Branding · 2025
Northbound Apparel
Identity and packaging for an outdoor clothing label that refuses to look like one: utilitarian type, honest materials, zero clichés.
The Story
Every outdoor brand looks the same: a mountain, a compass, an eagle if things get desperate. Northbound makes serious gear for people who actually live outside, and they wanted an identity as honest as the product.
We stripped the category clichés and built the brand on utility: a wordmark set in unpolished grotesque type, packaging that reads like equipment labeling, and materials chosen to age the way good gear does. The identity works printed on a hangtag, stitched on a chest or stamped into a shipping box.
Retailers noticed before customers did. The rebrand opened doors to stockists who had passed on the old brand twice.
Stocked by 40+ retailers within a year of the rebrand
40+
Retailers stocking the brand
2x
Direct-to-consumer sales
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