An automotive brand born at Cars and Coffee.
VIN Wear · Brand Identity · 2026
- Brand Identity
- Logo System
- Apparel & T-shirt Design
- Hangtags
- Art Direction
The brief
The problem: car culture apparel usually means a slogan on a black tee. VIN Wear began with a bigger brief: build a premium apparel brand from zero, made for the Cars and Coffee crowd, with the same pride an owner gives the car.
The insight came from the VIN plate. Every car carries a Vehicle Identification Number, a fingerprint no two machines share. VIN Wear borrows that logic: every garment is a registered piece, coded, tagged and certified like the cars that inspire it.
From that one idea the work ran through naming, a logo system, a dual product line, an original illustration garage, apparel graphics and packaging, all the way to a production-ready pipeline. The chapters below follow that journey in order.
01Sketch to Mark
Every mark starts in pencil. Dozens of W constructions were explored, two Vs interlocking for VIN Wear, until one sketch held the tension between speed and precision. That drawing became the monogram.
Early explorations
Refined mark
Wordmark study
Final Sketch Chosen
02One Brand, Two Lines
The identity runs on one mark and two voices: Cobalt Blue for the men’s line, Hot Pink for the women’s, with Signal Orange as the accelerator. Pattern, palette and logotype keep both lines unmistakably one brand.
03The Brand in the Wild
A brand for car people has to survive car places. The system was proven on coffee cups, packaging, liveries and paddock scenes before a single shirt was printed.
04From Vector to T-Shirt
Graphics are drawn for cotton, not for screens: bold shapes that hold at print scale, disciplined front and back placements, and the helmet motif that became a brand signature.
05On the Street
Shot the way the brand lives: at Cars and Coffee, between the machines. The brand’s two models carry both lines, from GT-R tees to the checkered back.
06A Garage of Illustrations
An original illustration garage: Camaro to Supra, each car redrawn as a bold vector that keeps its silhouette and attitude at any print size.
07The Second Collection
The Automotive Art series expands the garage to 18 machines in four colour treatments: orange, hot pink, black fill and line-art sketch, one for every line and mood.
08Registered, Tagged, Certified
The idea closes the loop where it started: every garment ships with a VIN-style certification badge, a registration-card hangtag and a woven label, each in the colour of its line.
VIN Certification Badge
Male Line: Woven Tag
Female Line: Woven Tag
09The Outcome
What began as a sketchbook of Ws is now a full production system: an identity with rules, an illustration library, apparel templates ready for print on demand, and a storefront built to launch. The brand ships.