If you love it, share it – creating a brand that puts Gen Z at the centre of people-powered shopping.
CREATIVE DIRECTION VISUAL IDENTITY WEBSITE DESIGN MARKETING MATERIALS INVESTOR PRESENTATIONS
The business
‘i love it’ (ili to its friends) is a new way to shop, based on genuine recommendations from people like you. It’s a marketplace curated around the things you love, powered by the people you admire, and designed to ensure everyone wins.
ili rewards everyday people for their recommendations with influencer-worthy commissions and is an innovative shopping platform that fuels and rewards passion-driven word-of-mouth.
The story
When ili came to us originally, they were called QRTD (pronounced Curated). The issue was, that as the offering was being developed, it no longer matched the brand and coupled with a change in market and audience, a few things had to change.
The vision
Over the course of the project, it became more clear who the primary audience was. While it still had to appeal to broad B2B and B2C audiences, the core goal was to create a brand that resonated with primarily Gen Z early adopters.
The brand was to be bold and playfully disruptive. This brand values imperfection. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, radiating authenticity and an unfiltered, real-world charm that resonates with honesty and optimism.
Familiar yet courageous, the ili brand embodies qualities that make this innovative shopping platform both useful and engaging. A focus on fairness invites everyone to believe in better and to shop with their heart and love for the planet.
The approach
The concept of ‘Making your mark’ captures the essence of a generation – Gen Z – that craves authentic, tangible experiences in an increasingly digital world. This approach brings vibrant energy to the brand, reflecting the diversity and creativity of the people it represents. The visual identity feels like a dynamic scrapbook: playful, layered, hand-drawn, and slightly chaotic, evoking a sense of nostalgia with an ‘old school’ aesthetic. It celebrates the imperfect and the real, inviting brands and audiences to engage with their genuine content.
When developing the logo we wanted to capture the idea of recommendation in as minimal a way as possible.
This resulted in us using lowercase ‘i’ characters that peek over the ‘l’ between them, much like neighbours talking over a garden fence.
The photography captures a sense of freedom, showcasing people in a flow state, authentically expressing their passions highlighted with coloured ‘energy’ lines that pulse around their figures and highlight specific features.
The energetic colour palette combines vibrant orange with an eye-catching electric blue. These are complemented by soft lilac, yellow, and paper backgrounds. When it came to typography, we wanted to create maximum impact with our headlines. Dripping with character Gaude Wide came to the rescue. FF Attribute text was chosen for the body copy, alluding to the AI tech under the hood.
The retro sticker pack aesthetic gives ili a flexible and expressive tool kit in which to apply their playful ways to their marketing materials.
