Studio Seitz
Brand & Product Creation
There’s been a surge of DTC brands, especially in the furniture and home space. The world of fast furniture allows consumers to pay less but encourages a throw away culture to start all over again with the latest trend. This new market behavior has shuttered many family-run workshops with generations of craftsmen.The success of many new lifestyle brands is the ability for storytelling. With Studio Seitz, the challenge (and goal) was to bring heirloom-quality home furnishings to the consumer, educating them on what it takes to produce the piece while breathing fresh life into trades that are close to becoming extinct due to mass manufacturing.Seitz is a Swiss furniture and home design studio—driven by the past, refined for today.
Overview
Reflecting the simple alpine mountain life
Project
Central to Studio Seitz’s work is collaborating with the community of Swiss makers—going back five and six generations. Because of this, the goal was to hone these legacies into the creation of a furniture brand that would create modern heirlooms, built to last. From product development to production, photography, branding and design—everything was carefully researched and considered for a successful launch.Branding.
Commerce.
Experience Design.
Product Strategy.
Packaging.
Because the furniture and it’s craftsmanship is so deeply rooted in Swiss culture, so should the branding.
Swiss graphic design is iconic in the history of design. It was important to use clean typography, strong grid systems, and simple yet graphic visuals.
It was important for them to derive from history but feel modern and functional. After much exploration and experiments with various typefaces, I found “Eina.” It embodies an educational concept that transcends simple typographical use. Eina is a typeface to be explained and used to teach typography.
This was a great concept to help the storytelling and educational aspect that Studio Seitz explores in its own products. It also comes in many different weights which was important for simplicity. The letter forms were then modified to become symmetrical and balanced for the 5 letter mark.The Seitz wordmark is a representation of the furniture and objects designed—clean, minimal and balanced.
The lookbook was designed to utilize five different covers that were illustrated by Malika Favre in close collaboration.
The inside highlights each product through rich lifestyle photography and supporting editorial copy. There is also a large portion that focuses on the craftsmen and their history of craft.
Similar to the lookbook, the business cards utilized the same illustrations on the backside.The color palette was very important for the posters. The products, by nature, use simple and natural materials with little-to-no-color.
I was inspired by going to the Swiss Design Museum in Zürich, digging through the archives of great Swiss posters and adverts. I found a lot of beautiful muted color. When collaborating with illustrator Malika Favre, she helped push this further by only using two colors for each illustration. It helped portray the products in their truest and simple form.
Each illustration was also brought to life through animation for social media and press platforms.
Photography
In many cases, furniture and home companies do not invest in lifestyle photography because of the large amount of SKUs.
In the studio’s case, they wanted to show the surroundings of where the pieces derived from —the history, the landscape, the materials, the people. From the products crafted to the locations and the models, it was truly a family affair. The collection was shot in Evoléne, Switzerland inside of a restored historic mountain hut, built with classic Swiss materials—concrete and pine.
Authentic Storytelling
Because the new studio’s product was designed by a sixth generation craftsmen and built by 5th and sixth generation craftsmen in the region of Sankt Gallen, Switzerland—it was crucial to properly tell the story behind what influenced the product and how it was produced.
The Seitz collection is produced with their family of skilled craftsmen whose unparalleled passion is passed down from the generations before them—so that the furniture can be too.
Instead of concealing who or where the products are made, it was decided to highlight the craftspeople, their history, craft and process. This is done consistently across the studio’s website, social media and, most notably in the lookbook through extensive editorial photography and copy.
Responsive Website
Similarly to the lookbook, the studio website focuses on lifestyle photography with supporting editorial that explains the traditional craftsmanship methods used and the history that inspired the design.
It was designed on a rigid grid and is fully responsive, using different crops of images to better suit each breakpoint.Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson
Styling by Erin Swift
Illustration by Malika Favre
Animation by Mathieu Maillefer