Redefining visual identity through brand abduction

Brand Abduction • UX & UI Design • Photography

Hat Heaven

Hat Heaven

Hat Heaven

The brief

While Hat Heaven had a solid reputation for product quality, the brand faced challenges in aligning its visual identity and marketing approach with its diverse customer base. The existing imagery and brand tone seemed to appeal to a limited demographic, primarily focusing on a female-centric, stylized presentation that did not fully reflect the broader, sports-centric customer base.


To address this, Hat Heaven engaged in a comprehensive visual identity overhaul through our Brand Abduction Workshop, aimed at discovering creative, marketing, and strategic opportunities to reposition the brand and resonate more deeply with its audience.

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The approach: Brand Abduction Workshop

We ran a Brand Abduction Workshop, which is a structured yet flexible discovery process designed to unearth valuable insights and refine a brand’s direction. For Hat Heaven, this took place over a series of sessions and involved several interactive and collaborative exercises.

The workshop was broken down into four key phases.

The phases

1. Understanding the Business


We kicked off by defining the business goals, objectives, and values. We invited all stakeholders to participate, ensuring their knowledge and insights shaped the process.


A unique exercise involved asking Hat Heaven to supply six photos that encapsulate the brand. This helped us delve into the company’s culture and history, allowing us to understand their values and brand narrative.


2. Audience & Competitive Landscape


We explored Hat Heaven's target audience and competitive landscape through an exercise we call "Access the Terrain." This involved evaluating competitors, customer preferences, and market gaps.

The interactive session helped bridge the gap between Hat Heaven’s offerings and what makes their competitors compelling, allowing us to identify areas for differentiation and growth.

The phases

3. Mission Success


This phase was about defining the brand’s goals – what they wanted to achieve and what success looked like for them. We also prioritised what aspects were "mission-critical" and what areas could be improved or explored further.

4. View of the Universe


In this exercise, we mapped out Hat Heaven's brand universe, where we identified the key elements that should remain core to the brand (such as premium product quality) and explored new territories for creative exploration, such as evolving their visual style.

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The approach

Research & Evaluation


Following the workshop, we conducted thorough research on Hat Heaven’s competitors and gathered data to support our strategy. Using Miro, we built a comprehensive visual montage of imagery, data points, and competitor analysis to present back to the client.


Key Insight: Visual Identity


Through the Brand Abduction process, we discovered that Hat Heaven’s visual identity was the area most in need of transformation. The current photography and marketing imagery leaned heavily towards a “raunchy” style, featuring women in sexualised poses, which did not appeal to the mass sports fan market, Hat Heaven’s largest customer demographic.

The solution

Redefining the Visual Identity

We proposed a complete overhaul of Hat Heaven’s visual identity to better resonate with their primary audience, which we broke down into key personas:

1. The Hat Collector – Passionate about building a collection of rare and exclusive hats.


2. The Sports Fan – Interested in supporting their favourite team with official merchandise.


3. The Trendsetter – Focused on fashion and style, seeking to incorporate hats into their everyday wardrobe.

The solution

The main shift in visual identity involved moving away from overtly stylised, sexually suggestive imagery towards a more inclusive, urban, and active aesthetic. We introduced the following creative recommendations:

  • Photography: Use of active, dynamic photography, focusing on movement and lifestyle scenes in urban settings. Models were depicted wearing hats in everyday environments, with less focus on faces and more emphasis on the product itself.
  • Tone and Values: The new brand tone emphasised street casual, premium quality, and empowerment. The goal was to maintain Hat Heaven’s reputation for premium craftsmanship while infusing the brand with a relatable, effortless, and urban attitude.

Logo Refinement

As part of the identity refresh, we also identified some minor inconsistencies in Hat Heaven's existing logo. We recommended subtle grid adjustments to better align the elements and improve visual harmony, ensuring that the logo better reflected the brand’s meticulous attention to detail.

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The outcome

The final deliverable of the Brand Abduction process was a refined visual identity that better aligned with Hat Heaven’s core audience. The new imagery and branding strategy centred around:

Street Casual: Infusing the brand with an approachable, authentic urban vibe.

Premium: Highlighting the superior quality of Hat Heaven's products.

Empowerment: Inspiring customers to express their individuality through Hat Heaven’s premium fitted caps.

This visual identity overhaul positioned Hat Heaven to engage with a broader audience while maintaining their premium, high-quality image.