Timothy.
Building a brand and e-commerce website for the perfect travelling companion.
Project role
Design Lead
Branding
UI/UX
Agency
Brand42
Year
2024
The Challenge
Timothy is a British premium travel goods brand. We were approached to build a new e-commerce platform to align with their flagship store opening in London, followed by stores in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore. Although Timothy had existed for over a decade, the brand and products were being relaunched, and we needed to strategise on how they could shine in an extremely saturated market.
The Process
Fixing an identity crisis
Upon reviewing the existing brand, it seemed misaligned with the 'premium' target market and lacked a sense of British identity. However, the founder's dual Chinese-British nationality, the name 'Timothy' signifying 'luck' in Chinese, and core values of innovation, quality engineering, and customer service presented a compelling narrative opportunity. We explored three brand routes and initiated the development of a flexible e-commerce website framework that could scale with the brand and product portfolio.
The Outcome
Timothy London
We positioned the 'London' tag under an emboldened 'o' to anchor Timothy in its British roots and play on the circle's cultural significance in China. Whether as a complete word mark or in isolation, the 'o' and 'London' combine to create a hallmark symbol for all their products and encapsulate Timothy's essence - travelling in harmony.
Meanwhile, Colophon’s Weave typeface helps to elevate Timothy's positioning into the premium market, paired with Displaay’s Roobert to accompany blueprint product illustrations and detailed descriptions. The Chinese-British fusion is further enforced with a palette anchored in deep racing greens and vibrant jades.
From London to online
To bring the new identity into the digital realm, I played a key role in constructing a design system and overseeing the end-to-end development of UI and UX designs. In anticipation of the official launch, we introduced a preliminary single-page website, which served to gather interest and sign-ups prior to the full rollout of the Shopify integrated e-commerce site just weeks later.
I sourced photographer Oliver Oglesby and rendering studio Welpix to create Timothy's original portfolio of imagery. Photography set the standard for image aesthetics, capturing key design details and engineering product quality. Rendering provided an outlet to showcase product functionality through animations, whilst creating imagery for products that remained in production.
