Behind The Scenes With The Endery: Building Our Brand

Just under one year ago, we launched The Endery! But the road to building our brand has involved so many talented makers beyond just Ellen and Kelly. As The Endery selected its creative partners, finding the right brand design was critical to how we wanted to share our vision. To make this vision a reality, we were thrilled to collaborate with Fernanda Medina, the co-founder and graphic designer behind Provincia. Read our Q&A below to learn more about Fernanda, her business and how she and her team developed The Endery’s unique brand style. 

The Endery: Tell us about yourself and your business.

Fernanda Medina: I’m an advertiser, designer, creative director and co-founder of the creative studio, Provincia, based in Arequipa, Peru. 

While I was studying in college at the age of 22, I started my own company with my boyfriend (now my husband). Eventually, this business grew into two different companies: LT Factory (our production house) & Provincia (the creative studio). Nowadays, my husband runs the day-to-day at LT Factory and I manage Provincia – and sometimes we collaborate on big projects together.

At Provincia, we develop brand identities, websites, advertising strategies, packaging, environmental considerations, and any other marketing piece that our client needs. 

TE: What do you bring to the table as a Latin American designer?

FM: I think Provincia’s purpose speaks for itself: we seek to decentralize the design scene, worldwide. We revalue, explore and reinterpret traditional Peruvian design and transform it into something that feels global and current.

TE: What is your favorite part of your job? And what do you find is the hardest part of being a female entrepreneur?

FM: My favorite part of my job is that I get to learn about a lot of different types of business, so it is never boring! 

However, the hardest part of being a female entrepreneur is that sometimes, there are clients that don't take you seriously, just because you are a woman – something that also happens with financial institutions and other businesses. 

TE: You developed the The Endery branding – what makes the brand different from your perspective?

FM: I think what we’ve achieved is a design that makes a difference in branding territory. While we were doing our research, we saw that most sustainable brands looked and felt the same (soft and minimal). We wanted to do something bold and punk-ish!

TE: Tell us more about the concept of a “flexible branding identity” and how you decided to use it.

FM: A flexible visual identity is a bit more elegant. While a static logo has proved insufficient in modern visual communication, flexible branding can formulate different messages and adapt to different situations. In contrast, a simple logo just does not adapt that easily to different formats.

TE: Why did you choose a bold color palette for The Endery?

FM: It was a way to differentiate from other brands. Also, because the project and the products dictated it by themselves! As The Endery uses leftover yarn, there is always a wide range of different colors.

TE: How did you communicate sustainability through the visuals?

FM: Through our visual language, the most important graphic resources are the shapes we have created. These shapes can be rotated, stretched, mixed or cut. They are part of the flexible identity – they are endless and you can use them in countless ways, or even create new ones. They’re representative of the leftover yarn used in The Endery’s products.

TE: How important is it to you to support other female creatives in business?

FM: Very. It’s impossible not to think about it all the time. History has put us at a disadvantage, so it is our responsibility to make a change and do what we can to find gender equality.

TE: What are you working on at the moment?

FM: A lot! We are working on a new baby clothing brand, a disruptive tourism agency (focused on local communities), one of the biggest pizza franchises in our city, a health food company from Argentina, an NGO founded by bikers (that brings aid to remote communities in Peru), and overall marketing and strategy for one of the biggest alpaca companies in Peru (founded by women!)

TE: What would you like to see The Endery work on in the future?

FM: Continuing to collaborate with cool artists and brands, new lines of accessories, and of course – to be featured in Vogue!

Here is Fernanda at home in the Vertical Stripe sweater from Alpaca Series I. Shop the sweater here.