Case study — Logo redesign · 2019
Mellow
Wordmark for a fashion brand founded by two sisters.
My role
New wordmark and monogram, replacing the label's original logo. Nothing else: the founders designed and produced everything the mark went on.
The idea
M and W — the first and last letters of the name — are the same letter, mirrored. Two sisters, one reflection.
The Brand
Moscow womenswear, sold across Russia, 2015–2025.
The Context
Two sisters, one label
Four years in, the brief was one line long: a new logo.
Mellow was a Moscow womenswear label founded by two sisters who designed the clothes they wanted to wear themselves. In 2019, four years in, they asked me to redesign their logo. That was the whole brief: no naming, no campaign, no brand book. Everything the new mark would live on, they were going to make themselves.
Small briefs are the honest ones: there is nowhere to hide.
The Mark
M and W are the same letter, mirrored
The first and last letters link the ends of the word — two sisters in front of one mirror.
The wordmark plays with the first and last letters of the name: M and W are drawn as inverted versions of each other, linking the beginning and the end of the word. Balance and symmetry — two sisters looking at themselves in the mirror, wearing dresses of their own design.
Folded into a monogram, M sits above W like a reflection on water — a mark compact enough for a garment tag and quiet enough for the clothes themselves.
The Contrast
Strict form, soft word
Geometric letters for a word that means calm.
The letterforms are strict and geometric, while the word itself — mellow — speaks of softness and calm. The tension between how the word looks and what it says is the brand's double message: “I am calm and self-aware — and also intentional and structured.”
In Use
Six years in hands that weren't mine
One mark, one weight of black. The brand never speaks louder than the garment.
I handed over a logo and nothing else. The founders built everything around it themselves: the garments, the packaging, the accessories, the photography, the Instagram feed.
From 2019 until the label closed, the mark was on every piece they released, on every box and dust bag, in every post, and on the door of their shop.
That is the real test of a small brief. A mark has to hold on its own, applied by people who are not designers, with no brand book to lean on.
Reflection
What this project taught me
A logo is the smallest possible brand: when the brief is one mark, every decision inside it has to do a job — the mirrored letters carry the founders' story, the geometry carries the discipline, the word carries the softness.
Not every detail needs to catch the eye or announce itself. It's enough that it means something to the founders, who see themselves, their story and their bond in the mark on every piece they made.
Credits
Founders
Anna & Maria Tebloeva
Photography
Mellow in-house Damir Ismagilov
Next Case:
2024
Brand for a premium residential development in Moscow’s Academic district, near Moscow State University.