Big Metal London
A heritage fashion-jewellery brand, given an expression as bold as the pieces, and a catalogue to carry it.
The brief
Bold pieces, a brand to match.
Big Metal London was known for big, characterful jewellery, but the brand around it had not kept pace. It needed a voice as confident as the product, flexible enough to run across social, retail and a full trade catalogue, and clear enough for the retail partners who sell it.
The reference
Where it started.
We opened with a reference board: the colour, type and photography that felt like the brand at its most confident. It set the tone before any layout existed.
The directions
Two ways to look like Big Metal.
From there, two written directions. One bold and clear, leaning on strong type and a colourful scheme. The other more typographic and playful, with gradients and a softer, more sophisticated edge. Each came with its own type and colour logic.
The exploration
Two routes, taken into the world.
We pushed both routes far enough to judge them in real placements, not just on a page. The first leaned editorial, a serif voice with softer colour. The second was louder, a condensed display face built to hold a billboard or a station wall.
The direction
The loud one, refined.
Big Metal went with the bolder route. We tightened it into a statement-led system: a condensed display voice, a palette of deep navy, magenta and violet, and full-bleed colour blocks that let a single line carry a page.
In the world
On the street, day and night.
The system was built to work outdoors at scale, from a run of posters on a hoarding to a lit bus-stop after dark.
The catalogue
From statement to SKU.
The same system carried into a product catalogue running to hundreds of lines, where the job changed from making noise to making it easy to order: clean product grids, codes, colourways and sizing, all under the one brand.
The outcome
One voice, from the first page to the last.
Big Metal came out of the work with a brand that matches the product, a direction confident enough to anchor a campaign and disciplined enough to run a catalogue of hundreds of lines without losing its voice.
Where does your brand sit against the business?
Every engagement starts with the Brand Alignment Diagnostic, a fixed first step that scores your brand against the business and shows what to fix first.