Brief
Armada Group, one of the Middle East’s leading fashion retailers, selected Nucleus to create a new fast fashion brand for the Gulf market.
Armada wanted a brand name and identity to position the business to compete with European fast fashion brands like: Missguided, Pretty Little Things, Zara, Primark and Boohoo.
The brand concept suggested to us one eye on the catwalk and the other on street style, offering fashionable clothing and accessories for younger fashion-conscious consumers. With Armada Group’s business process expertise in design, manufacturing and distribution, pricing was to be highly competitive.
Solution
Our first task was to name the brand. As Armada envisaged a continuously refreshed collection, featuring the latest fashion trends, one of our naming themes was ‘fresh fashion’. By adding a twist, we created ‘Fresqa’, which was registrable as a trade mark in all Armada’s core markets. We were also able to register the www.fresqa.com domain.
We proposed the brand promise of ‘fresh fashion for less’ to support explain the proposition and reinforce the brand name’s meaning.
Nucleus then designed a complete brand identity system to cover physical and ecommerce retail applications. The logo features the Q turned into a magnifying glass to suggest ‘search’. The contemporary colour palette, with a set of ‘colour glows’ identifies product ranges: green for women, purple for kids and orange for home. The colour glows were designed to help customers navigate the product ranges in store, online, in labelling and across promotions and marketing communications, including social media.
We proposed a stripped-back visual aesthetic, using clean white with highlighted colours to keep the brand vibrant and youthful in feel. The brand mark and brand system were designed for both Arabic and English applications.
Nucleus worked with Armada’s interior designers on the Fresqa flagship store, to ensure the brand was applied effectively to fascias, point of sale and other instore graphics.
Results
Fresqa launched in September 2020, as the fashion market emerged from the effects of the first lockdowns. It quickly established itself as a worthy competitor to existing fast fashion retailers in the Gulf region.
Ammar Al Tahan, Chief Executive Officer of the Armada Group commented: “since our launch in September 2020, we have been working hard to integrate internet technology and our strong bond with clothing manufacturing sectors to bring quality products to our customers. In the unceasing pursuit of the best customer experience, the Fresqa brand sits at the heart of our ambitions.”