Proposal: Nouns Brand ◨ ◨

[Remixr]

⌐◨-◨

Imagine seeing Nouns everywhere, every day. Forever.

Following the Creature World x Advisry clothing collection and leveraging our team’s experience in web3 & fashion, we present to the Nouns DAO…

Nouns Brand ◨ ◨

What is Nouns Brand ?

Nouns Brand is a concept focused on timeless and reliable apparel that knows how to have fun, built on Nouns. People often forget that the way clothes make you feel, the textures, and the materials chosen go just as far as the design printed on top. Nouns Brand is a stripped down take on the Nouns Glasses, while maintaining its recognizable iconography, with the goal of proliferating the Nouns brand at large.

As the digital and physical worlds continue to merge, we believe Nouns Brand has the potential to create a flywheel effect which grows the Nouns brand URL and IRL. We envision a future in which Nouns Brand is the go-to brand for back-to-school, summer vacation, after-work, first dates, last call, etc. for people from all walks of life.

Proposal

Fund Nouns Brand to:

• design, manufacture, and produce artisanal garments
• open a channel of collaboration between classic brands and Nouns
• enable people to embark on their own creative journeys through design workshops and white glove services such as wholesale clothing production

Phase One: Development

Pre-Production (1-2 months)

• Design Phase - work with designers to produce unique designs, prints, and patterns
• Creation of tech-packs
• Pattern Making / Size Grading - work with top pattern makers within NYC to create intricate, functional garments.
• Muslin Fittings - use patterns to develop a muslin of the garments that could be used for fit tests on models of different sizes to ensure each measurement is perfect before production with our actual fabrics begin.
• Fabric Sourcing - work within the Garment District to find the highest quality wholesale and Deadstock fabrics to use for each individual muslin fitted garment. Develop custom fabrics owned and used by Nouns Brand.
• All of which done with artisan tailors and seamstresses trusted by the industry’s most notable fashion houses.
• Wear Tests / Styling - test out the products made in the real world, and pair with different styles with each other to figure out the best ways to style the garments together.
• A vote will be held to determine which 20 of the 35 designs will make it to the manufacturing phase. The excess funds for production will be returned to the treasury based on costs after the 20 products are finalized to be produced in bulk.

Production (2-4 months)

• Work with top factories in Italy, Japan, Portugal, China, and India
• Label & packaging design

Fulfillment Center

• International fulfillment center for shipment and inventory management
  • Free shipping worldwide for EVERY order
• Staffing for warehouse and customer service

Web Design + Brand Identity

• Custom online storefront
  • We will engage teams who have worked with Drake, A$AP Rocky, and Creature World in order to produce a unique user experience when shopping with Nouns
• Label & Packaging design

Phase One costs:

3Ξ incorporation costs

48Ξ sourcing materials, sampling, patternmaking)

17Ξ design fee

229Ξ production/manufacturing

28Ξ label & packaging for 10 styles

22Ξ brand identity

22Ξ web design and integration

38Ξ operating costs

20Ξ shipping/inventory/fulfillment

1Ξ shipping capital supplement

TOTAL

428Ξ

Phase Two: Outreach

Advertising

• Wheat-posters 3Ξ
  • Printing and posting wheat-posters around NYC, Miami, LA, Hong Kong, London using teams who handle campaigns for Supreme, Nordstrom, Ray Bans, etc.

• Billboards in key locations internationally

Marketing + PR

• Hiring of PR agency to facilitate and catapult expansion of Nouns brand, basics, lifestyle products, etc.

  • Strategy
  • Product Seeding
  • Publicity
  • Stockists (being carried in retail stores such as Uniqlo, Kith, Dover Street Market, etc.)

  Marketing materials

  • Editorials
  • Lookbook
  • Product Photos

Collaborations

Nouns Brand can be a channel for collaboration as companies seek partners in bridging the gaps of the sacred and profane: web2 and web3.

• Work with aligning companies we have relationships with to create limited collaborations with Nouns through Nouns Brand, our wish list includes:
  • Gucci - fashion
  • Carrots - streetwear
  • Adidas - fashion/footwear
  • Dr Martens - footwear
  • Crocs - footwear
  • Swatch, Casio - watches
  • Tiffany & Co - jewelry
  • Rimowa - luggage
  • Ikea - furniture

Phase Two costs

36Ξ billboards and advertising

3Ξ wheat-paste campaign

17Ξ editorials, lookbook, product photos, retouching, cast and crew

10Ξ ****hiring of PR company for 6 months

TOTAL

66Ξ

Phase Three: Expansion

This section contains our vision for what the future of Nouns Brand could be.

Fashion is gatekept, we believe art is for everyone. To encourage others to start their own creative journeys, our dream is to create a direct-to-consumer white label service for artists to make their own clothes through Nouns Brand. We will use Nouns Blanks to allow people to print designs and empower people to create, built on Nouns.

Direct-To-Consumer White Label Service

• We will wholesale our Nouns Brand blanks and develop a white label service for emerging artists to create their own clothes
• Nouns White Label Facility
• Custom color ways of Nouns blanks: Nouns Dye House
• Team of print and embroidery specialists to customize Nouns blanks, such as t-shirts, hoodies, hats, etc.
  • Blanks are made to supply the clothing industry. Blank clothing has no added decoration. Many clothing “labels” begin with a good blank, add their own logos, designs or trimmings, re-label and on-sell to retailers, or sell direct at markets, online, etc.
• DTG Print & Embroidery Machines
• White Label Fulfillment Team
• Wholesale Blank Accounts

Shop

Experiential Nouns Brand space to shop and serve as a storefront for collaboration activations. The Nouns retail space will also be home to the hidden social club, The Nounge.

• Brick-and-mortar shop
• Activation site for brand collaborations and events
• Accepts Fiat and Crypto as payment method
• Photography Studio for emerging Nouns projects

The Nounge

A membership-based Social Club for Nouns DAO members and communities of Nounish projects. We envision a speakeasy The Nounge inside the Nouns Brand brick-and-mortar store in the Soho neighborhood of New York City or other destination cities. The Nounge will serve as the premiere carrier for Nouns Coffee in NY.

• Inside existing retail space
• Staffing
• Interior Sourcing - Work with designers to create Nouns Brand furniture collection, debuting at The Nounge
  • Food and Beverage
  • Liquor license
  • Bar staff & Chef
  • Nouns Coffee

We Know Fashion

Keith Herron is the owner and creative director of Advisry.

He released over six collections of 15-30 pieces online by the time of graduating high school. After moving to New York to become a student, Herron interned with Gucci, where he found the inspiration to enter the luxury design world and produce his first runway show. He remained at Gucci until 2021, honing his knowledge on how large luxury brands operate. Advisry has shown at New York Fashion Week three times, is sold in over thirty countries, has shown films in multiple American film festivals, and has been worn by people like Tyler, the Creator, Virgil Abloh, Jayson Tatum, Lena Waithe and Steve Lacy. Keith was the lead designer for the Creature World x Advisry clothing collection, one of the most recognizable drops in web3, becoming one of the top stores on Shopify in 2022 by volume.

We Know Branding

Brenda Liang is the founder and creative director of Siren Basics underwear collection.

Brenda Liang is the founder, designer, and creative director of Siren Basics, an underwear line dubbed “the new it-girl lingerie line,” featured in V Magazine, HYPEBAE and Cultured Magazine. Brenda studied Entrepreneurship and Design Theory NYU and is expanding Siren Basics into an international lifestyle brand, soon to be carried at retailers.

We Know Web3

Jacob Tran is the co-founder of Creature World.

Before NFT’s, Jacob was a commercial director and photographer, telling stories for brands like Adidas, Burger King, SoundCloud, and having work featured in Vogue. After learning about ‘cryptoart’ in September of 2020, Jacob gradually went from collector to founder. Jacob was recently asked to speak on a panel at the NYSBA to introduce the world of NFTs and web3 to the next generation of New York lawyers.

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Why should we care about Nouns Brand?

Nouns Brand is not just a capsule collection- it’s branding built on taste, with the goal of seeding the world with Nouns you can wear, feel, and see. Nouns is a brand that can stand on its own, among the golden arches and box logos. Nouns is about empowerment, giving people the keys to their future, following creativity, being inspired, and it starts with us.

Transaction:

Send 494Ξ to Gnosis

Prepared by Jacob Tran, Brenda Liang, and Keith Herron

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Relevant Links

⌐◨-◨ Keith Herron - Advisry

Socials: Twitter - Instagram

• Founder and Creative Director of Advisry
• Head of Fashion @ Creature World
• Multi-hyphenate artist

⌐◨-◨ Brenda Liang - Siren Basics

Socials: Instagram

• Founder and Creative Director of Siren Basics
• Ops and Design

⌐◨-◨ Jacob Tran - Creature World

Socials: Twitter

• Co-Founder, Creature World
• Early Nouns supporter
• Director

Product List(as quoted)

[krel]

1. This is a cool prop
2. Wow, the eyes read as nounish without the frame…interesting!

[Remixr]

1. Thank you
2. That’s the goal ◨ ◨
   this is that moment where a Google product rebrands and half of the people want to revert the change

[krel]

the revert crowd is always wrong (exceptions when killing iconic 50y old logos for 6 months of buzz)

anyway, you’re asking for a bunch of eth but I’ve been waiting for someone to take nouns down this road and I’m super excited about the potential and positive you can pull it off

[PlutusMedia]

Love this idea. Seems to me that this group of people are the perfect mix to take the Nouns brand down this specific road.

That said, I’d love to be the outdoor advertising partner for this proposal. My agency can definitely get the most value for the given budget, across all markets (globally) & placement types.

I’d especially love to work with this group of proposers. Great work behind them.

[PlutusMedia]

Also, how will the revenue work? Does it all go into the Nouns DAO? ROI is def a factor in this situation.

[krel]

Imo, no revenue should go to Nouns DAO. Nouns “get paid” passively via proliferation.

[Remixr]

Great question and thank you @krel for your response. The revenue from the initial clothing launch will be reinvested into the brand with the goal of creating the Nounge and a white-label brand creation service for artists. We envision Nouns Brand as a beneficial addition to the DAO by proliferating Nouns through an unexposed culture, creating a flywheel for Nouns onboarding. Realistically, the DAO will benefit more from increased participation in the daily auction or building of Nounish things than from revenue split alone.

I’ll take this reply as an opportunity to break down the expenses listed in the proposal:

3Ξ incorporation costs
These are our costs for incorporating Nouns Brand in the US and engaging our lawyers.

48Ξ sourcing and materials
We will be using New York-based manufacturing facilities to produce patterns, samples, and dye fabrics through multiple rounds of quality checks & assurances that Nouns Brand only creates artisanal garments. Broken down across 20-30 items in 2+ sizes/styles each, this will fund the ideation of 80-120 SKUs.

17Ξ design fee
This fee will go to the designers for their time and work on the creation of mock-ups, tech packs, research/development, and any revisions.

229Ξ production/manufacturing
The largest cost is our quoted production run for a season of garments at wholesale.

28Ξ label & packaging for 10 styles
Fees for designers, material costs, revisions, and production on labels/packaging. Our packaging will be sustainably created, second life materials (recycled packaging).

22Ξ brand identity
Funding the time and labor required to developing Nouns Brand’s such as: the creation of tags, logo, visual identity, social media voice, creating a framework for campaigns, etc.

22Ξ web design and integration
Fees for UX/UI development and the creation of a unique Nouns shopping experience. Our web team has worked with Off-White, Drake, and Nike.

38Ξ operation costs
These fees will go to maintenance costs such as servers, shipping accounts, day-to-day expenses, and any additional business fees which may occur during the creation of Nouns Brand.

20Ξ shipping/inventory/fulfillment
This will fund the operation of a US-based fulfillment center which will hold inventory, handle customer service, and ship out all orders.

1Ξ shipping capital supplement
In an experiment to make the clothing as accessible as possible, every order will come with FREE shipping.

[goldy.mov]

I am trying to be open minded about this and generally agree with you about the tech brand updates, but imo it’s too early for this to an effective move for nouns. Updating the brand before more than 50,000 people know what it is seems counterproductive. Obviously you’re not pitching to update the brand but to fork it for a specific project, but at this stage the most productive stuff i think we can fund will proliferate our strongest and most recognisble features… whether thats our Auction + Treasury model or the Nouns glasses frames. IMO the eyes on their own are not strong enough, and it would be a wasted opportunity, especially at the level of cost of this proposal.

[Remixr]

here’s a mockup we made of a powder-coated buckle with a monochrome belt ◨ ◨

We don’t plan on removing the glasses branding, please consider reading this proposal without viewing it as a rebrand, the eyes without the glasses are a choice we made to expand the possibilities of what Nouns can be, but its not a non-negotiable(I would love to hear more thoughts on the branding of this), the purpose of this proposal is much much more than using ◨ ◨ as opposed to ⌐◨-◨

We’re here to do something that you of all people can relate to: proliferate Nouns through pop culture/media, contribute something meaningful to the existing Nouns creative ecosystem, and ultimately create a direct to consumer brand that can bootstrap people’s creative ideas, specifically in art/fashion.

I’ll also add that our proposal is a large ask because it costs a lot to execute a clothing collection of this scope. A proposal recently passed which quoted a wheat-pasting campaign at $36,000 for 200 posters in Times Square and Soho. We have 3 ETH allocated in the proposal for a multi-city wheat-pasting campaign. We’ve been quoted $1,500-3000 for the production and application of 2000+ posters in 6+ neighborhoods in New York and LA.

[noun22]

hi guys, i love the scale and ambition of this proposal and i am so thankful for you coming to us with this

however i was looking at the instagram accounts listed for the team and i do not think the content meshes with the vibe we are going for

[Remixr]

This proposal/Nouns Brand is creative directed by me, Jacob, or Remixr. My instagram isn’t listed in the proposal, so if you don’t like what you see, I’d love for the chance to prove you wrong… with love!!

The Creature World x advisry drop, which has been discussed in the Nouns discord by many Nouners was an example of what we could do with a production budget.

Every piece in the collection, except the t-shirts, is cut and sewn. I’ve mentioned this in the discord, but this is unheard of for “Merch,” even the top artists of the world like Drake, Taylor Swift, and Travis Scott print their merch on “blanks,” a term for standard cuts of a given style, hoodie/tshirt/pants/hats/etc. Even household name brands use blanks to create their hoodies and t shirts, just stamping a design on top and calling it a day. To cut and sew is to hand pick the design of every piece. We don’t want to make merch, we want to make clothes that everyone will want to wear.

If you saw something on instagram that you didn’t vibe with, I’d love to hear what it was and how you see Nouns in this space. What direction would you like to see it go in?

[noun22]

ok thanks, i was specifically concerned with the lingerie marketing

[krel]

agree re lingerie; that does not strike me as the correct nounish vibe rn

the sweaters feel very on point however

contrary to goldy, i think the “contacts” really work and they read nounish to me, especially on a brightly colored bg

i envision a gucci-like collection and in that setting i can see the contacts work better than the glasses while still providing the nounish vibe

i wouldn’t think about it as a rebrand, but as an extension and adoption into fashion

personally i would like nounsbrand to use both contacts and frames in their designs, depending on context

[goldy.mov]

Love the belt.

Thanks for your response. To be clear I don’t read this proposal as a “rebrand”, perhaps in my effort to explain my concern I wasn’t super clear.

I am of course aware its more than just ◨ ◨ vs ⌐◨-◨… but let’s recognise that your proposal literally opens with:

@Remixr

Nouns Brand is a stripped down take on the Nouns Glasses, while maintaining its recognizable iconography, with the goal of proliferating the Nouns brand at large.

I’m just trying to give you/the team an understanding that leaning into eyes without frames is currently hurting the strength of the pitch for me, as (and i think we’re all on the same page with this part) i think we should be currently funding things that maximise proliferation opportunity of the Nouns brand, but I’m concerned that having eyes only being the leading graphic (vs full frames) is working with one hand tied behind your back to this end.

My gut says this kind of branding evolution and remixing and abstraction is inevitble (and could be very sophisticated), but that strategically maybe it’s too early to invest in that direction.

Also to be clear I did not make any comments questioning the cost of the proposal for the work being done or resource being spent or quality of outcome (yet), i simply am saying it is a large outlay so I am more concerned that the strategy is correct first before digging down into execution.

I’d prefer to hear from the team about why they think ◨ ◨ could work this early, and more of a sense of where the creative and art direction will be heading, or anything else being considered to this end.

Now that you’ve shown me this belt I am more curious about how youre thinking about ◨ ◨ vs ⌐◨-◨.

Seeing some of the mockups you posted has also helped bring a bit more clarity on my above points about art direction. Seeing more of the creative would help me understand what’s on offer here.

[benjaminlatsko]

Generally speaking I appreciate the ambition to start a fashion brand from scratch.

However from a brand strategy perspective I would not advice doing so.
Nouns has it’s origin in tech and obviously wants to extend the brand into other industries as well. From experience I know that entering new industries and engaging with new communities is through partnerships and collaborations. Instead of investing all resources into style developement, sourcing, sampling, production, distrubtion, etc. I would highly recommend collaborating with established brands to enter the market first and a couple seasons later launch our own line once we have established the brand in fashion.

It’s also better to communicate.
Nouns Fashion Brand has two stories to tell:

• The Fashion Story
• The Nouns Story

A nouns x Fashion Brand collab has only one story to tell and we do not have to do the heavy lifting with entering a already oversaturated market - e.g. “this is the lacoste x nouns collab”. This is a much stronger market entry than launching our own line from the get-go. It also helps us to validate the market and authenticate in the fashion industry through the brand partnership.

Also to consider removing the frames from the glasses which is essential to the trademark is way too early. We haven’t reached a critical mass with the brand to already reduce the already minimalistic yet authentic brand creative.

From a pure brand perspective I would highly recommend to focus on partnerships first to authenticate and validate in the fashion industry before taking on the endevor in starting a fashion brand from scratch.

Similar to what heritage brands did, but the other way around:

• Budlight collaborated with nouns to authenticate with web3 communities and do a first step into "the space.
• with adidas we collaborated with BAYC, PixelVault and gmoney to authenticate and engage with the communities.

With every activation/project/proposal that’s intended to proliferate the meme in new industries there are four stages to run through - this is agnostic to nouns:

1. Authenticate
2. Engage
3. Grow
4. Amplify

With this proposal we are skipping the first two stages which are the foundation.

[yekim]

I appreciate the well thought out proposal. I have a creature sweater and love it - the quality and design is amazing.

I really like the idea, but also think the scope of it is so large and ambitious and like others have voiced, its still relatively early to fund a project of this magnitude and think in some ways - even if its done incredibly well - I think it could be a dud just based on the current timing of it.

I wonder if there is a way to reduce the proposal for the time being or have it operate based on hitting benchmarks (ie. units sold, etc.) which unlocks the next round of funding.

[Remixr]

Large and ambitious proposals are few and far between, the creation of a luxury clothing brand based on Nouns is inevitable, I know many people agree on that. When it comes to timing, the production of a clothing collection can take anywhere from 3-8 months, who knows where Nouns, the market, or the fashion industry will be at the end of the year? It’s important to me that this proposal goes on chain in time to have products ready to ship by Christmas. The change in ETH since we submitted this has made an ETH reduction less likely, although i truly believe the proliferation potential of this prop is in the top percentile for props thus far.

[vegasstacy02]