The Fresh Kid | Jon Samuels

The brief

The Fresh Kid is a customer experience consultant working with fashion, retail and heritage brands. The brief was to build a personal brand that reflected both who he is and who he was trying to attract — established fashion and heritage businesses that needed help working in the contemporary market.

The client had a clear and considered sense of his own values: sophisticated but approachable, heritage-influenced but genuinely modern, serious about craft but committed to fun as a working principle. The brand needed to hold all of that without collapsing into cliché — not corporate, not streetwear, not heritage pastiche.

The strategic idea — Nú Heritage

The central organising concept I developed was Nú Heritage — a design aesthetic and values system that takes inspiration from the past and the modern simultaneously. Heritage sophistication and contemporary chic used together, mixing classical references with progressive values.

This gave the brand a clear and distinctive position. It wasn't simply "luxury consultant" or "fashion expert" — it was someone who understood where things came from and where they were going, and could help brands navigate between the two.

The brand needed to feel like it belonged in a private members club and a contemporary art gallery at the same time — neither anachronistic nor trend-led.

The marque

A minimalist rose inspired by Sufi philosophy — the rose as a metaphor for personality, refined and cultivated rather than untamed. Geometric, precise, quietly spiritual. The marque works at any scale from business card emboss to social media profile, and carries genuine conceptual depth that rewards discovery.

Typography system

A four-level typographic hierarchy using Aria Text G2 for headings — classical and authoritative — paired with Raleway for subheadings and body copy, and Photograph Signature used sparingly for contrast and emphasis. The system creates clear hierarchy while maintaining the tension between heritage and modern that defines the brand.

Colour & texture

A warm, restrained palette — deep charcoal, cream and blush — with a secondary texture system using materials like perforated leather, silk, black PVC and burnt wood. The textures extend the brand into digital backgrounds and print applications, adding tactile richness without compromising the typographic clarity.

Photography direction

The photography direction was defined as a blend of three distinct references held in deliberate tension: heritage luxury black and white, Wes Anderson soft muted hues, and Juergen Teller overexposed contemporary fashion. This combination gave the brand a photographic voice that was immediately distinctive — not quite editorial, not quite commercial, but unmistakably considered.

The direction was documented in the brand guidelines with reference imagery and application rules, so any photographer commissioned could understand the aesthetic without ambiguity.

The guidelines system

The deliverable was a complete brand guidelines document — not a set of rules but a genuinely useful creative reference that explained the thinking behind every decision. The guidelines covered:

Primary, secondary and sub-brand logo configurations with spacing and minimum size rules.
The marque — its philosophical origin, correct usage, placement rules and minimum and maximum sizes.
Full colour system with primary and secondary palettes, tint combinations and legibility rules.
Complete typographic hierarchy with four typefaces — roles, sizes, weights and pairing logic all documented.
Texture system — six materials defined with application guidance for digital and print contexts.
Photography style with reference imagery and direction for future shoots.
Social media applications and profile icon specifications.

The outcome

The Fresh Kid launched with a brand identity that genuinely reflected his positioning — sophisticated enough to be credible to heritage fashion clients, contemporary enough to feel current, and warm enough to feel human rather than corporate. The Nú Heritage concept gave the brand a clear philosophical foundation that made every visual decision coherent rather than arbitrary.

The copyright for all work belongs to me — the client subsequently used elements of the identity without completing the commission. This is a dispute I'm comfortable making visible, because the work speaks for itself and demonstrates exactly the kind of senior brand thinking that a consultancy at this level requires.