Tags: Art Direction, Brand Narrative, Editorial Design, Graphic Design, Strategic Communication, Transmedia, Web design
A brand narrative for DOIY
Designed by Folch
A brand narrative for DOIY
Designed by Folch
Every object has a story. Like a souvenir, we project our emotions onto everyday things, creating universes around them and generating memories. The homeware and lifestyle brand DOIY has grown over the last few of years, both in terms of scale and as a brand. Since we first started working on their rebranding, DOIY has entered new fields, always pushing boundaries and open for new ideas – a mindset that has been crucial to this project.
Witnessing DOIY’s potential as much more than just a homeware brand, we proposed a new direction – to become an influential reference within not only one, but a variety of creative fields. #doiygallery is an exciting new initiative showcasing a series of unusual collaborations with emerging artists, offering them a carte blanche to interpret DOIY’s products in an entirely personal way.
For most brands, the communication is focused around two major events each year, the release of their collections. Through these collaborations, we could expand this periodicity to monthly releases, reaching media on a continuous basis throughout the year and giving life to the brand in between seasons. The fanzine is released between these seasons and helps DOIY to communicate beyond the frequency of the seasonal catalogue.
“DOIY is one of those brands that is open to any idea you propose to them. They understand very well how to develop a long term relationship, allowing us to provide them with an innovative creative strategy and unexpected tools in terms of communication – such as the DOIY Gallery.”
Rafa Martínez, COO & Head of Brand Strategy
The idea behind #doiygallery is to translate the content across different media and adapt it to different formats – for example, on DOIY’s website, printed in a biannual fanzine, shared across social networks and through exclusives on selected independent media platforms.
Elodie Deviras & Jaime Monfort, Founders of Doiy
With our background working on editorial projects like Odiseo and Eldorado, we have a trained eye for curation. We wanted to find artists with a similar mentality, drawing parallels to the mood, values and visions of DOIY. It was important to find exceptional collaborators, ready to bend and stretch the potential of an object and bring it into their own environment.
“What happens when Doiy becomes fashion? Architecture? Cinema? Gastronomy? We wanted to go outside the given territory to find ourselves on new surprising waters, bond with new audiences, and explore the non existing limits of creative collaborations.”
Emmy Koski, Communication Director and Art Curator for Brands
The first collaboration started with our friends, the paper artist Raya Sader Bujana & photographer Leo García Mendez. A grand opening, challenging the limits and perceptions of scale, and blurring the lines between art, architecture and cinematography. Inspired by the Mexican architect Luis Barragán and DOIY’s recent Scala collection, they created and filmed an artwork that plays with textures, colours, clean cuts, and light.
A great believer in the talisman, flower designer Carolina Spencer chose to work with DOIY’s Hestia candles and l’Apero glass set. Working with her trademark flower arrangements she created a mystic “sobremesa”, imbuing the products with her creative energy, photographed by Florencia Lucila.
A master of illusion, New York-based photographer Suzanne Saroff works with the Hestia collection glassware, distorting light and perspective in a playful series that forces the viewer to look at ordinary objects in a different way.
Los Angeles based fashion photographer Kelia Anne flirts with the absurd, fictional and abstract, exploring the limits of reality and illusion with the Cyclops mirrors. Just as DOIY explores the iconic, we can draw parallels with the nostalgic sentimentalism found in Kelia’s work.
This ongoing brand narrative for DOIY covers many disciplines, from creative concept, to curation and art direction. Moreover we also curated interviews with the artists, finding the essence of their work and exploring any parallels with the brand. The hackneyed phrase a picture says more than 1000 words might have a point, but without the story, the content can fall flat. Through personal interviews we were able to elevate the products, the artist and DOIY into a higher realm – adding another level of interpretation.
“For each collaboration we chose a specific media partner based on their style, reach and reputation, carefully tailoring our content to best match the mood of each publication.”
Bis Turnor, Communications Manager
A crucial part of #doiygallery is to spread the word. An added benefit to the diversity of our selected collaborators was that we could tap into a wide variety of media interested in covering the stories from different angles. As a part of our service, we connect the right media with the right artist, building on our established relationships with various journalists and offering in depth exclusives. This helps to create visibility for the brand and introduces DOIY to many different fields of interest.
Raya Sader Bujana & Leo García Mendez’s work was covered on Instagram by Ignant (519k followers) and Design Milk (2m followers), as well as in online articles by Creative Boom (26.4k followers), The Design Collector (44.9k followers), Artwork (10.7k followers) and USA Art News (44.9k followers).
Carolina Spencer’s work was covered by Ignant (551k followers), Fuet Magazine (6,642 followers), Feel Desain (16.7k followers), Good2Be ( 2,791 followers).
Suzanne Saroff’s work was covered exclusively by Yatzer (99.5k followers), and it was later also picked up by AWorkStation (6,670 followers).
The DOIY Gallery initiative (including all three collaborations to date) was also covered by Domestico Magazine (35.8K followers).
As well as the above media coverage and Instagram shares, the content was also shared by DOIY and Folch (40.6k followers) across our social media channels as well as by the collaborators – each one with a significant following on Instagram, ranging from 39k followers to 93.2k followers) – further increasing reach and engagement for the brand.