002 · Brand & E-commerce · '26
UPGEARED
Brand StrategyDesign & ArtworkWeb Design
An automotive streetwear brand built by the studio from scratch: the identity, the designs, the campaign and its Shopify store.
Visit upgeared.co ↗An automotive streetwear brand built by the studio from scratch: the identity, the designs, the campaign and its Shopify store.
Visit upgeared.co ↗UPGEARED is the studio's own label: graphic tees that each pay tribute to one car, for the people who grew up with them. With no warehouse and no shop floor, the brand and the online store had to do all the selling. Everything was made from zero: the identity, the artwork, the images and the store.
Every design is built around a single car, named down to the model: Diablo VT, E30 M3, GT86. The cars are grouped by mood into three collections, so a 2000s grand tourer can sit next to an 80s supercar.
The logo's three forward-leaning stripes set the angle for everything else: the homepage, the page transitions and the product panels.
A badge with speed in it.
Three stripes lean forward ahead of a heavy italic wordmark, closed by one red slash. It holds at every size, from a browser tab to a keychain.
The logo assembles stripe by stripe, then the wordmark, then the red slash. It opens the store and closes the film.
The writing names the car and its numbers, and the neck label speaks to the people already in on it: "If you're reading this, you're late to the meet."
Seven cars, seven artworks.
Each artwork follows the mood of its collection: sunset gradients and palm trees for Vice, hand-painted halftone for Underground, race livery and heavy type for Circuit.
From left: the Diablo, Continental and IS 300h for Vice, the E30 M3 and 911 Turbo S for Underground, the E36 M3 and GT86 for Circuit.
The Lexus artwork went through several rounds before it went to print, down to the colour of the title.
Every design comes as a front print, and some also as front and back with a small logo on the chest: two price points from the same artwork, side by side in the store.
One look per collection.
Each collection gets its own light: Miami sun for Vice, garage light for Underground, a car park at night for Circuit. The same images carry the store, the collection pages and social.
"Neon dusk. Palm silhouettes. Cars that made the 80s."
"Halftone and hand paint. Marker on paper. Built in the garage."
"Engineered, not styled."
The promo film and the clips go through the same VHS-style pass and end on the store's address, so every post for a drop looks like it came off the same tape. Turn the sound on.
A Shopify store built around the brand.
The storefront is designed and built from scratch and connected to Shopify, which runs products, payments and orders. Each order is printed and shipped by a print-on-demand partner: no stock to buy, no unsold sizes.
The homepage shows the three collections side by side, cut on the logo's angle. Choosing one sweeps diagonal blades across the screen in that collection's colour.
Inside a collection the page moves sideways, tee after campaign image, and ends by leading into the next collection.
Front and back views, colours, sizes, fit, care and print size, with a link to the car's story. The search bar asks for your car, which is how customers think.
A journal on the cars behind the designs.
Each tee links to a story about its car: its history, its numbers, the collection it belongs to. Customers get a reason to stay, and search engines get a real page about every car.
