Contrast Creative

Brief

We have now worked with Failsworth for over  five years and this AW18 brochure gave us a chance to re-think how the brochure design works for the client and their customers. In the initial design meeting we discussed how the market for Failsworth’s Men’s products has evolved and a younger audience was interested in the quality, classical products they produced. It was important that the new brochure allowed Failsworth to engage with those customers whilst not alienating their existing loyal customer base.

Given that the Men’s and Ladies ranges now had more diverse markets, the end product needed to be able to speak to each market independently. We were keen to search for models who fitted the younger audience but again with a view to still engaging with their traditional markets.

We also reviewed the styling brief and felt we wanted to have more high end and aspirational brands with heritage sitting alongside the Failsworth brand. Failsworth have always been keen to use recognisable locations for their shoots and wanted to continue with this theme for the photography shoot to ensure the brochure was still viewed as attainable to customers.

Solution

The brochure was reorganised to have the Men’s Collection at the front with Ladies following behind. Even this small change to the brochure design has had a big impact on how customers see the brand. To ensure the Ladies customers were still catered for, we created two brochure covers. As the majority of customers either buy from the Men’s or Ladies range we created a cover for each, rather than showing both models on the one cover. This gave the Men’s Collection more weighting than previous years and the Ladies customers didn’t feel pushed out, as they also had a dedicated cover.

The location shoot had to happen in one day. After some location recce’s we finalised on Manchester’s Northern Quarter for the occasion hats, and Macclesfield Forest for the casual range. This suited both audiences well, as the Ladies range tends to be more occasion focused in Autumn/Winter and the Men’s more country casual.

Weather is always a big factor on these shoots as the products have to be shot outside. Once again, this year we were lucky but as opposed to the SS18 brochure location shoot which was incredibly hot, this year’s Autumn/Winter location shoot was freezing cold with dustings of snow! We were all checking the weather in the days leading up to the location shoot, and despite so slightly nerve wracking journeys to the locations in Macclesfield, it was worth it for the scenery we were met with.

Once the shoot was out of the way, we could process and select the perfect images to go alongside the product images we shot in our Manchester studio. The brochure design this time round was very stripped back to allow the images to speak for themselves without adding embellishments or unnecessary design elements. There are some small informative icons for branded fabrics and product design but in general it is a simple and elegant brochure design, which works fantastically well allowing the images to sell the products.

A big thank you to everyone involved in the day for keeping spirits high and sharing gloves so nobody developed frostbite! Take a look at the finished article below.