thread running through everything to give the customer an affinity to us and what we stood for. Above are the guidelines I’d put together for a re-brand of Akedo. This was due to be launched later this year but changes to the business meant it unfortunately couldn’t be implemented.
Stranger Things
These ranges were heavily based on the D&D, hand drawn, Hellfire club style assets from series 4 of Stranger Things. This shoe design became the best selling design in the history of Akedo, selling over 7000 pairs in 6 months and generating over a quarter of a million in profit. To this day it is still the top selling design for the brand. For some ranges we also incorporated accessories and clothing, utilising our very close relationship with Netflix, to create unique items from their licensed assets, being allowed more freedom as trusted collaborators. This freedom allowed me to create the video (with bespoke soundtrack) for the drop of the reversed black version of the white base which is a good example of how I can find clever solutions to difficult problems. Due to a lack of equipment possible to create this video internally, I used a video of each shoe being rotated, converted them to frames/still images and then used Photoshop and AfterEffects to create the spinning transition.
Pokemon
Pokemon is another brand that I worked closely with and developed a strong relationship. This lead to us being granted the right to use the famous Team Rocket identity to create clothing and shoes. We were the first brand to be allowed to do this and at the level of creative freedom we exercised. The range was designed around the neon lights of the streets of Japan, those scenes of endless, dimly lit bodega's and food establishments, adorned in neon colour amid a dark backdrop, with lots of rectangular shapes and containers filled with Japanese characters. The limited edition box sold nearly 600 in the first 3 months bringing in just under 30k of profit, at a time when the cost of living has been really biting too.
