Cento Adepte

“A fashion brand identity which transforms color from Luca Johnson's childhood photographs with fashion garments to redefine stylistic success.”

Cento Adepte Store

Detailed Description

Cento Adepte's mission is to disrupt the fashion industry by guiding people to redefine stylistic success within themselves.

This is the antidote to micro-trends because memories can’t be faked. This fashion brand pays homage to Founder & Fashion Designer Luca Johnson's childhood memories, using them in designs to disrupt stylistic passive consumerism. We are an entry point for people to explore their own undivided style.

Not playing the game is the real social status. Trends can never touch your own stylistic success. Real success isn’t something you buy into, it’s something you embody. Don’t wait for permission to have style.

Services

Brand Design

Co-Creative Direction

Web & Social Design

Industry

Fashion

Year

2026

What's the brief?

Create a brand identity for Cento Adepte across digital and print as an extension of Luca Johnson's life and sense of style.

Extra Brief Details

Deliverables:

Website
- The digital hub for Cento Adepte shopping and information made in the Framer with the following:
  - eCommerce shopping, A cool intro to the site, Brief philosophy/About page, Contact (email only)
Logos and Color Palette
- Basic colors & gradients
  - Three logos:
    - Vertical: One logo icon, Type-based logo
    - Horizontal: leather-press style
Type System
- A type system with two fonts applied to a copy matrix:
  - Headlines, Supporting Copy, Product name, Claims, Terms & Conditions
Cento Adepte Brand Identity
- A unique and captivating brand identity across digital and print, which transforms color and type through Luca’s childhood photographs, combined with his fashion garments, creating an entry point for people to redefine their own stylistic success.
Brand Application
- Consistent brand application showing how Cento Adepte would be applied across:
  - Print, Clothing Tag, Business Cards, Email Signatures, Social Media
Brand Guidelines
- Branding Guidelines showing the correct ways to implement all the deliverables.
Social Media Strategy
- This is a thought process and order of operations in order to establish a stronger social media presence.
Social Media Content + Formats
- This is an outline of how what formats to make social media posts, how often, and how to share our specific point of view.
Social Media Post Ideas + Templates
- These are ideas and templates to stand out in the algorithm by combining our core principles with a visual or copy hook, varying across concepts.

Key Insight

The elite use aesthetics as an extension of their capital which they elevate to "successful standards" through nepotism. (Bourdieu, "Distinction", 1979).

Style isn't something to accomplish, it's something to fulfill internally. By not playing the game (mass + passive consumerism), we become unconformed. What's waiting for us when we become unconformed? Memories and feelings before exclusion defined us.

More Insight Details

CONTEXT

The objects we treasure from our childhood or family are class indicators.
Whether it’s an old stuffed animal, or a ridable Rolls Royce toy car, our style is defined by these objects which are an extension of our inherited access to capital across money, culture, society and prestige.

1960’s

According to French Sociologist Pierre Bordeaux, the rich elite horde these capital and transfer it in-between them in order to keep the middle class out.
Basically, they maintain power through exclusion, and their style was an extension of that aesthetic distance.

1990’s

The game changed when Richard Peterson, a sociology professor, coined the term “Cultural Omnivorism”.
He describes that the upper class appreciate high brow & low brow culture + style, as long as it’s viewed through an analytical lens, like irony, nostalgia, exoticism, or intellectualization.

THE CORE ISSUE:

Because of our lifelong and inherited access to capital, we are stylistically divided.
To the elite, aesthetic success is just an extension of their success in their capital.
In order to truly resonate with others through objects we treasure, stylistic success exists only to people in the same stylistic caste as themselves.

THE BIG QUESTION:

How do we signal our style is not just an extension of our capital?
How do we re-frame stylistic success not as something to accomplish, but something to fulfill internally?

THE ANSWER:

In order to re-frame stylistic success as something to fulfill internally through objects and keepsakes we cherish, we have to do one thing: not play the game.
This is not nonchalance. By not performing, not buying into micro-trends, not waiting for permission to be who you are, we are unconformed.
What is waiting for us when we become unconformed? Memories and feelings before exclusion defined us.

The Identity

This is a brand which transforms color and type through Luca’s childhood photographs, combined with his fashion garments, becoming an entry point for people to redefine their own stylistic success.

Design Identity Details

His childhood photos were transformed into gradients, between objects, people and moments.
Mass consumerism is represented by a half-tone B&W pattern.
As the colors flow through the model/product, it extends through lines which come from the user, materializing their inner stylistic success.
The logo on top of the model's head acts as a halo and also a compass.
The words “Redefine Success” are at the bottom of the page.
- This makes the statement open ended. Is it a request, a command, or a mantra?
- While this brand primarily focuses on the fashion industry, keeping it open ended makes the brand seem more of a lifestyle/movement brand as it is largely anti-class, challenging the standards of success.