A Cultural Grenade

A new brand book gives a jolt to American Giant

5 years after creating the “the greatest hoodie ever made,” American Giant was a growing business, selling a complete line of quality clothing, all made here in the USA.

Despite their success, CEO and founder Bayard Winthrop saw a need: to get back the radical spirit with which he’d created the company and bring new energy to the brand. He reached out to Wild Shore.

We jumped in, spending time interviewing Bayard to uncover and understand the ideas that the business had been founded on: a dissatisfaction with how clothes were made, and the desire to reinvigorate manufacturing communities, and the pursuit of a better way.

Make things better. Make better things. This is the distillation we reached that drove everything; American Giant’s product, their supply chain, the ethos.

We were excited. We created a brand book to get everything to get everyone sharing the same vision, feeling the same excitement and connecting to the company’s fundamental values.

Often, a brand book is a tool for creating consistency. In this case it was about showing possibility, exploding opportunities, a cultural grenade meant to shake loose opportunities and create a new dynamism.

In the American spirit of the company, it’s not a rulebook — just a set of provocations and ideas that can be interpreted by people for each situation.

Wild Shore is a creative company. We work with founders, entrepreneurs and marketers to build modern brands.

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