Project Summary
Kal-Raah is a contemporary fashion label. Founded by Sumer Singh Kalrah, the brand is a reflection of a lived duality shaped by the movement between London and Mumbai. Rooted in South Asian craftsmanship and symbolism, Kal-Raah values sustainable fabrics, mindful production, and deep respect for the artisans and processes behind each garment.
This project shows my process through re-designing Kal-Raah's logo and how I made the decision to change the current structure in order to help advance the brand's look in the current market.
Project
Kal-Raah Visual Refresh
Client
Kal-Raah
Contents
Cultural Research -
Challenge and Objective
The current logo of Kal-Raah has been generated by Artificial Intelligence, and has several fatal flaws in its overall finish. The initial objective is give this logo a refresh, something that can be perceived well by both South Asian culture and UK culture.
Key flaws being:
• Paws being inconsistent, with noticable gaps where outline not connected.
• Mouth looks to have multiple tongues.
• Stripes throughout, especially on the tail are really poor, the Ai engine clearly struggled with these small details.
• The face is a generic big cat face, without having any strong signs of being a tiger.
• Overall the Tiger lacks looking like a tiger without its striking stripes.
Process
First step I wanted to achieve was to understand the values of Kal-Raah. Something that stood out to me was their love and passion for their process, their manufacturing and how traditional it is. Pairing these values with my project in order to create a logo in a traditional and bespoke process.
Research into the relationship India has with tigers, so going forward I have an understanding of how to accurately convey the final design. I had the idea of possibly changing the tiger to a more abstract shape, rather than in an agressive and attackive state. But the research telling me that they have been perceived as man-eaters and illustrated as that commonly for hundreds of years.
Sketch:
Even after my research, I still wanted to try and attempt the tiger with the type in, just incase the client preffered it, however I could not make it work, so I took the text out and continued to develop the tiger without the text.
Development consisted of thickening the stripes and rounding points off in order to have them look less sharp and thin when scaled down.
Making sure there is consistency throughout in regard to weight and the claws.
It is a great representation of Kal-Raah's brand values with the craft being handmade. 'Traditional craft through a modern design lens', and creating a logo inspired by traditional Indian artwork and designing it for a modern market.
To give Kal-Raah the ultimate bespoke experience, I included their initials K.R into the stripes. Embedding their initials with this unique detail shows viewers a lot about the brand's value in their products. Due to this amount of attention to detail, that is shown in their logo.
Inspired by lacoste and Polo Ralph Lauren, I wanted to achieve a logo that can be widely versatile in different colours and work on a wide range of colours. The logo is currently used embroidered on the back of their brown trousers, above the pocket.
The top 4 designs have a thicker back on them, which is for patches like Lacoste have, in order to stitch on the logo, rather then embroidered, as the tiger has some small details, like the teeth. Teeth can always be removed to make the embroidered process easier.
