DTY | Brand Identity & Strategy Design | Willow & Blake

Brand Guidelines are full of tiny little pieces. A wordmark. A key message. A few applications of a distinctive language technique. 

A campaign is the strength test of each element. 

For example: after struggling in a Google Doc for a few days, I came up with the brand platform Cut from a different cloth. It expressed their point of difference. DTY = a uniform brand positioning like a fashion brand. It made sense in the Voice Guidelines. But passing the tool over to the DTY team and watching them create confident, snappy new social captions like “Uniform means the same everywhere else. Not here.” demonstrates that it’s not a one-line-wonder.

Okay, back to the brand film. A sum of four different finished documents.

The brief for the campaign was: relaunch Designs to You with a clear and confident point of view. The message:
DTY is the best uniform choice. A uniform supplier. And a collaborative partner for high-quality, large-scale uniform programs. 

The work started in the Willow & Blake Flinders Lane studio. We explored strategic insights, potential concepts and experimented with scripts. Then, we passed the creative thinking over to the DTY team, who perfectly shot the film in their own uniform studio.

You’ll notice something unusual about this video. DTY’s new key messages (proof points translated into their tone of voice) are embedded into the scenes

“Our hands are marked by experience” marches along the base of an order fulfillment slip. A sticker, “Tested and approved by real workers”, seals a cardboard box. “Patterns cut around human bodies” is scrawled in tailor’s chalk along the side of a garment block. 

Unlike a more traditional consumer campaign, this video doesn’t have a strict media buy. It might appear on the landing page of DTY’s website. Or on LinkedIn, with the sound off. Or as a cut-down socials. Weaving the copy lines into the film itself gives it longevity and flex. Yes, it launches the new rebrand now. But it should work just as well for a new client researching the brand in a year’s time. 

Designs to You is run by two female powerhouses. Maria Grossi, CEO/Creative Director, and Danielle Grossi, General Manager.

We asked Maria how she felt about the fit of the brand’s new uniform.What surprised me most was the opportunity to see DTY through a completely different lens. When you've spent more than 26 years building a business, you're so close to every aspect of it. You don't always stop to appreciate how much you've achieved or how far the business has evolved. 

We start most of our Voice Identity and Visual Identity projects with Strategy. It includes a competitor review, strategic recommendations to help stand out creatively and a long-term platform. It’s also one of the few times a business gets external analysis of their positioning. How did it land with you?

The brand strategy process encouraged us to step outside the day-to-day operations and look at DTY from the perspective of our customers, our industry and the broader market. What stood out to me was the importance of communicating not just what we do, but what makes us different. We've always placed enormous value on our relationships, our service, the quality of our products and our ability to find solutions for our customers. These are things we've built our reputation on but perhaps haven't always communicated as confidently as we could. It reinforced that we had a much bigger story to tell.

For me, the biggest realisation was that we didn't need to change who we were. We needed to be more confident in telling the world who we'd become. That was incredibly valuable and ultimately helped shape the direction of our new brand platform, Cut From a Different Cloth.

Rebranding a business with decades of history and an established identity in the minds of its customers is a risk. How did you know it was time for DTY to change? 

I think there comes a point in any business journey where you realise just how far you've come. Our capabilities, our reach, the industries we service and the relationships we've built have all grown well beyond what I could have imagined when I first started the business. While our business had continued to evolve, I felt our brand no longer truly reflected who we had become or what we were capable of delivering. Of course, rebranding an established business comes with risks, particularly when you've spent decades building trust, recognition and loyalty. But I also believe that standing still can be just as risky. For me, this wasn't about changing who we are. It was about creating a brand that reflects the confidence, experience and expertise we've built over the years, while positioning DTY for the next chapter of growth.

Our values, our commitment to quality and service, and the relationships we've built remain unchanged. We've simply evolved the way we present ourselves to the world. I'm incredibly proud of our history, but I'm equally excited about our future. I wanted our brand to reflect both.

How do you measure a successful rebrand?

We weren't looking to reinvent DTY. We wanted to elevate the way our business is perceived and ensure our brand truly reflects the experience, capabilities and expertise we've built. Since launching in September, it's still early days, but I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved. The new identity has given us a stronger, more confident platform to showcase who we are, the industries we service and the solutions we deliver. Of course, the real measure of success will come over time, through stronger brand recognition, new business opportunities, continued customer loyalty and our ability to reach new markets. One of the most important things for me was ensuring our existing customers still recognised the DTY they've come to know and trust, while introducing a more contemporary and progressive brand to those discovering us for the first time.

Ultimately, I'll consider the rebrand a success if it not only celebrates how far we've come, but helps take DTY even further.

What are the elements of the Visual and Voice identity that your team loves the most? 

What I love most about our new identity is that it feels distinctly DTY. It's confident, contemporary and sophisticated, but still has the warmth and personality that have always been part of our business.

From a visual perspective, I particularly love the colour palette, the typography and the fashion-led direction of our imagery. They give us a much more elevated and cohesive identity, one that feels equally at home in the fashion world as it does in the uniform industry.

For our team, one of the greatest benefits has been having a consistent visual identity and tone of voice that we can confidently carry across everything we do, from our website and marketing campaigns through to our product presentations, packaging and customer communications. We want to sound knowledgeable and professional, but never overly corporate or unapproachable. Previously, we knew what made DTY different, but we didn't always have a clear or consistent way of expressing it. The new identity has helped bridge that gap.

What I keep coming back to, though, is our brand statement, Cut From a Different Cloth.

For me, those five words capture everything we've always believed in. We don't approach uniforms as simply something people are required to wear. We see them as an opportunity to bring together fashion, functionality, individuality and comfort, while creating something people genuinely feel good wearing.

The greatest achievement of our new identity is that it has given us a clearer, more confident way to express what has always made DTY different. It's not about becoming a different business. It's about finally having a brand that speaks as confidently as the business behind it.

Your new campaign is the first time DTY has created a brand film. How’s it performing? 

Creating our first brand film was an exciting milestone for DTY and something I had wanted to explore for quite some time. We have an incredible story to tell, and I wanted to bring that story to life in a way that went beyond traditional product photography and marketing. What I particularly love about the campaign is that it captures the fashion-led approach we've always brought to uniforms. It's contemporary, confident and a little unexpected. It has given us a valuable creative platform to build upon as we continue introducing our brand to new audiences and markets.

Since launching in September, it's still early days to measure its full commercial impact, but I'm incredibly proud of the finished campaign and what it represents for our business. For me, its success isn't measured by views and engagement alone. It's about creating a lasting impression, building stronger brand recognition and encouraging people to look at DTY, and uniforms, from a different perspective.

Any final words? What’s next for DTY?

I'm genuinely excited about what lies ahead for DTY. After more than 26 years in business, I feel we are entering one of our most exciting chapters yet. We've built an incredible foundation over the years, supported by loyal customers, longstanding partnerships and a team that shares our commitment to quality, service and innovation. Our new brand gives us the confidence and platform to build on that foundation, explore new opportunities, expand into new markets and continue challenging the traditional perception of uniforms.

I also want to acknowledge Willow & Blake and thank their team for the creativity, dedication and perseverance they've brought to this journey. Like any significant transformation, the process wasn't without its challenges. There were moments when we needed to revisit ideas, challenge perspectives and work harder to find the right direction. But I believe those conversations are an important part of the creative process, and I genuinely appreciate Willow & Blake's willingness to listen, collaborate and persevere to achieve an outcome we can all be proud of.

To our customers, partners and team who have been part of our journey, I am incredibly grateful. Your trust and support have helped shape the business we are today, and I never take that for granted. Our history is something I'm immensely proud of, but it's our future that excites me most. We're still the same DTY at heart, with the same values and commitment to our customers, just with a renewed sense of confidence, purpose and ambition. If there's one thing I can promise, it's that we'll continue to be Cut From a Different Cloth.