Your Name: Carlos Saez

Location: Long Beach, California (USA) and Andalucía ,Spain (EUROPE)

Brand Name: Parafina

Slogan/Mission Statement: Stay Rad

-PRESENTATION:

Hi! My name is Carlos and I am based Spain (Europe) I launched the brand in March 2013. We draw, make pictures, create concepts, and ship the goods... all by ourselves under one roof (our own house) We are self financing our project too. I´m really happy to come here to learn and share stuff with you. Thanks to Señor Jeff for letting us learn from his experience and advice, your help is much appreciated.

-BRAND DIRECTION / BACKGROUND

I love hand drawn art, the big outdoors, and to spend my time with family and friends. I traveled the world on my back pack for 8-9 years. I like to create cool, fun and beautiful handmade stuff. I am looking forward to tell a story of love for the ourdoors in a fun way.

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PROJECT OVERVIEW:

PART 1: BRAND NAME AND SLOGAN

A) NAMING

My brand name is "PARAFINA" it is the latin word for "surf wax". It works in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, it is understandable in French wich I think it is a plus;) Parafina is the conection "the grip" or "the link" between man and ocean. Something simple but really meaningful.

B) SLOGAN

The slogan I am using is "STAY RAD" I wanted to convey the feeling of staying authentic, searching for adventure and being yourself, with very few words. That´s the the story I´d like to tell trough my designs.

PART 2: REFINING YOUR LOGO

A) SHARE YOUR LOGO AND WORDMARK: ( In this case we have a mascot ) Shown as project cover photo. I am working on a logo icon right now using Jeff´s advice.

B) EXTRA CREDIT, SCALED VERSIONS:

PARAFINA - image 1 - student project

Neck tags and hang tags details. ( The wood slice was cut and hand printed by us, we picked a lot of fallen branches from a local forest to make these.)

PARAFINA - image 2 - student project

Letterpress brand manifesto, we give away with any product ordered..

PARAFINA - image 3 - student project

Beach stand at the Salinas longboard festival 24-28 July 2013.

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our slogan over a picture of a surfer at Salinas.

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A little something we wrote in the back of the hang tags;)

PART 3: STORYTELLING TROUGH YOUR COLLECTION

A) We aim our products to people who enjoy to go have fun outside, camping, bonfires, comfortable clothing, and have an eco-friendly approach to what they consume. They are regular people who enjoy to travel and to experience adventure... climbers, snowboarders, surfers, van goers, skaters...

B) Parafina´s brand theme is "love for the outdoors" and our first collection is based on ideas and characters around that philosophy.

C) OVERVIEW:

Product and packaging process with all the details: PARAFINA - image 6 - student project

T-shirt and artwork detail.

PARAFINA - image 7 - student project

Packaging elements. Customer name and "thank you notes" are done by hand with lots of love.

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Wrapping and bagging.

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Final package ready to ship to customer.

PARAFINA - image 10 - student project

Brand manifesto.

D) COLLECTION (Launched summer 2013)

We are printing on AA t-shirts, we wanted our clothing to be made in USA or Europe. We didn´t have the budget to do cut and sew, so we started with the best quality blanks we could find. We use organic cotton, triblends and enzime washed t´s.

For our printing we are using waterbased and discharge inks. Our printing is done in Vista, California for the US market and in Spain for the Euro market. All our t´s are made in L.A. (sweatshop free). We sell direct to our customers trough our website but we also have some nice shops worldwide that sell our stuff. Our brand is for example at "Thalia surf shop" in Laguna Beach, Ca, Named one of the top 5 surf shops in the planet. We are also in Blue-Tomato, Europe´s biggest online streetwear/surf/snow/ski retailer. We got into this places just showing them some of our products trough email ( Isn´t it crazy? ).

Our tag price is 28 USD for the T´s and 120 USD for the sunglasses.

PARAFINA - image 11 - student project

- El capitán:

Theme Inspired by: ‘The old man and the sea’ novel. An old salt with a thousand tales, wise, authentic as the sea itself. He knows the tides by heart and can predict the weather ahead with just a quick glimpse to the horizon or just pointing his nose to the sea-foam. I´d love to look like him one day.

How it fits with the brand personality? Key points: Hand drawn, one color, sea related, love for the sea, Hemingway. I think this design resonates well with Parafina´s big picture, message and philosophy. / Colors: White (shown) , Heather grey.

PARAFINA - image 12 - student project

-SeaFever:

Theme Inspired by: One of John Masefield’s most beautiful poems "Sea Fever". Tall ships, wind on the sails, flying sea foam, the nomadic life, staying true to ourselves and doing what we love to do until the end of our lives.

How it fits with the brand personality? Key point: Freedom. With this concept I wanted to express we can live and dream adventures for the rest of our lives. / Color: Black.

PARAFINA - image 13 - student project

-Bureau of stoked personnel:

Theme Inspired by: Navy seal. A lot of people is stoked to be in the ocean enjoying waves right? Nothing better than a great white shark biting a rusty anchor to express the strength of our love for the ocean. I wanted it to represent our commitment and passion to this lifestyle we care for.

How it fits with the brand personality? Key points: Strenght, community, sea, surf, parody of a "naval office" seal and turning it into something new, cool and fun. / Colors: White (Shown) Light blue, Heather grey.

PARAFINA - image 14 - student project

-The Waveman:

Theme Inspired by: The ocean as a character itself, inspired by the big wave of kanagawa, the big kahoona, the big logs of driftwood that surf ashore, the force of nature. Here comes waveman throwing Shakas to all of us.

How it fits with the brand personality? Key points: Fun, hand drawn, one color, sea related, love for the sea, nature, outdoors. / Colors: White (Shown) / Grey / Natural

PARAFINA - image 15 - student project

Theme Inspired by: Localism. There´s a lot of that in surfing. But for us the real locals are those who were there before anyone else… The California animals. Inspired from it´s flag comes this American bear with an eyepatch staring at the waves in front of his cave… we just couldn´t think in anything cooler than that.

How it fits with the brand personality? Key point: Fun and Irony, making fun of a nonsense situation travelers have to deal with when surfing different breaks. / Colors: Natural (shown) , Cinder.

PARAFINA - image 16 - student project

PARAFINA - image 17 - student project

PARAFINA - image 18 - student project

PARAFINA - image 19 - student project

-Soul Captain:

Theme Inspired by: Visual metaphor plays a big role in this one. ‘Let your soul be your pilot’ , ‘be yourself’, ‘follow your dreams with all your heart’. That way you´ll never get lost and you will always find your way back home.

How it fits with the brand personality? Key points: Write your own adventure, this one is a bit more romantic and emotional and it tries to make people connect with our brand´s philosophy. Colors: White, Natural, Heather blue.

We also decided to ad wood sunglasses as a product for our first colection.They are great, handmade sunglasses, polarized lenses, inox springs. They come with a very nice bamboo box and microfiber pouch. Thay are really light and they float;) Our customers are loving them.

PARAFINA - image 20 - student project

We took this pic in front of our house for our 2014 lookbook.

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Out of the package.

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Our model "Vega" with brown lenses. ( Note the subtle branding outside and the brand name and model inside the temples.)

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This wood is waterproof and they float too!

PARAFINA - image 24 - student project

Brown stained frame with engraved detail.

PARAFINA - image 25 - student project

Our friend Jose on the Sierra Stained brown/Black polarized lenses.

E) EXTRAS:

A few more lookbook shots ( we took this just a few weeks ago.)

PARAFINA - image 26 - student project

PARAFINA - image 27 - student project

New t-shirt model coming soon: "El Muerto" is inspired in the trips to Baja California Mexico, día de los muertos adventure.

PARAFINA - image 28 - student project

A sneak peek, of one of our new t´s. Born free.

PARAFINA - image 29 - student project

Sunrise at the beach, shoot right in front of our house/warehouse.

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Parafina friends.

PARAFINA - image 31 - student project

This is my car. The infamous VW Bus! Hope you enjoyed the project. Please fell free to leave criticism or feedback. Help is always welcome!

PARAFINA - image 32 - student project

We just got this edit from our first lookbook. Hope you guys like it! :

http://vimeo.com/adelkhader/parafina

ALOHA.

http://parafinaco.com

https://www.facebook.com/ParafinaCo

http://carletessaez.tumblr.com

http://pinterest.com/ParafinaCo/

https://twitter.com/ParafinaCo

Carlos Saez

Parafina Co.

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