01 / Market signal
All-over print was gaining momentum
Pattern was becoming increasingly visible and commercially important across other brands’ product offerings.
Seasonal Print Direction / Apparel Graphics / Product Application
G-Star
RAW
Case study
Building a Commercial Print Category
Project overview
I developed an all-over-print language that translated G-Star RAW’s DNA into a new form of brand expression across men’s and women’s product.
- Role
- Concept, brand expression, print direction, visual-language development
- Reach
- Men’s and women’s product lines
- Outcome
- A recurring and commercially successful product direction
The opportunity
Make a growing category unmistakably G-Star
02 / Commercial opportunity
Translate the category, not the trend
The goal was to make all-over print commercially relevant for G-Star without borrowing another brand’s visual language.
Brand influences
Principles behind the brand
Four recurring influences defined the territory for the print direction. Together they provided a clear filter for deciding what could feel authentically G-Star.
01 / Influence
Military
Function comes first through utility, modular construction, protection, and details designed to solve a specific need.
02 / Influence
Industrial
Industrial design brings function, form, materials, and manufacturing together to create products that feel precise, purposeful, and engineered.
03 / Influence
Workwear
Honest materials, durable construction, practical silhouettes, and purposeful details keep the expression grounded in real use.
04 / Influence
Unexpected combinations
Familiar codes become new when influences, proportions, scales, and contexts are combined in unfamiliar ways.
Translation
From brand influence
to product expression
Each example can make the brand logic visible by connecting the print artwork directly to its final expression on product.
Example 01 / Influence to product
01 / Research and design logic
Geometric camouflage
Research connected military camouflage, industrial grid systems, and geometric abstraction. The booklet documents how these influences were filtered and translated into a structured print direction.
01 / 05
01 / Context
Mind map tracing camouflage history and translating its principles into G-Star’s brand language.
02 / Dazzle camouflage influence
Like the hand-painted helmets of First World War German storm troopers, bold geometric forms and sharp contrasts disrupted a ship’s silhouette, making its course, speed, and scale harder to judge through a periscope.
03 / Industrial grid
Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel’s New Alphabet reduced letterforms to a strict grid of horizontal and vertical strokes, turning early computer-screen constraints into a new graphic language.
04 / Optical art
Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher used tessellation—an interlocking grid of repeated forms—to turn symmetry and repetition into optical illusion, movement, and depth.
05 / Grid Camouflage
Using a triangular grid as a base, an industrial galvanised-steel source is traced into a camouflage pattern that is native to G-Star’s brand values.
01 / Print artwork
The print carries the brand’s Military and Industrial principles from ideation through to design execution. Original scale: 64 × 64 cm.
02 / Final product
The direction translated differently across the two product lines. For women’s, it became a fabric interest, a considered way to introduce camouflage on basics when it was still a challenging sell.
Example 02 / Influence to product
01 / Print artwork
Following the success of the first print, a second variant was developed for the following season. Drawing on Swedish M90 camouflage and structured through the grid, the G13 camouflage carried the brand’s Military and Industrial principles forward.
02 / Final product
Unlike the first print, G13 was applied directly across women’s product rather than treated as a fabric texture. The direction was expressed in different colourways, with its scale refined product by product, again proving commercially successful.
One brand / Two product lines
Flexible by design.
Recognizable by intent.
A shared print language connected the men’s and women’s collections. Different techniques, scales, colors, fabrics, silhouettes and styling adapted the visual direction to each product while keeping the relationship recognizable. Each paired slide shows that connection.
01 / 03
Men’s application / 01The unexpected combination of a traditional warp-printing technique softened the G13’s geometric look on a classic nylon bomber jacket silhouette.
Women’s application / 01The G13 camouflage shapes were filled with lines to create a dazzle-effect variation. Dévoré (burnout) was used on the print to create a textured sheer effect.
Men’s application / 02As the motif gained traction, G-Star invested in new fabrications. Applying it to a jacquard-woven casual short created an elevated product expression.
Women’s application / 02Jacquard was also used for these women’s pants. The print was enlarged by 200%, creating a high-fashion look.
Men’s application / 03The G13 pattern was interpreted in a jacquard knit, translating it into texture across a classic men’s knit silhouette.
Women’s application / 03A knitted version of G13 was developed into a quilted sweat for women’s.
Further applications
Variations on a system
Additional print and product pairings show how the same principles were carried into more applications.
01 / Supporting application
01 / Print artwork
The wave camouflage print was based on a classic Hawaiian print. When colored in olive drab, the breaking waves create brushed camouflage motifs, bringing together the principles of Unexpected Combinations and Military.
02 / Product application
The print worked well as a classic variation of a Hawaiian print on a short-sleeve shirt and as a camouflage on cargo shorts.
02 / Supporting application
01 / Print artwork
A tyre tread pressed into sand became the starting point for this artwork. Its marks were abstracted into a directional print, translating industrial inspiration into a wearable graphic.
02 / Product application
The tyre-tread artwork was applied as an all-over shirt print, carrying the industrial marks of the original source into a refined, wearable silhouette.
Adoption and growth
Brand expression
became new business
01
Brand proposition
All-over-printed shirting introduced a new form of brand expression with clear commercial potential.
02
Commercial traction
Strong performance in European department stores validated the direction and created demand for more.
03
Category expansion
The visual language grew across patterns, product applications, and men’s and women’s collections.
04
Recurring business
Continued adoption established all-over print as a meaningful and repeatable source of business.
Brand impact
A broader visual vocabulary
The print language gave G-Star RAW a new way to be recognizable through product, connecting categories and collections through shared principles rather than a repeated logo.
Business impact
The market response proved the idea
The all-over-print direction became a significant business in the European department-store market. Internal sales feedback regularly placed the work among the top five sellers across categories, particularly in menswear, supporting its continued development across the collection.
The outcome
A recognizable print language across products.
The project extended G-Star RAW’s identity from denim-led product codes into a distinctive all-over-print language. What began as a new expression of the brand became a recognizable, scalable product category and a meaningful recurring source of business.